Featured Snippets: How to Capture Position 0 in Search Results

Featured Snippets have been the new trend in organic search results since last year. However, many website owners still do not understand this term.

In our article, we want to define what is behind the term Featured Snippet, what different presentation forms exist, what position 0 is good for, and how the content on your website should be prepared to be displayed as a Featured Snippet in search results.

What is a Featured Snippet?

Keyword-based search results on Google Search are familiar to most. It is also known how a page should ideally be optimized to be ranked or placed as high as possible in the search results. Usually, the first position is targeted.

Things are a bit different when the user enters a complete question into the search box. Google now aims to present the user with an immediate answer rather than just a selection of possible pages that might provide an answer. The answer to the searched question is now displayed in a special block, the Featured Snippet, above the regular page search results. Since the regular search results are not displaced, the position of the Featured Snippet is also called position 0.

The answer block shows an extracted summary of a webpage that succinctly answers the searched question. Additionally, the link to the respective webpage and the title of the page are displayed in the box.

By the end of 2017, Featured Snippets appeared in about 4% of all Google searches. Sistrix delved deeper into the subject and found that from mid-2017, delivered Featured Snippets increased by 64%. STATs, on the other hand, focused mainly on the delivery rate concerning the presentation forms. As a result, 60% of response boxes are displayed in pure text format, 29% of Featured Snippets are in list form, and 11% are presented as tables. The Featured Snippet is a summary or excerpt of a webpage that is automatically and directly selected by Google and displayed whenever the user asks a question in the search field.

Featured Snippets: What presentation forms exist?

Currently, there are basically 5 different presentation forms of a Featured Snippet to distinguish. These presentation possibilities include:

• Featured Snippets as a pure text snippet

• Featured Snippets with text and image

• Featured Snippets as instructions or lists

• Featured Snippets as tables

• Featured Snippets as videos

Featured Snippet with Text

The pure text snippet, as the name suggests, contains only text. The user has the opportunity to have their question answered briefly and concisely in a few sentences. For more information, the user can follow the link and read the full text of the highlighted page. This example was already shown in our screenshot at the beginning.

Fig.2 Featured Snippet as Text

Featured Snippet with Text and Image

If thematically appropriate, Google displays not only the highlighted answer but also a matching image. This happens even if the highlighted result does not use an image on the page itself.

Fig.3 Featured Snippets with Text and Image

Featured Snippet as Instructions

For numerous "How" questions, it makes sense to display within the box as a list or instructions. The user receives their answer directly as a step-by-step guide. In this case, the answer on the page itself does not necessarily have to be in list form. Google can independently create the list from the text. The list results in a Featured Snippet can also contain images.

Fig.4 Featured Snippet for Instructions

Featured Snippet as a Table

Another specific form of presentation for position is a table. Many questions, especially those answered with data or referring to comparative data, are output as tables in the Featured Snippet.

Fig.5 Featured Snippet as Table

Featured Snippet as Video

Some questions cannot be easily answered in text form, regardless of the presentation. In this case, Google falls back on displaying a video in the highlighted box. Typically, YouTube videos are displayed here.

Fig.6 Featured Snippet with Video

What is the Advantage of Featured Snippets?

The advantage of Featured Snippets is that your page is displayed at the sought-after position 0, even before all other search results. Additionally, the user quickly and easily gets an answer to their question. The results from position 0 and position 1 are not identical.

This means your page doesn't necessarily have to have a rank 1 position to appear in the Google answer box. Thus, you have the opportunity to move your page to the top of the search results, even if the rankings of your page are not typically found on page 1.

Position 0 generally helps your site achieve a noticeable increase in traffic and click rates. However, the Featured Snippet can also lead to fewer people clicking on your webpage's link, as the desired question has already been answered by the box. According to a study by ahrefs, this can be as much as 18.5%.

How Can You Optimize Your Page for a Featured Snippet?

The question of how a Featured Snippet can be created is not that easy to answer. Unlike a rich snippet, the answer box cannot simply be annotated with structured data in the source code. Google decides based on the quality of the content on the page itself, which page gets a Featured Snippet and which does not.

In general, it is helpful to get an overview of which search queries already use answer boxes from Google. Taking over an existing and perhaps not optimal result with your own page is significantly easier than getting a Featured Snippet for a question that doesn't already have an answer box.

Additionally, it is helpful if your page is already among the top 10 for a search query. If these two factors are present, the next step is to optimize the content as best as possible to be considered for a Featured Snippet. To be considered for a Featured Snippet, you should mostly use the exact keyword in a heading or in the text. Even the smallest deviations in keyword spelling can have negative effects here. Also helpful are trigger words in the text. The exact choice of words plays a major role in making it into the answer box. For definition snippets, for example, simple sentence structure is essential. To appear in an instruction snippet, it is useful to use trigger words and follow-up words. Use descriptive or introductory phrases in combination with words like: "Use", "Find", "Make", etc. To appear in a list snippet, it's recommended to use appropriate HTML formatting for lists and tables within the text. Optimizing the On-page SEO factors is therefore not only important for a good ranking in search results in general but especially for a Featured Snippet.

Disabling the Featured Snippet Option

Ranking with your own page on position 0 offers many advantages but can also lead to a drop in click-through rates. Anyone who is generally very present and well positioned in the search results and wants to avoid these traffic losses through a Featured Snippet can block this feature in the source code. A brief statement in the page header is sufficient:

<meta name="googlebot" content="nosnippet">

Once this information is in your page's source code, it will no longer be considered for a Featured Snippet.

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