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Grow your business quickly with paid search (SEA).
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SEO Agency
SEA Agency
Grow your business quickly with paid search (SEA).
Social ads
The agency
The term “snippet” originated in computer programming, where it refers to an extract of source code or text from a web page. In SEO, a “snippet” refers to an element that enriches a user’s search results by providing additional information.
Introduced by Google in 2009, the snippet is often positioned at the top of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) with the aim of summarising or completing the user’s query.
There are two main types of snippet: rich snippets and featured snippets. They play an extremely strategic role in natural search engine optimisation.
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Rich snippets are structured data that highlight certain information on a web page. The rich snippets offered by Google include: price, rating, review and availability.
Rich snippets do not directly influence your SEO, but they do help to highlight your pages in the search results.
Below is a list of the rich snippets available on Google:
Rich snippets can take several forms. In the vast majority of cases, as you can see below, they are presented in the form of stars representing the average rating out of 5. These ratings are followed by the total number of votes.
They can also take the form of scores out of 10, 20, etc. They are often found on searches related to films or series.
For products with a high monthly search volume, snippets are available. These include information such as price, reviews and their number, as well as an image of the product.
The snippet for organisations is displayed on the right-hand side of the SERP. It contains all the general information about a company, such as the name of the founders, share price, products, registered office, etc. These snippets also apply to public authorities and associations.
There are rich snippets of all kinds, even for recipes. When you search for a recipe on Google, the search engine presents you with results from different sites offering the recipe you’re looking for. You can find an image, links to the site, the name of the site, reviews and the average time taken to prepare the recipe.
The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) or “People also ask” is one of the most popular and frequently used snippets on the Internet. They offer a series of answers to questions related to the user’s initial query. This type of snippet is also widely used by SEO copywriters, who include it in their articles to answer other potential queries from web users.
Unfortunately, this type of rich snippet will see its visibility reduced in order to offer a clearer and more consistent search experience, as Google explains in a blog post on the 14 September 2023 update. The search engine explains that :
Going forward, FAQ (from FAQPage structured data) rich results will only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. For all other sites, this rich result will no longer be shown regularly. Sites may automatically be considered for this treatment depending on their eligibility.
You’ve probably already seen this when searching for a famous person. Like the snippet dedicated to organisations, this type of snippet provides Internet users with a summary of information about a well-known person. You can find it on the right-hand side of the search results page (SERP).
As its name suggests, this snippet provides useful information about current and forthcoming events in a city. It provides information such as the name of the event, the location, the date and the time.
To conclude our discussion of rich snippets, let’s talk about music-related rich snippets. When you search for a track, Google offers you the lyrics of the song, the name of the artist, the length of the track and other information.
Featured snippets, like rich snippets, are extracts of information taken from the source code of a website. Their aim is to provide the quickest and clearest possible response to the user’s query. They often provide an answer to the user’s search without the need to visit a web page.
Unlike rich snippets, featured snippets are given greater prominence by Google. There is a wide variety of featured snippets, which we have listed below.
As its name suggests, the numbered list is a snippet that presents information in the form of a list. Like all the featured snippets we are going to present to you, the numbered list appears in position 0 on the SERP. If you want to appear in Google results in this way, you will need to have a numbered list or all your Hn in the same numbered group.
The bulleted list is a featured snippet very similar to the numbered list. The only difference is that it presents a list of information in the form of a bullet list rather than a numbered list. You can find it on searches such as “top 10”, etc.
The paragraph snippet provides a direct, synthesised response to the user’s search and appears in position zero in the search results. It considerably improves the user experience by providing a short, high-quality answer, avoiding the need to visit a site to obtain quick information. If users want to drill down further, they can always click on the snippet to go to the site in question.
To optimise your content to appear in position zero as a paragraph snippet, make sure that the text with the answer does not exceed 60 words and that it does not promote your brand.
Video featured snippets present one or more videos extracted from YouTube in relation to the user’s query. These are very often tutorial videos that add real value to the user’s search. You can therefore find the link to the video, its thumbnail, the name of the YouTube channel, the publication date, as well as the video’s ‘highlights’ or time codes.
The final featured snippet in this article is the table. This feature displays different types of data in a clear, structured way. This snippet is particularly used for sports-related searches.
Yes, snippets are crucial in SEO, and their main advantage is quite obvious. They enable sites to increase their visibility, boost their traffic and their click-through rate. Here are some of the key benefits for your SEO:
To set up rich snippets on your pages, all you need to do is :
To appear in featured snippets, you need to optimise your content:
Respecting these criteria does not guarantee that you will appear in the featured snippet. It all depends on the quality of your content and the reliability of your site in the eyes of the search engine.
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