How Google defines Featured Snippets:

When a user types a question in a Google search, we can show the search results in a special block of snippets at the top of the search results page. This block of snippets contains a summary of the answer, drawn from the web page, plus a link to the page, page title, and URL. The snippet displayed will look something like this:

 

Why Optimize for a Featured Snippet?

When time is limited and we’re trying to achieve results as soon as we can, why would we spend time optimizing for Featured Snippets at all?

You don’t need to be in the first place to get to position zero

As I mentioned above, Featured Snippets allow you to cheat. You can be first in the search results even if you haven’t put in the time and effort to be there. Research from Ahrefs shows that 50% of the results in positions 2-5 show up in Featured Snippets.

 

 

The number of Featured Snippets is constantly increasing

Google clearly states that every site that steals content from other sites will be subject to penalties. These rules don’t apply to Google, of course. 🙂 Google has been increasing the number of snippets so people would be more satisfied with their search results. What we can do is take that position. The next picture shows how many there are:

 

Featured Snippets show big keywords

Now that we know which positions are shown and the number of keywords, the next question is “what kind of keywords are they?” Google is smart and will make sure the Featured Snippets show some of the biggest keywords. Here’s the easiest way to break it down:

Large keyword volume > Large number of visits > Large turnover > $

Types of Featured Snippets

Now that we’ve gotten the point of optimizing for Featured Snippets, it’s time to talk about how and for which keywords we can do it for. But first, we have to make one thing very clear.

There are three basic types of Featured Snippets:
• Paragraphs• Lists• Tables

Each of these three types has its purpose and the specific way you need to optimize for it. You need to keep in mind that Google doesn’t distribute each type evenly. They’re separated by how they’re represented in a search. Why is that so? A simple answer is that each of these snippets answers a certain type of search. We can split these up into three basic groups: questions, suggestions, and comparisons. A split into those three categories would look something like this: 

How to Optimize for Featured Snippets

Armed with all this knowledge, we can finally get started on what we’ve all been waiting for: optimization.

Is there a 100% safe way to get Featured Snippets through SEO? No.

Does that mean we shouldn’t even try? If you think it’s not worth it, then you might want to read through the article again from the top!

Are there techniques with which we can considerably increase our chances to get Featured Snippets? Yes, there are, and that’s exactly what I’m about to tell you about. So chill.

Optimization for Feature Snippets is made up of three basic components:

• Finding the right keywords
• Providing the right information through content
• Structuring the given information in the best and most “readable” way

Finding the Right Keywords

When we covered the types of Featured Snippets, we mentioned that certain types of searches (keywords) reveal specific snippets. You’ve got both an easy and a difficult way of finding the right keywords to optimize for:

•  The difficult way is made up of researching long-tail keywords using a free tool called Answer The Public.
Type your example keyword into the tool and it’ll give you a list of all possible questions, suggestions, and comparisons it can find.
Then type those keywords into Keyword Planner or any similar tool to find the most relevant keywords with the highest number of searches on them.
After that, use Google so you can see if it shows snippets for those.
I got tired just explaining this method to you. That’s why I call it the difficult way.

•  The easier way is, of course, to cheat! With the help of tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush, you can see which keywords your competition has got Featured Snippets for and then do your best to steal that zero position out from under them.

How?

Enter your competition’s site into one of these tools, choose the option “Featured Snippet” and voila! You’ve got the list of keywords and pages that are ranking for position zero 

How to optimize and structure Content for Featured Snippets?

The next step for Featured Snippets is to provide the appropriate content for each form. What does this mean?

Each type of snippet has its defined structure and specific appearance. And each of these snippets come from certain written and HTML structures.

Let’s get back to our snippet types an take a look at how to optimize each one:

Optimizing Content for Paragraph Snippets

What kind of content should we create for Paragraph Snippets?

Google Paragraph Snippets generally take their content from the first paragraph of text. It will most commonly aim to derive a summarized and clear answer to the question posed by the user. The best way to write articles that will get into paragraph snippets is to follow the journalists’ upside-down pyramid:

 

What this looks like converted to HTML:

•  The H1 tag is a question to which you provide an answer (the top of the upside-down pyramid – who? What? When?)
•  The first paragraph (< p >) in the text is a concise and precise answer to the question
•  The paragraph (<p>) should be between 40 and 60 words long
•  All additional information which goes in-depth into the answer to the question should be placed underneath the first paragraph and divided by H2 tags
•  The more content you have, the greater the chances of getting a Featured Snippet

Optimizing Content for List Snippets

From the name itself, we can tell that List Snippets are made up of lists. Google takes a list of elements from page content and displays it to the user along with certain additional information. List snippets are most often shown for suggestions or implicit questions. Keywords including “top, best, etc.” will most often get these types of Featured Snippets.

How to organize content so we can get List Snippets:

•  Depending on the type of list snippet, use < ul> or < ol> HTML markups
•  The H tag structure can also result in List Snippets
•  Even though Google displays 5 points from the list, it’s better to have more points than that so you can get lure the user into clicking on the search result so they can see the rest of the points

Optimizing Content for Table Snippets

Tables are one of the rarest displayed snippets in Google searches, but my experience has shown me that they’re also one of the easiest to optimize for.

Table Snippets are shown when comparisons are in question when Google considers it insufficient to show the user who or what is the very best in some category so they reveal additional information and the answer to why it’s the best. Keywords like “best SEO companies” and “best no deposit bonuses” will show Table Snippet’s results.

How do we prepare content for Table Snippets?

•  It’s important to understand the structure of the < table> HTML markup
•  Strategically place keywords in certain HTML (<caption>, <th>) markups
•  Horizontal tables increase your chances of getting a Featured Snippet
•  Use https://research.google.com/tables to check if your table has been indexed

 

Conclusion

The only thing left to do is go and give it a shot. One of the most wonderful things in SEO is the constant freedom to experiment. Every site breathes differently and each site will behave differently, but if I could show you the formula for success in the simplest way it would look like this:

•  Did the experiment work? > No > Then modify and try again
•  Did the experiment work? > Yes > Then replicate the results to exhaustion

I’ll leave you with a couple of words from an English author, William Blake:

“The true method of knowledge is an experiment.”