Ranking at Position Zero – How To Dominate Google Featured Snippets

The search featured snippets is the new position #0 organic search result. 

Google Search "featured snippets" are a massive opportunity that content creators are using to get massive Click-Through-Rates in the SERPs and drive massive amounts of traffic to your site.

Featured snippet results are now showing up more and more at the top position in the SERPs for a large number of search queries.

It seems like Google is moving towards providing quick and brief answers within its SERPs to users - using Search Snippets.

In this post I will explain exactly what a featured snippet is, and how you can take advantage of it to rank ahead of your competition on page one.

Before you apply this trick, make sure that you have done solid on-page seo and you can refer to the seo audit checklist and guide if you need assistance.

What does a Featured Snippet look like?

Search snippets appear when people ask queries that are seen as questions by Google.

Here's an example of what a featured snippet looks like....

As you can see from the example above...

• people get the answer they are looking for in brief, without visiting your site.
• If they want to read more - then they just click right through and land on your site to consume the entire content.
• These results are almost like a sneak preview of content from your site embedded directly inside the SERPs in a short summary.
• They display a quick summary of content from your page, your page title and link to your site.

Get The Unfair Advantage of Ranking at #0

The search featured snippets are also called by many as Ranking at Position #0

However, because not many people still know how to get to this spot effectively, they're a great way to outrank your competitors.

In other words, you need to be already found somewhere on the top 10 listings - preferably in the top 5 to 7 spots.

If you are, then - doing a sereis of simple tweaks, will jump your rankings right to position #0.

Just follow the simple formula here!

This is Better than Ranking at the #1 Spot!

When your page gets gobbled up by Google to appear in a Search snippet - you get listed in a giant block right on top, that gives you massive visibility as compared to any other listing on the page.

In addition, your site is also listed as a regular result down the page.

So, you effectively get listed in two places on page 1 - with Rank #0 being a huge block of space.

Knowledge Graphs do not appear within the organic SERPs, but rather appear on the rights side of the SERPs, shows as under.

Here is an example of a Knowledge Graph listing...​

When are featured snippets displayed?

However, for the query to show a search snippet result there should have already been enough search queries similar to it by users in the past.

So, if the query IS of a question type - but, it is a "never seen before question query"... that is - Google has never seen anything like it, or similar to it, in the past - then you wont see a search snippet result for it... or at least not just yet.

And, if over time - enough people perform a similar question based search query and the query volume builds up over time - then Google will find the answer - and eventually start showing a search featured snippet at the top of the results for that question query and any similar queries.

Examples of Question Queries

Here are some some examples of queries that trigger the search featured snippet result...

How does Google manage to do this?

Google is using Rank brain to gather the intelligence. Rank brain uses seed data and machine learning (deep-learning) to look for patterns of information and facts.

With the Hummingbird algorithm - Google has already has built "entities" around topics and they have already built "entities" for websites as well.

Google understands the questions and the AI part of the algorithm uses the entity databases (that they have built over a period of time) - to find the correlations between them - to serve you the rich snippet result that answers your query right on top!

Google is using natural language spoken queries (just as though you would talk to an engine asking it to find something).

How to use this to your advantage

Since Google AI is looking for patterns inside the page (its just following a specific set of parameters it looks for) - if your page can feed it this pattern, Google will rank you right on top in the featured snippet.

You can do this by constructing your page in a particular manner, by placing the answer to the question query that you are trying to rank for - in a set manner on your page, in a pattern that matches specific content and code structure.

The First Step - figure out what the "Question" is

What is the actual question people have in their minds when they search? Although a bit tricky, the result is fairly easily achievable.

And, then all you really need to do is "answer the search query" that people type in.

Finding the related question that people have in their minds when they search - may be a bit tricky to grasp at first.

When people type a query into Google - it really is a question they are asking in your minds, right?

You need to "discover this question" for that query.

To understand how to structure your content on your site (using the formula I give you) - you need to first think of the queries people will type into Google - AND what those queries would look like if they were fully written questions.

Ask yourself - what really is the question a person is asking with his query?

Lets look at an example -

A query like this...  best plugin for backups wordpress

Is really someone asking the question... what is the best wordpress plugin for backups?

Now, all you need to do is answer this question, by structuring and adapting your answer (content and code on your page) to this question.

You need to figure out what that question is as a first step - and then construct your page as an answer to it in a specific structure that I will talk about shortly.

Examples of Search Queries (and Questions)

Even a simple keyword search query, can be made out into a question that is in the mind of a user when they type their query into the search box.

Here's an example...

Here's another example...

A query like this... 

online marketing ideas plumber

Can really be thought of as the user actually asking the following question...

what are some marketing ideas for plumbers online?

And, one more example...

Understanding More Complex Queries

More complicated keyword queries, may be a little more difficult to figure out, because people mostly type in shorthand type brief queries - instead of actually "talking" out a naturally spoken query type search.

Here's an example...

- side effects vaping long term

can really be thought of as...

- what are the side effects of vaping in the long term?

Multiple Questions from Queries

Some Search Queries can actually be thought of as being derived from multiple questions in the minds of different users.

This implies that a keyword query could be interpreted into logically having more than one question.

For example...

- python course discount code

can be seen as, arising from the question...

- What is the python course discount code?

OR

- Can you list some python course discount codes?

So which question do you pick to base your answer on your page?

To decide which question you should use to create your answer on your page - is actually quite simple.

Why?

Because, Google is favoring questions that have multiple answers to them, and is "seeing" the query that is asking the question with multiple answers - rather that the question that has one answer.

So, Google favors pages that have content that gives multiple form of answers - because it has already picked the question that demands multiple answers.

The Magic Formula