Google Featured Snippets

What Are Featured Snippets?

Google Featured Snippets - we noticed ours for the first time today and obviously, we're delighted. The image above shows our snippet, the result of a Google search for 'Business websites Sydney', which is what we've optimized our website for. But what is a Google Featured Snippet and how did we get it?

"Featured snippets are selected search results that are featured on top of Google's organic results below the ads in a box.

Featured snippets aim at answering the user's question right away (hence their other well-known name, "answer boxes"). Being featured means getting additional brand exposure in search results." - quoted from MOZ

Do Featured Snippets Help Business?

Yes. Featured pages have a far higher click-through rate than unfeatured pages. According to research by Search Engine Land, featured snippets get 8% of all clicks for the search term in question - and that can be a lot of business.

How do I get Featured Snippets for my Business Website?

Have some results in Google's top 10 i.e. page one. This seems to be the first filter.
Make sure you website is free of penalties, has unique, high quality content and is properly structured for SEO internally. This means consistent and correct use of meta data - meta descriptions, titles, headings, and alt text, titles and captions on images. Be Meticulous!
If appropriate, use question and answer formats on your target pages.

The whole purpose of Google Featured Snippets is to provide searchers with fast, simplified and clear answers to queries - so make sure your target page is fast, to the point, properly structured and ranking somewhere on page 1.

How Does Google Read The Data for the Featured Snippet?

I must admit that this surprised us a bit! The data you see in our Google Featured Snippet is from two three separate sources on the landing page of our website:

The page meta description (snippet)
The new slider we'd placed on the page just a few days ago (our slides of business websites we have completed)
A Bordered block of text and images below the slider (the photo of me)

This is one of those cases that a slider really benefited us in more ways than one!

Wishing you well in the online wars for business!