Google Featured Snippets Have Found Your Content

Zero-click searches are here to stay, thanks to the rise of voice search and the shortening of people’s attention spans. Here’s how we’re assisting healthcare marketers in adapting to this reality using Google highlighted snippets as part of a successful content marketing and SEO plan.

As consumer search patterns and Google algorithms change, it becomes more difficult for marketers to articulate the value of content marketing campaigns. Traditional engagement metrics such as total sessions, time on site, and conversions are simple to calculate, but they don’t provide a whole picture.

Smart marketers are figuring out how to optimise content for this new reality, which frequently starts with Google featured snippets. With over half of searches now resulting in zero clicks—especially on mobile devices—smart marketers are figuring out how to optimise content for this new reality.

What is a Google featured snippet?

Let’s take a step back for a moment. What is a zero-click search, and how does it work? Google displays a snippet above the top organic result or ad for many queries. Snippets don’t have to be the most important result, but they should always be on the first page of organic results. While the snippet may not always provide the most thorough response to a search, it will clearly and simply answer a query in a short paragraph or list. This reduces the need for the customer to go further into the material in order to find the solution. Google snippets are usually derived from a meta description or the opening paragraph of an article’s text.

Why marketers need to care about Google snippets

It’s difficult to explain answering your customer’s query in the first few of words of your content as a marketer. It may appear as though you’re encouraging the customer to leave once they’ve found the solution to their inquiry. This may theoretically have a detrimental influence on your website’s engagement numbers.

Voice searches, on the other hand, serve up the highlighted snippet instead of the initial organic search result in 71% of cases. This is especially true if the sample is text rather than a list or table. By optimising your content for Google snippets, you increase the likelihood of your brand being served up by personal assistants. It allows you to establish your brand as a reliable resource even if you aren’t the first organic result on mobile or desktop searches.

How to get a featured snippet on Google

To begin with, not every keyword or phrase should be targeted for a highlighted snippet. Concentrate your efforts on simple-to-answer questions. Snippets are most commonly found for long-tail keywords and queries in human language (conversational not jargon). Consider questions such “how, why, what, when, who,” and others.

Our friends at Binary Fountain, for example, currently hold the snippet for the search query “how many searches result in zero clicks,” which includes a brief and succinct response as well as an image of a list-format featured snippet.

Here are a few tips for writing to create Google featured snippets once you’ve established that an article or website page will drive traffic for long-tail keywords and human-speak questions:

1. Create high-quality, well-researched and information-rich content.While the initial few lines or meta description should be a brief and succinct response to a query, the rest of the page should contain complete content that is of sufficient quality to rank on the first page of search results. Keep in mind that long-form content is increasingly favoured by Google, especially for long-tail keywords with high keyword difficulty.
2. Structure your content effectively. Use strong title tags and headers that enable Google to index your content, and break content up for readability.
3. Use relevant images. Include well-written alt-text that describes the photo, illustration or other imagery when appropriate.
4. Be factual and concise. The way you answer the core question in order to generate a snippet is of critical importance, and it bears repeating.

Measuring Google snippets

The worth of your content marketing techniques and how to convey the success you’re creating are both affected by writing to produce snippets. We propose three ways to assess the success of writing for snippets, however they are rather manual:

1. Identify and document those keywords for which you’ll strive to produce Google snippets, as well as the monthly search volume for those keywords, when conducting SEO research to develop content.
2. Make a list of all the articles and pages you’ve published that were written with the goal of creating a snippet, as well as the keyword or phrase you were aiming for.
3. To test if your material is showing up in Google, manually search for the queries you used to produce snippets. Assume you have 5 total pages with snippets created for keywords with a monthly search traffic of 100,000. It’s reasonable to assume that each of those 100,000 queries was exposed to your brand but didn’t show up in your online engagement analytics. In this scenario, zero clicks does not equal zero views; rather, 100,000 views equals zero clicks.

Takeaways

With the increase of zero-click searches and the ongoing expansion of voice search, it’ll be vital to keep Google featured snippets in mind as you design and execute content marketing strategies. When selecting to write for snippets, keep in mind human-spoken inquiries and long-tail keywords.

Consider how users look for mammograms. 

For example. When a user types in “What age do I need to start mammograms,” they’re looking for a simple response and might be searching with their voice. Consider submitting a sample with this sort of inquiry, such as the one provided by the American Cancer Society. You could also use paid advertisements to target that keyword in order to increase conversions, but giving them a fast answer in the form of a snippet can help develop brand recognition and trust.

Search: What age do I need to start mammograms?

Result: Snippet from cancer.org / the American Cancer Society

A search for “mammogram near me” would, on the other hand, provide organic results and sponsored advertisements leading directly to a conversion point, as that is not a subject that can be addressed succinctly through a snippet.

Search: mammogram near me

Results: Ads, Google Maps results, and organic material, the latter of which may vary depending on your location.

To take advantage of the zero-click search trend, make sure your content and SEO partners are assisting you in writing for Google highlighted snippets and voice search.