The snippet in computer programming is a small part of the text or programming code with re-usability. Usually, snippets are added to larger programming modules in the form of small operational units, and they are used to facilitate programming and commonly used actions.
In the Google search engine, it refers to the detailed descriptions displayed under the title of each result found on the search results pages. Sometimes, it means a complete result, including its title, web address, and description.
In the article “An Ultimate Guide to SEO (Search Engine Optimization),” we introduce snippets and featured snippets. Continuing this article on the smart strategy blog, we will dive deep into the snippets meaning, their importance, and how to use snippets.
The importance of the snippet
You may question why Snippets are important for sites, blogs, etc.
To answer this question, the placement of your site and content in the prominent parts and the first link on the first page of Google is one of the critical roles of snippets.
But how does this happen? Although producing high-quality and valuable content and following the google algorithm is essential, if your snippet does not attract searchers, they will never click on your link on Google search pages.
You must write attractive content to persuade any searcher to click, and this is the beginning of more visibility and, ultimately, more sales.
Of course, if you don’t do this, Google will put a part of your text together with the title and other things and display it for the searcher, which is not attractive most of the time.
Advantages of using snippets in SEO:
- Increasing the traffic to your site
- Increasing the visits and visibility of your site
- Improvement in site ranking.
- Increasing users’ and Google’s trust in your website.
- Increasing the credibility of the website to attract traffic.
How to use snippets?
How to use Snippets and see your ad in the first box and the first link of Google?
In the first step, Google looks at the quality and the importance of your content and then at the type of your writing. So, you should optimize the content.
Google Snippets can be any of the following:
- Text
- Image
- Numbered lists
- Bolet
- Step by step
- Charts and graphs
- Pictures
- Number of words
The number of words is an influential factor. Based on detailed analyzes by various tools, the optimal length of Google Snippets should generally be around 40 to 50 words. This analysis is based on SEMrush tools.
In the next step, you should send traffic to your website. In order for Google to show your content as a snippet, you must be on the first page of Google results and attract high traffic. But sometimes, it has been observed that Google selects content from other SERPs. So by using link-building and social signals you can rank better and place in google’s first SERP.
FAQ content
Searchers always ask questions on google and expect to give the correct answer. If you address all the issues surrounding a question, you will cover the answers to the questions people ask on Google.
To better understand this concept, look at the question “how to optimize our website” in Google.
Facing this question, Google displays the answer as a snippet. In most cases, an answer box is shown as the answer. However, sometimes two or three dialog boxes may appear in response to the question.
A unique feature called snippet management is considered to use snippets and manage them in some text editors. With the help of this feature, instead of retyping a piece of code, programmers can save it or use ready-made and place them anywhere in the source code of the program that is necessary.
How to choose a snippet in WordPress
If your website is WordPress, your best option for preparing snippets is to use an SEO optimization program so that, in addition to creating snippets, it also matches your keywords.
For example, we can point to the successful Yoast program, one of the most successful programs in this field.
After installing the Yoast program, an option will be added to all your pages and posts, allowing you to correct the snippet of each page and the title and keywords.
What kind of snippet Google chooses in response to your question depends on its algorithm and how you write your content. According to a report, 29% of Google snippets are tables. In other words, Google displays almost a third of its data in the table.
Some keypoint n using snippets:
- Using paragraph tags
- using H1, H2, and H3 tags in Query
- Using the steps for each subheading.
Conclusion
In this article on smart strategy, we deep dive into different sides of the snippet.
Smart strategy as a leading digital marketing agency providing SEO services in Canada. For more information about our SEO services and a consultation with our SEO strategist, please contact us.
