Fundamental SEO is vital for any firm who has a digital presence, especially for a startup. This includes alt tags, meta tags, header tags, keyword placement etc. which help optimise the website during its initial stages just the way HeySuccess, a London based startup, has implemented. However, the amount of importance given and investment made in SEO can primarily be attributed to the kind of industry the startup is, the niche market it caters to, and the audience it wishes to target. If the marketplace is new, then the startup should lay emphasis on basic SEO and increased awareness through paid ads and later make the shift to full-fledged SEO.

Startups must also keep a check on Google Analytics to analyse where the maximum organic traffic is coming from, focusing on long tail keywords based on geographical locations, USP’s of a product, verticals etc. It is also crucial for startups to consider the saturation point of the market and the key competitors while devising their SEO strategy, especially while conducting keyword research.

Thus, at the start of their digital career, startups should ideally indulge in basic tech SEO which forms a base for their company’s website to grow on. They face the risk of fewer natural links, lower Domain Authority, and a longer time to rank on the search engines. But this can be combated with time since SEO strategy is one that reaps benefits in the long run. Thereafter, they can always adopt a multi-channel approach to provide for holistic growth of the company digitally, since SEO no longer entails tech SEO. It is a culmination of content marketing, content amplification, PR, advertising along with content outreach. After all, the ulterior objective of the startup should be to create content not for SEO but user relevant content that automatically drives traffic to your website.

If you like this post, do share it with your friends and family. Need help promoting your brand? Let us help tell your brand’s unique story today! If you have any query leave them below in comment section.

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When does the featured snippet appear? How does it appear? What do you need to do to get your web page to appear as a featured snippet? These are the queries I will be addressing in this post.

Google reduced the organic search results from 10 to 7 in SERP and made the generation of organic traffic on websites slightly difficult. But Google also introduced featured snippets which gradually gained popularity. If you are wondering about how and when Google returns a featured snippet, then you must understand that there is no rule. It is a type of query based on which the search giant decides. Google returns more featured snippets based on the web content which is why it is important to optimize your content accordingly.

What are featured snippets?

Google says, “When we recognize that a query asks a question, we are programmed to detect pages that answer the user’s question and display a top result as a featured snippet in the search results”.

The most relevant content that answers the user’s search query is picked up by Google. Google looks for the best match to the query and reflects them in search results. It looks for the searched query term on the page and the websites ranking on the first page are always given preference.

Facts About Featured Snippets:

• It is not 1st but 0th Position in the SERP
• Descriptive content appears above the site link (page URL)
• 70 of the snippets are pulled from positions #1 through #3
• Enhances user attention on the search result page
• Online searchers click on the featured snippets to learn more
• Featured snippets are shown along with regular search results, giving them a pathway to browse further
• There’s no guaranteed method of getting the page into a featured snippet
• Google does not guarantee featured snippet listing
• High-quality search results
• Tries to deliver the best response to people’s query
• Drive manifolds traffic to a site
• Works well with mobile and voice-only searches
• The layout of the content is focused to grab user attention, helps the user easily discover the content and find the most appropriate answer.
• This is demarcated as a featured snippet because its appearance is set differently than a usual search result where description appears just below the URL.
• Google picks up sites in featured snippets, mostly the sites in top 10 results but for certain queries, this might not be the case.
• These featured snippets may appear with other types of SERP results and features.

SEO nerds also use Answerbox Terminology interchangeably but featured snippets are different from answer box though closely related. The featured snippet is not part of the Knowledge Graph. To avoid confusion, let’s stick to the “featured snippet” term whenever there’s a URL featured in the box because they present an extra exposure to the linked site (hence they’re important for content publishers)

Types of Featured Snippets

There are three major types of featured snippets:

1. Paragraph: Google returns an answer in a paragraph form, plain text, or plain text with an image, content is present in the paragraph tag.
2. List:  Answer is returned in a list form (content is present within list tags).
3. Table: Answer is returned in table format.

How to Create Content that Appears as a Featured Snippet?

