9 Featured Snippet Types In SEO

Whenever we search for information, we see a highlighted section that shows the answer directly at the top followed by search engine listings, don’t we? That’s featured snippets. These rich snippet types have become one of the most important aspects of SEO as they provide a direct answer to the user’s search query. We will delve more into this, learn the various featured snippet types, and understand why they are important for your brand’s success, let’s get started.

Capturing The Position Zero

This is what a normal featured snippet looks like:

Source: SEMrush

What is featured snippets in SEO? 

So what is featured snippets in SEO? It is a kind of webpage that gives direct straightforward answers to a user query. As shown in the above example, they are primarily featured at the top of search results in what’s often known as “position zero.” Depending on the user query context, It usually appears as a paragraph, bulleted/numbered list, table, or video. They generally fall under the larger umbrella of SERPs and are highly useful for businesses to achieve recognition, value and authority. Featured snippets display direct answers that Google chooses from the SERP that best meet the user’s search intent for a particular query.

The Various Featured Snippet Types

Now that we have given a basic understanding of featured snippets, let’s dive in and learn the various types of snippets in SEO. There are several types available which are explained as follows:

Paragraph Snippets

They are the most common featured snippets that are displayed by Google. It offers short detailed answers to user search queries such as “How“, “Who“, “Why“, “When“, “What“, etc. They are mostly 40 to 60 words long on average.

Source: Mangools

Table Snippets

These types of featured snippets present information that is taken from the most relevant source and shown in a table format. This allows users to visualize the data easily and make comparisons. Table snippets primarily consist of relevant data displayed in rows and columns. In the following example, a table snippet is shown for the user query “uk vs us jacket sizes”. See how the data is presented in an easy-to-process format. Despite showing the comparison between the UK & US, it also compares them with the jacket sizes in the European Union.

Source: SEMrush

List Snippets

As the name implies, these types of snippets are often displayed as a detailed list either in bulleted or numbered form. They can either be ordered or unordered. Ordered lists are when the contents are displayed in a specific sequence or order. Examples include “how to cook rice”. However, unordered lists are featured snippets that don’t need to be displayed in a specific order as shown in the below example:

Video Snippets

These featured snippers display videos to user search queries. The videos are often taken from YouTube with a ready-to-play timestamp that plays the specific part of the video that the user searched for. Another interesting fact is that video snippets are usually generated for “how to” search queries where the video title often matches the user query. In the below example, we can see that a user searches the term “how to perform a squat?” and an appropriate video snippet is displayed with the timestamp from where it starts.

Product Carousel

When we search for products, places of interest, etc, we might often see a list of horizontally scrollable items. This is a carousel snippet. These types of snippets include images or titles of the search query. Product carousels offer users a visually compelling and interactive way to explore and compare products directly within the search results. Since these featured snippets display a selected list of products related to the specific search query, it provides users with immediate access to relevant information and enhances their overall shopping experience.

Double-featured snippets

This is one of the particular types of featured snippets where there is a first one and a second one beneath it. These two snippets are often unique answers and are taken from different websites. Even though that’s the case, double snippets represent an opportunity for marketers. As the first result ranks higher first for search results followed by the second one, getting your web content featured in any of the two is a win-win situation. The following example shown below is a clear case of double-featured snippets.

Source: Search engine journal

Rich Snippets

Even though not exactly a featured snippet, rich snippet types are enhanced search results that can appear anywhere on the SERP and don’t require a high ranking to be displayed. They might appear like featured snippets, but they’re different as they appear for specific content types. Some of them include product reviews, FAQs, events, etc.

Direct Answer Box

The name itself implies what this is in the first place. The types of featured snippets as we know display information in various formats depending on the user queries. Unlike those, the direct answer box offers a precise response to the search query without any additional website attribution. An example of a direct answer box is shown below in which the user searches for the capital of the UAE and the response is shown in a direct box along with related images.

Expandable Snippets

Introduced by Google in 2018, these interactive featured snippets are designed to show you more useful aspects of the topic based on your search. So, when you search for a query that triggers this new format, you will get a handful of expandable snippets with more information below the main featured snippet. In the example below, the concept of expandable snippets is clearly shown.

Source: Google

Optimizing The Types Of Snippets In SEO

Featured snippets are one of the most important factors in SERP as only the best and most relevant answers are shown in the topmost position. All brands and businesses want to have their web content occupy this lucrative position. One thing to ensure that is making optimizations so that Google considers them valuable and the best response to user queries. Let’s see how you can optimize the various types of featured snippets.  

If you are looking to optimize for a paragraph snippet, try to include a heading on the webpage you write. This signals Google what question you are answering. Make sure to write a clear answer in less than 300 characters to the query you intend to target. Try including images if they are relevant to the query as it helps increase visibility.

Optimizing web content for table snippets should start with including an actual table along with a heading that indicates what information your content contains. Just like paragraph & table snippets, headings are important for list snippets too. Including bulleted points or numbered lists in your content also helps with optimization.

Now coming to video snippets, the best chance of your video being featured is by uploading it to YouTube. When it comes to choosing your content as a video snippet, Google considers certain factors, one of them being voiceovers. Apart from that, adding timestamps to your video helps indicate what each section is about as the search engine often selects a particular spot in the video that answers a specific user query.

Winding up

When searchers look for information, they prefer it get it fast and direct without any additional browsing and distractions. This is what Google tries to deliver with featured snippets. As Google places content deemed valuable in featured snippets, the chances are high for these dedicated web pages to get the most clicks.

This makes it a lucrative opportunity for brands to get their content ranked and placed. Optimizing your web content for different featured snippet types is a great way to ensure that it gets picked by search engines. You can learn more about feature snippets by consulting with the best SEO company in Dubai now.