The success of your business depends on customers being able to find your company. Years ago, this was accomplished through print media, the phone book, or even driving by a business. Google has changed all of that, making it easier for customers to find a business that fits their needs easier than over. Google search snippet make user search much easier and help businesses to drive more traffic.
Most businesses know that there are two things that come into play when it comes to Google Search: search engine optimization and pay for Google ads. Both of these strategies can help your businesses website listing appear higher up on the search results page where more people are likely to see it and click-thru to your site.
How Google search snippets can help connect customers to your brand.
One SEO feature to pay attention to is the Google search snippet, which is a blurb of text that shares more information with searchers than just the name of your organization and link to a website. Additional information is often the key to prompt someone to click on your link versus another.
Here are the types of Google search snippets that can be featured with your listing and how to optimize them for the most traffic.
Types of Google search snippets
- Rich snippets: These are the most common types of Google search snippets on the webpages – they are the text blurbs that are built from site data or SEO tools that give more information on a website or business associated with that link. They can also feature rating stars, product availability, and pricing information, as well as photos for reviews, depending on what businesses have coded into their sites to display, as well as what information Google’s algorithm decides is relevant for that search term.
- Featured snippets: These snippets are displayed first on a search page. This information can be pulled from almost any number of sites, but the common factor is that the blurb will likely be from a webpage that is already in the top percentage of trafficked sites and Google searches. That’s why many featured snippets are from Wikipedia pages or other well-known sites. Featured snippets can also vary in form – while some might be long paragraphs pulled from a webpage meant to give a user an answer without necessarily having to click through, there are also featured snippet lists (like menus auto-populated in the Google search page after a ‘local diner menu’ search) or displayed as a table (like the long, numbered lists that appear for a search like ‘best-ranked cities to live’).
How to create snippets
Many website-building platforms, like WordPress, have built-in or add-on SEO tools that help you create Google rich snippets, tags, and add other features that make your pages more likely to be displayed by search engines. Tools like Yoast SEO will even analyze your keywords, making sure they appear in your snippet text.
Another method is to give Google enough context and copy to create relevant snippets from or develop snippet copy on the backend developing of your website. Google recommends providing “structured data” like PageMaps, microformats, microdata, and meta tags that will help create on-page search snippets for users. While this type of information isn’t displayed to visitors, it’s a key component of your site that allows for searchability.
You’ll also want to make sure that you do your keyword research. If you’re trying to rank for a specific term or want to be a featured snippet for a particular search or question, it’s important to research Google keywords and craft your content and code accordingly.
Snippets aren’t the only thing to consider when building your website pages, but they are an increasingly important part of the search, as they offer customers context and information needed to make a decision. In an increasingly data-saturated and competitive business landscape, well-crafted Google search snippet can help set your business apart at the first stage of a customers’ search, laying the foundation for interactions with and impressions of your brand.
