Featured snippets... can you proactively test for them?

Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi

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Featured snippets... can you proactively test for them?

Broadway

3:18 pm on Aug 23, 2017 (gmt 0)

Sometimes I search my own site in Google to find content on various subjects like -

site:example.com car tires

Sometimes a SERPS featured snippet is shown (with both the text and image coming from my domain).

Is this an indication that this same featured snippet sometimes appears in the "wild"? (Like when someone searches for the general term "car tires" but not specifically from my domain.)

If so, that would suggest that when formatting pages so possibly Google does use them to create their featured snippets, you could test your efforts. Any experiences, thoughts or ideas on this?

keyplyr

9:00 pm on Aug 23, 2017 (gmt 0)

Sometimes I search my own site in Google

So you're the one :)

For some my pages (the ones that fit into this type of thing) I make sure to use a unified statement of the topic in the first paragraph, or first 100 words. I've found this is often the snippet used by Google.

browndog

7:16 am on Aug 26, 2017 (gmt 0)

I was going to post a new topic on featured snippets and SEO, but wasn't sure where the right place was, so will post in here as it's on topic.

What I have just started to do is give a brief bullet point summary of my topic (where it is possible). This is for Google snippets (which I loathe, but if you can't beat them, join them), and also for the TLDR brigade. It seems Google features bullet points quite frequently. So it would look like this...

Unicorn horns at a glance

Horns come in at 2 weeks
The average length is 12 inches
Horns are replaced every year
Etc etc

Then below cover the topic in detail.