How to Rank for Featured Snippets

In January 2014, Google introduced featured snippets, a descriptive box at the top of search results. There was a lot of skepticism initially surrounding the value of featured snippets for websites and whether or not they would increase traffic.

However, as Google continues to introduce search results features, multiple studies have shown that featured snippets can provide an enormous amount of value for a website’s organic visibility.

In May 2024, Google announced that AI Overview was going to be added to search results, which had a large impact on how featured snippets appear.

In this post, we will discuss what featured snippets are and how to optimize for them and the AI Overview tool, as well as break down our tactics to help your organic visibility in position zero.

What Is A Featured Snippet?

Featured snippets take up a large amount of real estate above the first organic search result (commonly referred to as “position zero”) and prominently feature a link to the source. The content in these snippets can be anything from a bulleted list of items to a short paragraph with information that Google feels best answers the query.

Featured snippets can also appear in a People Also Ask format, which is a list of questions that will continue to populate more personalized questions as the user opens them:

For example, if you click on “How common is it to get diabetes?”, more questions that are related to it will populate at the bottom.

Types of Featured Snippets

There are several types of featured snippets, including but not limited to:

• Paragraph

• List

• Table

• Video

• Carousel

• Bullet list

• Step-by-step list

However, Google constantly introduces new ways to present information in search results so featured snippets are always changing.

What is AI Overview?

Google introduced AI Overview in May 2024, which changed how featured snippets appear in search results. The tool provides users with a quick overview of a topic and links to learn more.

Google advertised AI Overviews as an AI model that can answer increasingly complex questions, so having this featured snippet type at the top of the page for users can help them narrow their search.

When Do Featured Snippets Appear?

Google stated that they display featured snippets when their systems determine it will help people more easily discover what they are searching for.

Obtaining a featured snippet for a high-volume keyword builds brand awareness and authority before the user even reaches the first organic result. On top of that, the content displayed in the snippet directly answers the user's query, helping your site and brand resonate with that user.

Why are Featured Snippets Important?

Users can find information quickly.

If you think about how you dive into a search result, you realize that your attention span is very short, and if you don’t find the answer you’re looking for in the first few links, you’ll likely move on to something else.

Users can browse quickly on mobile devices.

If you're on your phone and you search for something that generates a featured snippet and it answers your question, think about how much time that saves you as a user to be able to quickly get that information! You have no reason to scroll any further to see any of the other results. Instead, you're actually more inclined to click through on the link from the snippet or come back later on when you're at a computer, to get more information because that website has already built trust with you as a reputable source.

It takes far more time to get to the bottom of a page on a phone than on a desktop. This makes it more likely that users on a phone will move on from the search if you're at the bottom half of the search results compared to users on a desktop who initially see way more of the SERP and could be more inclined to keep scrolling.

Improved website visibility leads to increased clickthrough rate.

If your site appears in position zero, that means it is appearing right at the top of search results and hopefully answers the user’s question.

AI Overview provides relevant information for users’ complex queries, so if your page is part of the generated answer, the goal is to get users to click on it.

How to Rank for a Featured Snippet

Featured snippets are chosen from web search listings, so if your page appears on Google, it is eligible to appear for a featured snippet.

Not every query will generate a featured snippet. They are usually generated for queries containing “how to”, “why”, and longer, question-based keywords. Generic and simple keyword-based queries will rarely result in featured snippets.

The biggest part of earning a featured snippet is writing high-quality content that clearly answers the searcher’s query and becomes eligible for the snippet. To achieve this, we recommend examining existing content that displays the target featured snippet.

Take note of what the content covers, where it is thorough, and where it could have provided more information. Check to see if the content has earned any valuable links. When you start writing your new content, make sure you are writing high-quality, unique content.

Content Strategy for Featured Snippets

When building out content marketing strategies, featured snippets should be a part of your plan. While you can never guarantee a snippet (or anything else in SEO), you can find opportunities in which a featured snippet isn’t properly answering a question and focus content around that topic, or look for queries and long-tail keywords that don’t yet have a featured snippet but are likely eligible for one. Google is just waiting for someone to provide the worthy content.

Use these snippets to expand your organic reach, build your brand, and provide users with content that is helpful to them and you'll see just how big of a positive impact featured snippets can have for you.

This blog post was originally published on January 4, 2016, and was updated and republished on May 28, 2024.