How Featured Snippets Can Drive Traffic to Your Website

While page one, #1 position on Google might be a goal for your business, did you know there is a level above #1? Even above the paid ads? Let’s talk about Google’s Rank Zero and how becoming a featured snippet will drive traffic to your website.

Stop me if you heard this before, “Where should you bury something that you don’t want people to find?” On the second page of Google! Bada-Bing! 

All kidding aside, there’s some truth to that joke. In fact, 75% of users never click past the first page of search results. Which is why it is critical that you do all that you can to have some presence on the first page. Before we go further, we want to remind you that no one can guarantee page one, let alone position one on Google. If any MSP marketing agency offers an SEO program that guarantees page one ranking, ask them if they have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell as well.

It’s also worth noting that positioning isn’t everything. In fact, ranking #1 for any particular keyword doesn’t mean you’ll get traffic. You might be on top of the search engines for a bunch of terms that you feel are very critical. Terms like computer support, managed IT, VoIP, etc. Don’t pat yourself on the back if you are - it’s likely that these terms aren’t searched very often. In fact, most short-tail keywords are hardly ever searched, in the grand scheme of things.

In fact, 96.54% of all search queries in the US have fewer than 50 searches per month. Those golden-ticket, high-demand terms that you strive to rank for aren’t usually going to lead to a flood of traffic, because very few prospects are actually searching for them.

The most important tactic you can use is to create content which provides searchers with solutions to their problems. If you consistently provide content which is of value, eventually you will find your position increase. If you’re lucky and your content provides a higher level of value, you may be rewarded as a featured snippet.

What is a Featured Snippet?

Featured snippets are powerful for SEO marketing because they allow people searching for information the ability to find answers in a way that is easy, quick and convenient. You don’t have to click on a link to find your answer, it's right there, but, and this is key, people are more likely to click through to your website to gain more information. The value of featured snippets is that they are the first answer most people see when they are searching and usually the first website they will visit. It sets you as the authority on a subject.

Featured snippets are shown high on the search results page, and nicknamed position #0 because they are shown above the #1 result. As you can imagine, being shown as a featured snippet is a sure-fire way to grab the attention of potential clients away from your competitors, and drive traffic to your site. Here’s an example of a JoomConnect blog: How to promote my MSP on a budget which Google has chosen to be a featured snippet.

As you can imagine, this snippet is driving a ton of traffic to the JoomConnect website. Moreover, the side effect of your content being chosen as a featured snippet is that it often becomes linkbait, that is content which is linked by other websites, increasing its authority. This in turn can exponentially increase traffic and conversion opportunities to your site (which is what occurred for JoomConnect and this blog).

Featured Snippets Drive Traffic

As you see by the graph below, the promoting your MSP blog post was in a consistent position, then once Google selected it as a featured snippet, the position and corresponding traffic shot through the roof.

Here’s the thing, this blog was posted in July of 2019 and it wasn’t until the middle of March 2020 that it broke through. It took eight months. Eight months of using social media to promote the blog. Eight months of writing other blogs and adding internal links to the How to promote my MSP on a budget blog. Eight months of sending focused email blasts using our vetted leads, and our MSP newsletters putting this blog in front of our audience. Eight months using the marketing rule of seven, to reinforce how to promote your MSP on a budget. So here we are, the top page of Google and our customer contacts and conversions reflect the attention we are receiving.

Some Tips to Earn a Featured Snippet

Answer a question

A featured snippet must answer a question. For example, our blog “How to Promote Your MSP on Budget” wouldn’t be a featured snippet because Google’s algorithm wouldn’t recognize it as a question and wouldn’t consider it a candidate. Changing it to “How Do I Promote My MSP on a Budget” fixed this.

Answer the right question

There are a few ways to determine the questions your audience might be interested in. You could use Google’s Search Console to see what queries are triggering your pages to be shown as a result and you could use any number of keyword research tools. Most importantly you can communicate with your existing customers, discuss their pain points and create content to reflect solutions, because if one client is having an issue you can be sure potential leads are too. By providing answers to their questions, you increase not only your overall page rank, but also have the opportunity to become a featured snippet.

SEO Success Doesn’t Just Happen

Don’t get the wrong idea, this wasn’t some random event, the blog always had potential, and always ranked on page one. This was due to the value it offered MPSs like yourself. However, there’s a difference between being somewhere on page one and actually being a featured snippet, the way there’s a difference between page one and page two of Google.

The reason why Google chose it as a snippet is as much due to the quality of the content, as well as the effectiveness of our promotion efforts. A side benefit of this is instead of only triggering a result for “how to promote your MSP,” we’re also seeing an influx of terms like “how to advertise my MSP,” “how to market my MSP,” and more. By every metric this blog is a success, but as noted it took eight months of actively promoting it.

In other words, while SEO can be a long process, the results can be worth it.

If you’re interested in learning how to write a successful MSP blog, and other tactics to increase your ability to drive traffic to your website, generate leads, convert and ultimately increase your bottom-line, contact us and schedule an appointment today. We also offer SEO as a Service, to help MSPs like you make the most out of your web presence, attracting an audience and leads to your website. Give us a call at 888-546-4384 to get started.