PRO Tips: The 9 rules of optimization
The goal of this post is to provide you with a set of rules to reference when you find featured snippet opportunities. Think of this as a checklist to run through when you’re brainstorming how to optimize for featured snippets in your keyword set.
What is a featured snippet?
A featured snippet is a two to three sentence summary of text that appears at the top of Google. Featured snippets provide an answer for a user’s query directly in the search results. Receiving a featured snippet can result in more traffic for a given page.
The steps to receiving a featured snippet are as followed:
- Add a “What Is” heading
- Use an “is” sentence structure
- Fully define the topic
- Match the featured snippet format
- Don’t use your brand name
- Don’t use first person language
- Scale featured snippets
- Prioritize when you rank in the top five
- Iterate your optimizations
The featured snippet appears to work on a more simplistic algorithm than Google’s “primary” one. The featured snippet is much more influenced by simple on-page adjustments that very clearly define the topic to users.
Featured snippets and voice search
As well, keep in mind that one of the goals of the featured snippet is to fuel voice search. Google reads back featured snippets when users perform voice queries on mobile or Google Home devices. This means that featured snippets must always make sense in this context. When optimizing for featured snippets it makes sense to ask yourself “How would my answer sound if read back on voice search?”
The types of featured snippets
When optimizing for featured snippets, you might notice that there are several different types. It’s important to be aware of these different types so you understand how to structure your content to optimize for them.
How to optimize for the featured snippet
You can learn more about each rule below:
Rule #1: Add a “What Is” heading
Ideally, you’ll add this heading as close to the top of your content as possible. If writing a blog post, I’ll generally add it right below the introductory paragraph. This is often a great place to add it that flows well with the content while allowing you to include it near the top of the page.
Rule #2: Use the “is” sentence structure
“Agile methodology is a type of project management process, mainly used for software development…”
“Customer relationship management (CRMB software is software that automates and manages the customer life cycle of an organization.”
“Return on Investment (ROI) is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments.”
When analyzing pages that are receiving featured snippets, we consistently see that “is” statements are utilized within the text. In our experience, structuring content this way appears to act as a “triggering phrase” that allows Google to easily find the text that’s relevant for the featured snippet.
When optimizing your pages for the featured snippet, try to ensure that your first sentence follows this format. By using an “is” statement, you should see a higher percentage of your optimizations result in winning the featured snippet.
Rule #3: Fully define the topic in 2-3 sentences
Feature snippets are meant to give users as much information about the topic as possible in a short amount of time. This means that the content your optimizing must try to describe the topic as completely as possible in two to three sentences. For this rule, being concise is extremely important.
Here are some general guidelines we try to follow when trying to concisely define featured snippets
- The first sentence should define the topic
- The second and third sentences should describe 2-3 must-know facts about the topic
- Try to avoid using any extraneous phrasing in your definition
Rule #4: Match the featured snippet format
- Paragraph (most common)
- Bulleted & Numbered List
- Table (least common)
Rule #5: Never use your brand name in featured snippet text
Brand names are one example of such language.
Remember that featured snippets are used to fuel voice search. Devices such as Google Home will read what’s in the featured snippet directly back to users. This means that what’s in the featured snippet needs to make complete sense in this context.
Rule #6: Don’t use first person language
“Our avocados have many health benefits. We have avocados that are a great source of riboflavin, vitamins C and potassium.”
Once again, imagine if this sentence was read from voice search. The user might be left confused and wondering:
- Who is the “we” that is being referenced?
- Does this information only apply to their product?
Rule #7: Scale featured snippets when possible
Rule #8: Prioritize opportunities where you rank in the top 5
Rule #9: Iterate your optimizations
When Google finally indexes your new changes, you find that your page still isn’t generating the featured snippet.
This is not the time to stop optimizing. Instead, iterate your approach and try again. For many of the featured snippets we get, it can take multiple iterations.
In this phase, I’ve found that using the above process generally gets you 80% of the way there. If your result still isn’t receiving a featured snippet, I’ve found that very minor adjustments tend to work well. I’ll generally look for opportunities to better define the topic, use even more concise phrasing or test highlighting different facts (see rule 3). Start with minor adjustments and work your way to more major ones if you’re still not seeing the results you want.
Oftentimes, you’ll find that the featured snippet can be obtained after a few rounds of interaction to really perfect the language.
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