Optimizing Your Content to Become the “Featured Snippet” in Google Search Results
By: Casey Botticello
Tags: Google, Search, Search Engine Marketing, Digital Marketing, SEO

3.5 billion Google searches are made every day. Every year, somewhere between 16% and 20% of Google searches are new — they’ve never been searched before. The average Google search session lasts just under a minute.

It is essential for internet marketers, entrepreneurs, and small businesses to dominate the first page of Google search results for their relevant key word search. Ideally, you will rank as close to the top of the first page as possible. And increasingly, to achieve this number one spot, you need to understand rich snippets.

Rich Snippets

In the early days of Google’s algorithm, a typical SERP displayed results that included a title, a URL link, and a brief description.

Things, you may have noticed, have changed a lot. Now, we see paid ads, “People also ask” questions, and see plenty of rich results. These rich snippets, rich cards, and enhanced snippets are a growing segment of search results across the board.

Featured snippets — the direct answer appearing at the top of the results — are a bit different. Google creates them by directly accessing content on the page. But that doesn’t make them any less valuable. One study found a 516% increase in sessions, the CTR quadrupled from 2% to 8%, and organic visitor revenue went up by 677% after getting a consistent featured snippet.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to make your website/product the featured snippet. With companies spending thousands of dollars per month the dominate a particular key word or key phrase search, it can seem impossible to compete as an individual or small business. However, with some effort, planning, and a little bit of luck, an individual can dominate the search results for a popular key word search, in Google.

I have listed below an example that worked for me that will hopefully help you optimize your digital content and claim the rich featured snippet. While I cannot guarantee success for specific search, it is definitely possible to become the featured snippet without being an SEO professional.

Example: Winning the “Featured Snippet”

The first article I wrote on Medium was How to Form a Super PAC (Political Action Committee).

This article is a good example because:

it’s a niche I understand well through personal experience; a “Super PAC” is a valuable/difficult key word to “own” any of the associated phrases; and it organically became the featured snippet (I did not publish this article with that goal in mind).

In hindsight, there are many things I could have done to improve this article if my sole goal was to become the featured snippet for this topic. Nonetheless, this article was a major success for my keyword phrase/search questions:

“how do I/you form a super pac”

“how to start a super pac”?

“how to form a super pac”

Let’s take the example: “how to form a super pac”

Below is a screenshot of the search results for “how to form a super pac.” This is a good search term to own because it is an introductory and illustrative search terms that is conducive to organized steps or process. In my experience, Google’s search algorithm loves clearly delineated steps or processes.