Google-Featured-Snippets
Introduced a decade back, Google’s featured snippets have become an integral part of Google SERPs. You will find them showing up to address a lot of queries. Featured snippets are now considered as number one position on organic results. Therefore, they have become a key aspect of any SEO strategy.

Optimizing for Google’s featured snippets is a very important topic forming part of discussions on SEO. According to TechindiaSoftware, there is no magical tool to get your site featured. In fact, it is good to get started with non-specific best practices in SEO. This is because featuring on Google’s snippets is possible only if you can rank high for the given query. Here are a few practical tips to optimize your content and find a way into Google’s featured snippets.

Give concise answer to every question
Google prefers to feature the answer that is concise and crisp. The average length of a snippet is 45 words and a snippet can go to a maximum length of 97 words. This will help you decide how long your answers can be. Also know that Google prefers long-form content which is also described as cornerstone content. Therefore, it is not just about the length, but also on how it is broken up into logical sections and contains images that grab the attention.

Create long articles that can focus on several related questions on the go. Ask the question in your article or its subtitle. Immediately make a one paragraph answer below the question. After that, elaborate on the topic in the body of the article.

Give importance to organization and facts
Google is seen to love facts in terms of numbers, lists and steps. Some favorite items of Google are list of ingredients, number of steps, year and city of birth, time to cook, etc. Google’s guide on how to write successful meta descriptions will give you a good idea on what type of answers and summaries are preferred by Google to generate snippets. Well organized, factual and number driven content will be a top priority pick by the search engine for a snippet.

Ensure to answer several related questions in one article
Google uses several strategies to find out synonymic and closely related questions. There is no need to create separate pages to answer every single question. A well-drafted article containing answers to several related questions is a great idea.

Organize the questions well
In order to combine several closely related questions in one article, it is good to organize your queries very well. This can also help achieve a good structure for your content. There is a multi-level keyword organization strategy that will come to your help in this regard. Use a generic keyword to make a category or section of the blog. Include a more specific search query into the title of the article. More specific queries define the article’s structure. Closely related queries will go under a single subheading.

Include eye-catching images
Paragraph featured snippets with images are more eye-catching than regular featured snippets. You can’t dictate Google to pick up a particular image from the given page since Google does it randomly. Therefore, ensure that all your in-article images are eye-catching, annotated well and branded. If you ensure this, whichever image is chosen by Google will look fine for you.

There are a few WordPress plugins for visualizing your content easily. There are also quite a many image editing apps that will help in creating original images. There are also ways to watermark your images or create a free logo if you do not have one. Branding and optimizing your images will help optimizing for featured snippets since optimized images are often found in featured boxes and in several cases, they can come from different domains.

Monitor your progress
When it comes to monitoring your progress on organic search results, featured snippets are considered as number one position these days. For most important keywords, set the closer monitoring to be alert you if Google changes anything, advises TechindiaSoftware.

Take away
It requires a great deal of research and planning to get into featured snippets of Google. This is especially true when you do not have too many rankings on top 10 rankings. By working hard on your content, you can attract Google to pick you among top results and getting featured in Google snippets is a lofty dream you might be able to achieve with a diligent effort.

However, on the move, you are bound to discover tons of content ideas, how to rank for a variety of keywords, and how to research every topic in a thorough fashion. You will also master the art of structuring your articles very well. Therefore, the comprehensive efforts you put through the mission of optimizing for Google’s featured snippets will help you improve the overall SEO capabilities of your website.