Featured Snippets How to Get Position Zero

Brady AmersonImplementation Team Lead

Mike MarshSEO Manager

Who Are We?

We hope to answer these questions regarding Featured Snippets and Structured Data:

● What are they?● What do they do?● Why do they matter?● How can I implement this knowledge?

What is Position Zero?

Position Zero is a feature that Google has implemented to show information directly in the search results. It is often provided in the form of a Featured Snippet.

“Featured Snippets are a format which is supposed to provide users with a concise direct answer to their questions - right there on the search results page, without the users having to click through to a specific result.”

- SISTRIX

What are Featured Snippets?

What Are Rich Results?

Rich ResultsA result that includes styling, images, and other features. Examples of content types with rich results include book (shown), recipe, and product. Examples of features include breadcrumb and review snippet (shown).

Featured SnippetGoogle’s search results sometimes show listings where the snippet describing a page comes before a link to a page, not after as with our standard format. Results displayed this way are called "featured snippets."

Some of the most common formats are paragraph, list and video.

CarouselRich results that display in a sequential list or gallery. Most often, the carousel features articles from a single site (known as a host carousel). The carousel can also feature a variety of publishers, like Top stories [or videos].

This feature works best when used in combination with one of the following features: Article, Recipe, Course, Restaurant, Movie.

ArticleNews, sports, or blog article displayed with Top Stories carousel and rich result features, such as headline text and larger-than-thumbnail images.

Local Business ListingBusiness details displayed in the Google Knowledge Graph, including open hours, ratings, and directions.

If I have GMB do I need to use localBusiness Schema?

Yes, Google Search Results and Google Maps - work off separate algorithms - so the more information you can provide to both is in your best interest. - Google

QA

Context - How do I get a Rich Result?

● How did Rich Results come to be?

● What do web crawlers actually understand from our websites?

● Why does HTML alone not hold up in a modern search environment?

● Home | HTML | CSS | Website structure

Why do we need a semantic web?Q

Structured Data

Data that has been organized into a formatted repository (typically a database) so that its elements can be made addressable for more effective processing and analysis.

Structured Data

Web: 1.0Read Only

Unstructured Data

Client

Client

Client

Client

Client

Static HTML

Document

Web: 2.0Read and Write

Client

Client

Client

Client

Client

HTMLCSS

JavaScript

Apache/IISPHP/MySQLAJAX

Disambiguate Keywords such as “Boston”

Which City of Boston?

The Band?

The Team?

Google’s Problem

<section>

<h1>Contact Us</h1>

<h2>Boostability</h2>

<h3>Call Us:</h3>

<p><a href="tel:+18002611537">(800) 261-1537</a></p>

<h3>Our Email:</h3>

<p><a href="mailto:contact@boostability.com">contact@boostability.com</a></p>

<h3>Our Location</h3>

<p>2600 West Executive Park Way<br>

Suite 200<br>

Lehi, UT 84043

</p>

</section>

Basic HTML Example

Schema.org

Schema.org Schema.org is a collection of vocabularies that webmasters can use to support the markup of structured data in HTML documents. It uses the Entity-Attribute-Model.

Item Type

Defines what the entity is by referencing the URI for the entity type in schema.org such as: http://schema.org/movie

Item Property

Provides additional details to the entity such the name, the director, the release date of the movie.

Item Scope

Specifies the the HTML element is about a particular item, an entity.

<section itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">

<h1>Contact Us</h1>

<h2 itemprop="name">Boostability</h2>

<h3>Call Us:</h3>

<p itemprop="telephone"><a href="tel:+18002611537">(800) 261-1537</a></p>

<h3>Our Email:</h3>

<p itemprop="email"><a href="mailto:contact@boostability.com">contact@boostability.com</a></p>

<div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">

<h3>Our Location</h3>

<p><span itemprop="streetAddress">2600 West Executive Park Way<br>Suite 200<br></span>

<span itemprop="addressLocality">Lehi</span>, <span itemprop="addressRegion">UT</span>

<span itemprop="postalCode">84043</span>

</p>

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/GeoCoordinates">

<meta itemprop="geo">

<meta itemprop="latitude" content="40.427774" />

<meta itemprop="longitude" content="-111.891978" />

</div>

</div>

</section>

HTML with Structured Data

Apple

Samsung

Entity ValueAttribute

Tab S6

Macbook

Laptop

Cell Phone

128 GB

memorySize

iPad

iPhone

S10

hasProduct Tablet

256 GB

512 GB

1 TB

Notebook 9 Pro

typeOf

typeOf

hasProduct typeOf memorySize

memorySize

memorySize

isOrganization

isOrganization

Implementation

Vocabularies and Syntaxes

VOCABULARIES

● schema.org● heppnetz.de● wikipedia.org

(via productontology.org)

SYNTAXES

● RDFa● Microdata● JSON-LD

Example of Structured Data in the JSON-LD Syntax

<script type="application/ld+json">

{

"@context": "http://schema.org",

"@type": "Organization",

"name": "Boostability",

"url": "www.boostability.com",

"logo":

"https://www.boostability.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/BoostLogo_White.png"

"telephone": "(800) 261-1537",,

"description": "At Boostability, we specialize in creating new and improved avenues

for small businesses to succeed.",

"address": {

"@type": "PostalAddress",

"streetAddress": "2600 West Executive Parkway Suite 200",

"addressLocality": "Lehi",

"addressRegion": "UT",

"postalCode": "84043",

"addressCountry": "US"

},

}

</script>

StrategyHow Do I Get a Rich Result?

Landing a Rich Result

Ultimately, it's up to Google on what they show on the SERP.

But understanding how crawlers see your website and what structured data you can implement to make it easier for

them to serve up your rich results.

Landing a Rich Result

● ASK and Answer common questions your customers have yourself with a FAQ Page or using Google My Business Q&A features.

● Re-evaluate your content and consider refreshing language that is commonly used in the majority of Rich Results.

Who is…Where is…When is…What is…Why is…How is…

● Think about trigger words for Featured Snippets

● Answer the 5 W’s and 1 H:

Track and Test● SEMRush for possible

targets and tracking

Include Microdata for Google

● Schema.org○ Reviews○ Articles○ Local Business○ Video

Content Update● 50-60 words for answer● Conversational Tone

○ Who?○ What?○ Why?○ How?

Identify Keyword Potential● Focus on question

related searches

Are you already ranking in the top 10 for this search term?

1

5

4 3

2

Landing a Featured Snippet

Should I try to be getting these types of results?

Am I losing traffic because of zero-click SERPs?

● Is this fear realistic?● Is this fear mitigated by the brand

recognition this ranking provides?

“...it looks like the featured snippet is stealing clicks from the #1 ranking result.”

- Ahrefs

“

Does the number 1 ranked position always translate to a rich result?

No, as you can see in Ahrefs study they found that #1 only landed the featured snippet just over 30% of the time.

If there is no Featured Snippet served up does that mean that there never will?

Look at the SERPs that don’t already have a FS in the results as opportunities for answering questions and landing in Position Zero.

Don’t misunderstand, they still matter. Google obviously still uses them extensively.

But with where search is going you will need to leverage semantic web trends to achieve the best results.

Think about entities, relationships AND keywords.

A Keyword Mentality is Not Enough...

Thanks!Any questions?