• Understand what your customers are looking for
• Know that your reader and customer persona is important
• Generate user-centric content as Google focuses on user search intent
• Know the questions your customers are asking
• Think of all the possible queries and generate content to answer those questions with: How to, what is, why do or why does.
• Using these question categories, create a content bucket to answer users’ questions.  Answer the public website offers a question bank that is required to turn the wheels. Another useful tool you can use is serpstat. Above all, the Google search option offers much more through its auto-suggest feature in the search box. As a user types out a term, Google suggests the most popular related terms. By typing in a few words in the search box, one can look for the top queries suggested by Google.
• Create high-quality user-focused content which is engaging and comprehensive.

How to Optimise Your Content for Featured Snippets?

• Firstly, decide the terms that will generate featured snippets.
• Look for various question-related queries, informational intent queries, long-tail queries. You can always refer to Google for other search result sections such as “People also ask” and “See results about”.  Check Google Search Console to find which search queries generate more clicks.
• Finalize the best theme that will generate featured snippets for your website
• Finalize the keywords based on these queries, group keywords based on search intent and relevance
• See the queries for which you already rank higher. This will help you get featured and appear in the answer box.
• Use various tools to search keywords
• Optimize for featured snippets

Site Metrics for ranking in Search Results Featured Snippets

1. Off-site metrics

• Domain authority
• Page Authority
• Unique domains linking to the domain
• Unique Domains linking to a page
• Social shares: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest

2. On-page content metrics

• Create content
• Use good images – with keywords in URL and alt
• Check its Readability
• Keyword in the URL
• Word count
• Presence of paragraph HTML tags, list tags

3. Technical SEO

• Presence of schema.org code snippets
• Site Response time
• Page speed
• How long should be each content to appear as a featured snippet, optimize it accordingly. Here is a table with an ideal featured snippet length.
• There is always a scope of improvements, keep monitoring your data and make changes accordingly.

Future of Featured Snippets

Will the Featured Snippet die soon and be ruled by a new Google strategy? Google is working on improving its featured snippet results. A closely matched featured snippet will start appearing in SERP when Google does not find an answer to users’ queries. In ‘A Comprehensive Guide to Featured Snippets’ by Google, you will find the mention that Google is working on displaying ‘near match results’ where the search results are closely matched with the user queries. In this case, Google might show more than one featured search results.

Google might show more than one featured snippet in the search results to improve the search results and user experience, pushing the organic results down. Displaying the strongly aligned content as well as the one that provides contradictory information for better user experience is the motive.

One result displays reciprocal link building as, both, good and bad. So, a user can find a contradictory response, both, in favor and not in favor.

Google says “On a typical day, 15 percent of the queries we process have never been asked before. That’s just one of the many challenges along with sifting through trillions of pages of information across the web to try and help people make sense of the world.”

Google welcomes users to share their feedback directly from the search result page about the featured snippets in search results for your query. Click on the “Give Feedback” link at the bottom of the box.

Featured Snippets Help with Mobile and Voice Searches

Today, mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches, and voice search is gaining popularity at a steep rate. Very soon we might see Google showing 5-3 organic search results.

Conclusion

The future lies in voice search and spoken featured snippets. Google is working on ways to show the source page in spoken search results.

If you like this post, do share it with your friends and family. Need help promoting your brand? Let us help tell your brand’s unique story today! If you have any query leave them below in comment section.

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Check out Social Media Optimization Tips For 2019 below.

• Include Videos: Nowadays, social media is crowded with lots of videos, and the reason behind is: videos are more likely to gain more engagement than image or textual post. Social media has changed a lot than it was some years ago, so it’s a time for you to change your social media strategy too. Include videos in your social media strategy to avoid edge rank algorithm of Facebook which is introduced recently. If you are facing a continuous decline in reach and Facebook traffic of your website, then read this and increase facebook traffic of your business website by doing this.

• Participate in Community: I am sure, you heard this many times from many of your friends, colleagues, and others, and you even tried that, but didn’t get expected results. In 2019, most of the organizations are just promoting their products and services in Facebook and LinkedIn group, but that’s not going to help them in a long run. I have learned this by my experience, that successful marketing is about helping others. So, participate in groups and communities and help others with their problem and do it regularly, most of them generally quit after a week or month and that’s one of the reasons they don’t get desired results. If you help others with their problems in those facebook groups then they will more likely to start a conversation with you and search about you and your business, and this way your brand will also make a mark!

