The Pros and Cons of Google’s Featured Snippets
Back in 2015, Google introduced a new tool in order to provide the user with faster and straight-to-the-point answers, known as ‘featured snippets’. These are small summaries of information that have been extracted from a relevant website and displayed in the SERPs in order to answer queries immediately. They’re often displayed right at the top of the page at ‘position 0’, however some technicians are still unsure of their place in the marketing world. Read on as we go over some of the pros and cons of featured snippets…
Pro: Improve rankings in the SERPs when combined with SEO
The aim of an SEO campaign is to improve the way that a website ranks in the SERPs for particular keywords. As the search engine is thought to trust websites that rank favourably, particularly those on page 1, aiming to obtain a Featured Snippet is a great way to indirectly improve the rank of a website at the same time. After all, both of these goals share a similar aim and provide a similar result.
Con: Featured snippets have a lower click-through rate
With this said, it has been brought to the attention of marketers that Featured Snippets make the user less likely to interact with your webpage. This is because Google focuses on providing the user with an answer to their query in the SERPs by selecting appropriate content from a relevant website. Therefore, the user may not need to venture into your site to find out more in these situations. As such, the click-through rate for Featured Snippets is often lower compared to the user being displayed a regular list of high ranking websites instead.
Pro: Gets users interested about your content from the get-go
Featured Snippets may have been designed to answer queries quickly, however it’s important to remember that they only provide an insight into your content. As such, they offer a great opportunity for copywriters to get the user interested in a piece of content and encourage them to find out more even when they have already received an answer to their query or question. This means that Featured Snippets can actually be used to your advantage.
It may have been 6 years since Google first implemented featured snippets into the SERPs, however that doesn’t mean that every marketer understands how they work. Effectively, they’re not there to diminish your SEO efforts but to enhance them instead. After all, it is important that marketing takes every avenue into consideration in order to provide a well-rounded, ethical campaign.