Around one-fifth of all keywords set off a featured bit

99 percent of all featured snippets tend to appear within the first natural position and take control of 50% of the screen on mobile devices, driving higher-than-average click-through rates (CTR).

The key to featured snippet optimization depends on a few specific locations: long-tail- and question-like keyword strategy, date marked content that comes at the ideal length and format, and a concise URL structure.

Google has actually always been pretty hazy on any details about winning featured bits. This held true when they were initially presented, making them something businesses considered to be the cherry on top of their SEO efforts, which is still mostly the case. Having first-hand understanding about the worth and power of featured bits, Brado partnered with Semrush to perform the most detailed research study around featured bit optimization to reveal how they truly work, and what you can do to win them.

Revealing the highlights from a Featured snippets research study that analyzed over a million SERPs with featured snippets present, this post unwraps actionable suggestions on amping up your optimization strategy to finally win that Google reward.

General patterns across the featured bit landscape.

With billions of search queries go through the Google search box each day, our study found that around 19 percent of keywords set off a highlighted bit. Why does this even matter? Featured snippets are known to drive greater CTR-- as another study uncovered, they are accountable for over 35 percent of all clicks.

Further proving the immense power of featured snippets, our study revealed that they take up over half of the SERP's realty on mobile screens.

Integrate this with our findings that 99 percent of the time included bits take over the first natural position, and that they remain in most cases activated by long-tail keywords (implying specific user intent), and you'll get the factor behind extremely high CTR numbers.

Are some industries most likely to activate featured bits?

In the research study, we defined markets by keyword categories, finding that, indeed, included bit volume is irregular throughout different segments.

The top industry, seeing an included snippet in 62 percent of all cases, is Travel and Computer System & Electronics, followed by Arts & Entertainment (59 percent), and Science (54 percent), while Property keywords drag all the rest with just 11 percent of keywords triggering a featured snippet.

featured bit optimization insights on keyword classifications that activate.

On a domain level, the industry breakdown differs slightly, with Health and News sites having similar featured snippet volumes.

You can find the complete industry breakdown within the research study.

Included bits are everything about makes, not wins.

Just hoping your content will win you a featured bit isn't enough-- as our study showed, it's everything about hard-earned content optimization results.

When it concerns optimization and keywords, utilize 'the more the better' logic.

Our study discovered that 55.5 percent of highlighted snippets were triggered by 10-word keywords, while single-word ones just showed up 4.3 percent of the time.

One thing even better than long-tails is questions. 29 percent of keywords triggering a featured bit start with Go to the website question words-- "why" (78 percent), "can" (72 percent), "do" (67 percent), and in the fewest cases, "where" (19 percent).

featured bit optimization insights on concern keywords that activate.

The SERPs we evaluated included 4 kinds of featured snippet: paragraphs, lists, tables, and videos:.

70 percent of the outcomes revealed paragraphs, with approximately 42 words and 249 characters.

Lists came in as the second-most-frequent highlighted bit (19 percent), with an average of 6 item counts and 44 words.

Tables (6 percent) generally featured five rows and 2 columns.

Videos, whose average period stood at 6:39 mins, showed up in only 4.6 percent of all cases.

Obviously, do not blindly follow this data as the principle, rather see it as a good starting point for featured-snippet-minded content optimization.

Plus, keep in mind that content quality always dominates amount, so if you have a high-performing piece that includes a 10-row table, Google will just cut it down, showing the blue "More rows" link, which can even enhance your CTR.

As it turns out, URL length matters in Google's option of a site that is worthy of a highlighted bit. Attempt to adhere to cool website architecture, with 1-3 subfolders per URL, and you'll be most likely to win.

Just for recommendation, here is an example of a URL with 3 subfolders:.

xyz.com/subfolder1/subfolder2/subfolder3.

In the "to add or not to add a post date" predicament, based on our featured bit analysis, we 'd suggest that you release date-marked content.

The majority of Google's featured bits include a post date, with the following breakdown: 47 percent of list-type highlighted bits originate from date-marked material, paragraphs-- 44 percent, videos-- 20 percent, and tables-- 19 percent of the time.

While fresh-out-of-the-oven material can be preferred by Google, 70 percent of all content making it into the featured bit was anywhere from 2 to 3 years old (2018, 2019, 2020), indicating once again that content quality matters more than recency, so you shouldn't fret that putting a date on it will work against you.