A featured snippet displayed on top of Google’s first search results page. It’s a summary of the answer to a user’s search. This snippet is taken from a website’s page, and it includes its title and URL.

Featured snippets are there to attempt to answer the user’s query instantly, without them having to click on the results links.

There are three main types of featured snippets:
• Table
• List
• Paragraph

While the first two are self-explanatory, a paragraph snippet is showed as a text, but it can also contain an image as part of the snippet.

There are certain types of search queries where featured snippets are more commonly showed: mathematical, DIY processes, financial, searches for requirements, and health-related searches.

A study done by Ahrefs determined that nearly 100% of featured pages were already on the top ten spots of Google’s SERPs. Getstat, on the other hand, discovered that 70% of the snippets were not on the first organic position.

Another interesting statistic obtained from Ahrefs’ study is that about 12% of search queries show featured snippets in the results.

How do you get a page from your site to appear as a featured snippet?

Google makes that decision. However, there are ways to optimize your content to be a featured snippet, and you can choose not to be considered for the position.

To maximize your chances of showing up as a snippet, you should first identify opportunities to be featured. This starts like any other optimization process: keyword research. Also, check for queries where you already rank high and create question-type content for those terms. Finally, you should dedicate a full page to answer a particular question whenever possible.

They key is to start creating content that answers user’s search queries.

If you don’t want your page to be featured, you can tell Google so by using <meta name=“googlebot“ content=“nosnippet“> into your page’s header.