A Guide to Ranking for SERP Features

How to Rank for Featured Snippets

Google constantly seeks ways to improve its user experience and search engine result page (SERP) features are one of Google’s successes in this regard.

SERP features are curated sections of Google’s result pages that display concise information about a search query. 

These features are an upgrade to Google’s legacy 10 bluelinks and they reduce the number of hoops a searcher has to jump through to reach their destination.

Here’s an example

The search query returns an SERP feature “Top stories”. This feature is for queries that Google thinks are newsworthy.

Here’s a list of some common SERP features.

• Sitelinks 

• People also ask

• Top stories

• Image pack

• Knowledge panel

• Featured snippet

• Top ads

• Bottom ads

• Shopping results

• Knowledge card

• Tweets box

• Thumbnail

• Video

SERP features are such a big part of Google search results that around 99 percent of all Google search results contain them. Using Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer, I got some pretty interesting figures:

Sitelinks are the most common, comprising about 94% of SERPs, and at the bottom with a humble presence in 3% of SERPs sit “bottom ads” (quite true to its name).

There are significant overlaps between features, with some searches returning multiple SERP features. For instance, this example shows five SERP features; top ads, sitelinks, knowledge panel, local pack, and image pack.

Why Are SERP Features Important?

SERP features are important because they help searchers get answers to their queries by providing relevant information in different forms.

They’re Google’s way of reducing the time it takes to find what you’re looking for. The average person grows frustrated after waiting 16 seconds for a web page to load. Google, in its wisdom, reduces the number of clicks and the waiting time, to keep everyone happy. 

SEO-wise, the approach to SERP features is two-fold, On one hand, if your website is featured in SERP features, such as People also ask, News Box, and, of course, featured snippets, you will get a boost in traffic, brand recognition, and visibility, etc.

On the other hand, such SERP features as “answer boxes”, “featured snippets”, etc., reduce the overall average number of clicks on a SERP for many queries.

Take a look at this

SEO Best Practices for Winning SERP Features

Let’s take a look at some best practices that can earn you a place in Google’s SERP Features’ spotlight. 

1. Winning a Featured Snippet

A featured snippet is a piece of information Google pulls from a top-ranked page that answers a search query. Featured snippets typically appear at the top of SERPs.

I mentioned earlier that there’s a tendency for SERP features to cause a reduction in the average volume of clicks. While this is true, as part of a larger content plan, featured snippets do not necessarily spell doom. 

For instance, if your featured snippet satisfactorily answers the searcher’s query, you still earn points on positive brand image, visibility, and credibility. On the other hand, if the snippet isn’t exhaustive enough, you’ll get the traffic from users clicking through to read more.

Plus, optimizing your content for featured snippets can also get you into the “People also ask” SERP feature.

I’ll end this section by showing you how to steal featured snippets from your competitors using Ahrefs.

Go to Site Explorer. On the menu panel to the left, select “Organic Keywords”. Filter keywords that trigger featured snippets for the website you’re targeting in positions 2–10 (I didn’t include #1 because featured snippets typically take that spot when they’re present).

Because the probability to rank for a featured snippet increases with your organic position for the search query, we can further finetune our list by prioritizing the top 2-5 positions with high search volumes.

Now we’ve got the list of targets, the rest is pretty straightforward. Based on your content strategy, pick a few topics for which you want to snatch the featured snippet, analyze the current featured snippet, and look out for ways to optimize your content for searcher intent.

2. Getting Sitelinks

Sitelinks are links within your website that appear for searches involving your exact domain or brand name and allow users to jump directly to the main pages they want to see from SERPs.

Sitelinks are automatically generated if Google thinks they’re relevant to the search query. Therefore, you can’t remove them. Google suggests removing the page from your site or using the noindex tag if you want to get rid of a sitelink.

Here are a few sitelink best practices

• Ensure your website has good and relevant internal links between pages

• Use relevant and descriptive internal link anchor text

• Keep page titles and your headings informative, relevant, and compact

3. Optimizing for Image Pack

An image pack refers to a series of images displayed horizontally that can appear on any organic position on SERPs. Clicking them will take you to a Google Images search.

Optimizing for “Image packs” is another great way to drive traffic to your site. With “Image packs”, it’s all about providing contextual information to Google both in your HTML and surrounding text. Google prefers that you:

• Use appropriate file names for your images

• Provide alt texts for non-decorative images

• Use image captions

• Ensure the surrounding text is descriptive

• Have a proper image sitemap and good URL structure

4. Optimizing for Local Pack

The “Local Pack” otherwise known as “3-pack” is a feature that Google uses to show location-specific results to search queries. For instance, a search for “dentist near me” will yield:

You can’t optimize for the Google 3-pack because it depends on the searcher’s location. You, however, can optimize your online presence in a way that your website will pop up when a location-specific search relevant to your business is made.

Google recommends that you:

• Keep your business information (hours, days, physical address, phone number) consistent on the web

• Provide complete information on Google’s Business Profile

• Verify the location(s) of your business

• Include images

• Respond to reviews

5. Optimizing Your Top/bottom Ads

Top and bottom ads are ads Google displays at the top and bottom of SERPs, respectively.

Top ads are coveted for PPC campaigns because users are more likely to click them. 

Here are a few recommendations to optimize for ads:

• Improve your Ad Rank

• Keep your landing pages relevant

• Use extensions

• Ensure your bids are competitive

• Keep an eye on your campaign results

• Improve your ad quality

Closing Thoughts

I wouldn’t recommend trying to get all your content to rank for SERP features. Bearing in mind that Google is constantly optimizing its SERPs to enhance user experience. It seems like a good idea to optimize your better-suited content for a spot in a few SERP features.

---

Thanks for reading!

Would you like to add something that we missed? Shoot us an email.

Need a brand strategy session? Hit us up!

We write on all things content marketing. This article was co-authored by Irhose and Nora. You can connect with us on LinkedIn — Irhose & Nora