This is the ultimate guide to search engine optimization in 2021.
And let me be clear about something:
This is NOT your average “SEO in 2021” predictions post.
Yes, I’ll cover the most important SEO trends this year.
But you’re also going to see new strategies that are working great right now.
So if you’re looking to improve your SEO next year, you’ll love this updated guide.
According to SEMrush, 6.83% of all search results have a Featured Snippet.
And yes: Featured Snippets are stealing A LOT of clicks from the #1 spot.
(As I like to say: “#0 is the new #1”)
The question is: How do you get your content to appear in the Featured Snippet?
Well, that’s what this chapter is all about.
I recently decided to make ranking for Featured Snippets a priority.
And it helped us go from a handful of Featured Snippets rankings to over 390.
I recently decided to make ranking for Featured Snippets a priority.
And it helped us go from a handful of Featured Snippets rankings to over 390.
Here’s the step-by-step process that I used.
Keywords that you already rank for.
AND keywords that have a Featured Snippet.
Why is it important to focus on keywords that you rank for already?
99.58% of all Featured Snippets are from pages that rank on the first page for that term.
So if you don’t already rank in the top 10, you have zero chance of ranking in the Featured Snippet spot.
How do you find Featured Snippet Opportunities?
Ahrefs “Organic Keywords” report.
It shows you keywords that you rank for… that also have a Featured Snippet:
Why 40-60 words?
Well, SEMrush analyzed nearly 7 million Featured Snippets. And they found that the most Featured Snippets are 40-60 words long.
I wrote short Snippet Bait definitions for every page of The Content Marketing Hub.
And these helped my content rank in the Featured Snippet spot for lots of definition keywords.
HubSpot takes Snippet Bait to another level.
They add little boxes to their posts that actually look like Featured Snippets:
Even though paragraph snippets make up 81.9% of all Featured Snippets…
…they’re not the only ones.
If you want to rank for List Snippets…
Use H2 or H3 subheaders for every item on your list.
(You can manually check your HTML to see if this is set up correctly.)
Google will pull those subheaders from your content… and include them in the Featured Snippet:
If you want to rank in Table Snippets…
You need to create a table that Google can easily pull data from.
For example, the content from this Table Snippet…
…is pulled directly from a well-formatted table.
Which leads us to our next topic, The Rise of Visual Search
1. Find Featured Snippet opportunities
Like most things in SEO, the first step is keyword research.Keywords that you already rank for.
AND keywords that have a Featured Snippet.
Why is it important to focus on keywords that you rank for already?
99.58% of all Featured Snippets are from pages that rank on the first page for that term.
So if you don’t already rank in the top 10, you have zero chance of ranking in the Featured Snippet spot.
How do you find Featured Snippet Opportunities?
Ahrefs “Organic Keywords” report.
It shows you keywords that you rank for… that also have a Featured Snippet:
4,512 keywords? Looks like I have some work to do 🙂
2. Add “Snippet Bait” to Your Page
“Snippet Bait” is a 40-60 word block of content specifically designed to rank in the Featured Snippet spot.Why 40-60 words?
Well, SEMrush analyzed nearly 7 million Featured Snippets. And they found that the most Featured Snippets are 40-60 words long.
For example:
I wrote short Snippet Bait definitions for every page of The Content Marketing Hub.
They add little boxes to their posts that actually look like Featured Snippets:
3. Format your content for other types of Featured Snippets
Snippet Bait works best for so-called “Paragraph Snippets”, like this:If you want to rank for List Snippets…
Use H2 or H3 subheaders for every item on your list.
Google will pull those subheaders from your content… and include them in the Featured Snippet:
You need to create a table that Google can easily pull data from.
For example, the content from this Table Snippet…
!! DON'T MISS previous chapters of the SEO guide 2021!!
*** This series of articles was taken from Backlinko, who we thank for the great work and tips on SEO shared.***