Google Featured Snippets & Naturalists
Recently a post I had written about a hidden naturalist beach started to get a lot of hits. Why the sudden interest, East Sussex nudists on the rise maybe?
I soon realised that the post for my Walking Post website had been picked up by Google as a Featured Snippet, and this had boosted its views considerably. Obviously I was very pleased and worked out that I had created some unique copy that answered the query “Find Fairlight Glen beach” and Google decided this was the best result to this query. This has greatly boosted our website views and general online presence.
But what are the key points to harness this process and get Google to create more Featured Snippets..
What are Featured Snippets and what do they do
When you put a certain query into Google – in my case “Find Fairlight Glen beach” a section of your page appears at the top of above all other content with an image and link, and is arguably the number 1 way of getting your website seen. It has certainly worked for my website. This is the top performing page and has also boosted my overall Google ranking.
According to a study by Hubspot:
Searchers who find satisfactory answers to their queries from your snippet are more likely to visit your site before any other search engine enquiry and to engage with your content.
How do I create content for Featured Snippets?
Well the simple answer is to provide new content to be the best answer to a query. So in this case my blog content is considered by Google the best answer to “find Fairlight Glen beach”
There are several things you can do to make this more likely to happen
1. Use questions in your content
If your content’s heading and subheadings are questions that people ask often or your answer is unique, then you stand a good chance of getting picked by Google as its featured snippet.
You can use Google to help find good questions. Just start typing in a question on Google and observe the autofill feature, which will help you find common questions people ask on your subject matter.
2. Answer the question!
This is key, pose a question and provide a clear answer, the idea being to provide the best content that is actually useful to people and so will be picked up by Google. Don’t just add content for the sake of it – it probably won’t work!
3. Break your content into small, readable chunks
There are four types of Featured Snippets: Tables, lists, paragraphs, and answer boxes.
Make sure your content is in small and succinct paragraphs, break it up with readable bullet points and tables.
4. Use Schema Markup
Schema markup, also known as structured data, is a language search engines use to read and understand the content on your pages. Google can search your pages without it but it’s an effective way of helping search engines understand your website. If Google understands your content, then you’ve got a better chance of getting featured. That said the bolg pots above had no scheme mark up and got picked up.
This is a much more technical aspect of Web development. More here
Checklist
✓ Check popular questions on Google
✓ Pose a question and answer it effectively
✓ Write good original content
✓ Divide into readable chunks, using paragraphs, tables & points
✓ Consider using Schema markup