Position Zero: Google’s Featured Snippet

Let’s begin.

What is Position Zero?

Position Zero is the new best place to be – it sits at the very top of the search results shown by Google. It is made to draw the user’s attention on the results page, and it’s also called the featured snippet.

Google introduced Featured Snippets approximately two years ago. Google used to work with the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), they were a web page listing that showed as a result based on a keyword query, but not anymore. With the introduction of Google’s featured snippet, position 0 was created.

Now a Featured Snippet is a friendly summary that is presented as an answer to a user’s question, and it is displayed at the top of the Google search results. It can be presented as a bulleted list of steps, a chart of data, or a small paragraph that explains the search question.

It is extracted from the website that answers the search query and includes the web page’s title and URL.

This is how it looks in the SERPs:

Why is Position Zero Valuable?

As digital marketers, getting found online is the most important thing. Being the number one choice can make an enormous difference when it comes to being known and increasing your profits.

Initially, it was thought that Position Zero would negatively impact digital marketers because most of the relevant information for the query is presented in the Featured Snippet shown as a result, but that is not the case.

Position 0 was created to enhance the user’s experience, and it has proved to vastly improve stats, including visits, click-throughs, and conversions.

Since Position Zero is intrinsically related to SEO, it is paramount always to have an extraordinary content description. That way, your business will be able to provide a definitive answer to a question. This is a great way to establish your brand expertise.

In order to increase your chances to reach Position 0 and its attractive featured snippet, your content description should have the following items:

• The paragraph’s description should be 50 words or less.
• Always include keywords in the answer.
• Use questions as your headings.
• Answer questions with your description’s content.
• Make sure your content is concise and relevant.
• Use simple HTML code.

All of this brings us to a crucial point: SEO marketing. How is it all related?

How is SEO Marketing Related to Position Zero?

Whenever we are talking about boosting the rank of your website, unequivocally, we will have to go through SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). It involves changing your website’s design and composition to make it more attractive to the users, and publishing the most relevant content, that way you can get organic (un-paid) traffic from the search engine results page.

Search engines look for the best website options to provide a better experience to the user. They scan the websites looking for keywords and content to ensure high-quality information as a result. They also review how user-friendly and mobile-responsive the site is to make sure it’s easy to navigate and read.

These primary characteristics are rewarded and placed with higher rankings on the search engine’s results page, that is why SEO is so important. By improving your SEO, you’ll increase your visibility to reach and engage more potential customers.

For you to have relevant content, you need to make sure that it is optimized for search engines as well as the people that will be visiting your site. It has to be engaging, relevant, and well-written.

It is crucial always to consider and embed keywords and phrases in all of these types of content; it will increase your chances of achieving a higher rank in the search engine results page.

Now, regarding your website’s optimization, you need to make sure that you present a friendly structure for the user. That will involve the following:

• Title Tag: Indicates what your page is about, and it has to be 70 characters or less, including keywords and your business name.
• Meta Description: It will provide a little more information on what your website is about, and it also needs to contain keywords.
• Subheadings: They make your content easier to navigate, and they also help improve your SEO.
• Internal Links: They help search engines to learn more about your site, and they can direct the visitors to a specific product or service that is related to the page they are currently reading.
• Image Name and ALT Tags: You will want to include keywords or phrases to support search engines index your images, in case there is an image search.

Final Thoughts

In a constantly changing digital world, having an excellent SEO-focused website will improve your website’s chances for success.

Sure, right now we have Position Zero, but the main thing to keep in mind is that no matter what changes, as long as the interface and content are high-quality and customer-driven, you can have peace of mind that with small little tweaks from the search algorithms, you will stay on the top rank.

Do you want to get your web pages ranking on position zero with attractive featured snippets? Feel free to consult the SEO experts today.