The Wild West of Google Featured Snippets & Direct Answers - Ari Nahmani - SMX Israel 2015

GOOGLE DIRECT ANSWERSThe Wild West of Featured Snippets

Hi! Good Afternoon.

Ari NahmaniCEO / FounderKahena Digital [email protected]

TeamClients

Thanks, Barry. SMX Israel!

GOOGLE DIRECT ANSWERS

ALL YOUR SERPS ARE BELONG TO US

SERP REAL ESTATE TAKEOVER

“10 BLUE LINKS” DOESN’T EXIST.

SERP REAL ESTATE TAKEOVER

YOUR SEO & INBOUND STRATEGY NEED TO ADJUST.

97% OF SERPS HAVE SPECIAL FEATURES

NUMBER OF ORGANIC RESULTS

Less than 9 average ‘organic’ links per page!

KNOWLEDGE CARDS / DIRECT ANSWERS

KNOWLEDGE CARDS / DIRECT ANSWERS

AINT NOTHIN’ YOU CAN DO.

FEATURED SNIPPETS - THERE’S HOPE!

TIME FOR MARKERTERS TO RUIN IT….

FEATURED SNIPPETS

WHAT DO WE KNOW?

• Informational queries•Scraped structured content and lists•Appearance is fickle

WHAT DO WE KNOW?

•Relatively strong domains• Specific Language singals• Pulled from page 1 results

GOOGLE FEATURED SNIPPETS EXAMPLES

FEATURED SNIPPETS ARE FICKLE

• Featured snippets turn on and off based on clickstream / CTR data.

• When pages are crawled and indexed, content seems to be pre-processed for featured snippet formatting.

• Case study : Glenn Gabe

GOOGLE FEATURED SNIPPETS - FICKLE!

FEATURED SNIPPET COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

DISCOVER FEATURED SNIPPETS1. Find all ranked keywords on page 1

that have ‘how to’ and similar informational queries

2. Check SERPs for presence of featured snippets (automatically)

3. Analyze structure and content

DISCOVER FEATURED SNIPPETS - SEMRUSH

DISCOVER FEATURED SNIPPETS - EXCEL

DISCOVER FEATURED SNIPPETS - RankRanger

DISCOVER FEATURED SNIPPETS

<meta property="og:image" content="http://cdn.instructables.com/FFZ/0UUG/HA4MBM7I/FFZ0UUGHA4MBM7I.RECT2100.jpg"/>

FEATURED SNIPPET OPPORTUNITIES ON YOUR SITE

DISCOVER FEATURED SNIPPETS – WMT / SC

DISCOVER FEATURED SNIPPETS – SCàEXCEL

FEATURED SNIPPETS – SEARCH ANALYTICS RANKING?

DISCOVER FEATURED SNIPPETS – VALIDATE

DISCOVER FEATURED SNIPPETS – AUTOMATE

HOW CAN MARKETERS OPTIMIZE FOR FEATURED SNIPPETS?

OPTIMIZING FOR FEATURED SNIPPETS• Structured Content– H1s / H2s or CSS formatted headers– <UL> and <OL> formatted lists– Schema - not required but ItemList and

ItemListElement may nudge in right direction.– Consistent html elements throughout page– Open Graph Image tag– Basic on-page SEO (title tag, URL).

OPTIMIZING FOR FEATURED SNIPPETS• Optimized Language– Simple, factual statements and instructions.

Descriptive enough to include keyword modifiers (keyword research!), but not run-on or wavering.

– Command language seems to work well. – Preface each list with a bolded section title that you

want to show in SERP. – “The steps are:”, “Instructions:”, and similar prefaces

OPTIMIZING FOR FEATURED SNIPPETS• Reinforce the Featured Snippet Algorithm– Basic on-page elements seem to be extremely

strong signals– If you have a relatively strong site (critical mass of

inbound links / DA), how-to or answer-based content.

– Keyword research and competitive analysis based on ‘how to’ and other informational queries in your field. Find FS, try to influence and takeover results.

Thanks! Questions?

Ari NahmaniCEO / FounderKahena Digital [email protected]

The Wild West of Google Featured Snippets & Direct Answers - Ari Nahmani - SMX Israel 2015

Marketing

Transcript of The Wild West of Google Featured Snippets & Direct Answers - Ari Nahmani - SMX Israel 2015