Google recently released a comprehensive blog reintroducing featured snippets. Snippets have been around for a while and their capabilities continue to grow in the world of search.
So what are featured snippets and what makes them so important?
In short, featured snippets are the descriptive boxes that appear at the top of some search results pages. These rich search results appear above organic results and attempt to answer people’s questions. They often appear for how, why, what, and where search queries.
Growth in Mobile and Voice
The days of standard blue links with page descriptions on search results pages are over. This format doesn’t provide an experience optimized for mobile or voice search. This is where snippets come in.
They provide mobile users with contextual answers to their questions faster than ever before. Google has stated they also serve many of the responses given by digital voice assistants.
With the continued growth in these two markets, featured snippets serve as a modern outlet for your brand to establish authority on topics.
Establish Authority for Your Brand
People click on featured snippets to learn more. As previously mentioned, they typically appear for searches containing a question. Google makes sure to provide the source of all snippets, going so far as to recite them aloud in voice responses.
Ranking in the snippets provides an opportunity for your brand to be known as a thought leader in that space. This can be a significant driver of traffic when consumers are in the research phase of their journey.
Featured Snippets Steal Clicks from Organic Results
A 2017 study by Ahrefs analyzed over two million featured snippets. Their findings identified that snippets don’t always lead to more clicks on your result. However, it was revealed they have a negative impact on clicks to the organic search results below.
Without a featured snippet, the first result had a click-through rate of 26 percent. With it, top organic results had a 19.6 percent click-through rate. The featured snippet itself was clicked 8.6 percent of the time. Here is the Ahrefs chart:
In Summary
Ranking in the snippets isn’t easy but should be a key part of any organic strategy moving forward. As featured snippets appear on more searches, it means fewer clicks on the organic results below. It is important to continue to produce high-quality content that is prepared to rank for snippets using proper schema markup. If all of this sounds too confusing and troublesome, reach out to us at Commit Agency and we’ll get you on the right track.
Commit Agency is a full-service advertising agency located in the Phoenix, Ariz., metro area that believes thoughtfully designed consumer interactions informed by a well-defined brand create moments worth remembering and sharing.
