“Position zero” is a lot like sitting pole position in Formula One racing. Just as pole position gives drivers the inside track to a checkered flag, position zero in search results gives you a great chance of winning eyes and organic click-through to your website.
What is position zero?
There is position one on search engine results pages (SERPs), and then there is position zero. Position zero is the information that search engines programmatically display above the first search result on a SERP (not including paid advertising, which I’ll touch on later). You might have heard position zero also referred to as a “featured snippet.”
Based on many factors, including the words in a query, search intent and even a user’s search history, search engines can now give users all of the content they need, right within the search result. These featured snippets could be in the form of a list, a paragraph or even an image or video that quickly and accurately answers a question or query.
In many instances, the information is so timely and complete that there is no need for the user to click through to the website at all (hence the moniker “no-click search results”).
How To Land Position Zero
For businesses trying to land position zero for their website content, there’s good news: Your content doesn’t need to be the No. 1 search result. Rather, the featured snippet experience suggests that preference is awarded based on the content that makes the search experience faster, easier and more relevant for the people using search engines to find information.
However, there’s also some bad news: Getting your content into position zero isn’t easy. To help you get there, I’ve put together three good starting points:
1. Look for the right keyword opportunities.
Ranking for keywords almost never happens overnight, especially for queries with a lot of competition. The same is true for featured snippets. My recommendation is to look for long-tail variations of your “holy grail” keywords (high-volume, high-competition keywords that you know your target audiences use) that don’t currently have a position zero result. From there, you can create and tailor content to get that featured snippet.
Example: After a quick audit, a digital jump rope retailer realizes there’s no featured snippet for “how to jump rope like a boxer.” If the company can rank its branded content in position zero for this search term, it can increase brand impressions and possibly drive traffic to its e-commerce site.
The company decides to produce a short video that explains five fundamental techniques for jumping rope like a boxer. The team optimizes the script, content and metadata for the keyword “how to jump rope like a boxer.” Within weeks, the company’s video jumps into position zero for this search term and begins generating views and click-through from the featured snippet.
2. Think about the searcher’s intent.
The last example is a good segue to search intent. Today, search engines are smart enough to know that a person searching “how to jump rope like a boxer” isn’t looking to buy a jump rope or boxing equipment. On the contrary: They’re looking to answer a question.
The Googles of the world can recognize this intent and rank content in position zero accordingly.
So, consider your end users’ intent behind using certain keywords that you want to rank for. Are they looking for unbiased information (e.g., “the best jump rope”)? Are they looking for how-tos? Or maybe they do want to buy something (e.g., “where to buy a good jump rope”). Use this information to optimize your content.
Example: A consumer goods manufacturer finds that a third party has the featured snippet for a support case that it gets a lot: “how to install a new filter.” Understanding that its users need to troubleshoot this problem often, the company creates a branded how-to article and video explaining how to install a new filter.
The search engine indexes this content and treats the brand’s well-known domain as authoritative, eventually awarding the how-to video tutorial position zero. Users who use Google and Bing to look for solutions to this problem can now self-solve right on the SERP.
3. Enrich content with media and images, lists, and tables.
As alluded to in the previous tip, videos and images optimized for certain keywords make good fodder for potential featured snippets. People like getting their information in quick forms these days. To that end, format content in easy-to-scan bullets or tables. Repurpose content as both images and video to provide skimmable answers to a search query.
Example: The same consumer goods manufacturer has detailed and authoritative help content to support its products, but the content is locked away in long-form PDF manuals. The company converts these PDFs into web-based articles dedicated to specific topics.
The content itself is broken into short, concise paragraphs, accompanied by ordered and unordered lists. Finally, the company enriches this content with images and short video tutorials. After launching this new content, the company increases featured snippets across the board by 20%.
Can you buy featured snippets?
No. Position zero is awarded by Google and Bing search algorithms programmatically and based on many different ranking factors. However, you can pay for search advertising. Given the new way that Google, especially, organizes its SERPs, it can be difficult to differentiate between search ads and featured snippets.
Bottom line: Expand your keyword list, and optimize for intent.
At the end of the day, featured snippets are competitive and subject to change if the search engine decides another piece of content would make for a more authoritative and relevant addition to that valuable real estate. So, it’s important to keep tabs on your featured snippets and regularly update the content.
No search engine optimization (SEO) tactic is easy or delivers results overnight. However, by expanding your target keyword list and optimizing your content based on why people search for that content, you can begin generating more featured snippets.