• Leverage influencer marketing: Social media is about communication. communicate with micro influencers and ask them for tips for your roundup post. Write a roundup post and mention those micro influencers in your post. Once your post is published, let those micro influencers know about this and ask them to share your post.

Try these 3 social media optimization tips for 2019 and you will get more traffic and brand reach for sure. Need help promoting your brand? Let us help tell your brand’s unique story today! If you have any query leave them below in comment section.

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There are a few things your landing page should always have and for success.

Know Your Purpose

When it comes to your landing page, your first step should be to figure out what the purpose of that page is. If you don’t fully understand the purpose of driving traffic to that particular page, then you may wind up with a lot of missed opportunities. Know what your purpose is and where you want your customers to go, and then design every element on that landing page to point the site visitor toward that conversion goal.

Be a Minimalist

Be sure to maintain a clean page with obvious, natural navigation and no distractions (such as pop-ups).

A good landing page provides all the necessary information needed to encourage visitors to convert, but nothing extra. Too much info can overwhelm visitors, so keep it simple and provide only the essential information that will guide visitors down the funnel. The info you do put front and center should be easily scannable – good landing page copy uses bullet points to explain details when possible.

Take into account what key info needs to be shown above the fold within the visitors’ direct line of vision, and what can be put below the fold. Most visitors naturally know that they can scroll down for more information, so don’t be afraid to add more thorough descriptions down where they will be discreetly hidden. A good landing page design maintains a clean and attractive visual impression while still allowing visitors the information they might desire in a non-intrusive way, and taking advantage of the below the fold space is one great way to do this. Another way to add more information without overwhelming visitors with text is through video landing pages. Consider highlighting the key points of your offer with text and using an optional, clickable video to explain the details.

Fast Loading Speed

One of the best things you can do for your landing page and your website, in general, is to improve the speed at which your page loads. For example, the average mobile user will only wait six to 10 seconds for a website to load before bouncing away. The slower a page loads, the higher your bounce rate will go.

Clean, Organized Design

The look, feel, and overall structure of your page design will have a huge impact on the effectiveness of your landing page and how well it drives conversions. The primary goal of your landing page should be to make it as easy as possible for a visitor to convert, so it is important that all elements of your page work towards the conversion objective, whether it is filling out a form, making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading an ebook.

An effective landing page design makes smart use of color and eye-catching images. Certain button colors such as red or green are said to increase landing page conversions, but above all make sure that there is a strong contrast between your button color and your background. There are many different button attributes you should test to ensure a good landing page – test color, placement, and size to discover the most effective landing page layout.

Conversion Funnel

Strong landing pages also have a strong conversion funnel. The user is funneled directly to where the business wants them to go without too many distracting elements. You must decide what the purpose of your landing page is so you can guide users toward that purpose. Also, remember that each step in the funnel should have that narrow focus. You don’t want to take them from your landing page to a long list of additional choices. Each page should guide them to the next step clearly and firmly. Check out these 5 best conversion rate optimization strategies to boost your sales.

Great Headline Copy

Headlines are one of the most important parts of your page. They set the tone, let the reader know if they’ve landed where they wanted, and can even grab the user’s attention. A strong headline can also stand out in search engine results as the user scans the top list of results to figure out which site to visit. Great headline copy for your landing page is a must. The landing page headline and subheadings provide a key opportunity to promote the value of your offer. Most effective landing pages confirm the offer with the headline and use the sub-heading for further explanation of the offer or to share the value proposition.

Trust Signals

Good landing pages make abundant use of trust signals, which can indicate to visitors that their offer and brand are trustworthy. Trust signals can take a number of different forms – testimonials are a classic form of trust signal, capitalizing on word-of-mouth to reassure visitors with endorsements from past clients or customers.

This can also be done with “Like” counters, which push a more subtle form of endorsement through “Likes” and +1s from various social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

Another powerful tool implemented by effective landing pages are trusted badges. Trust badges often refer to the logos of well-known brands you’ve worked with in the past, certain endorsements and recognition you’ve received, groups and coalitions you are a member of, etc. They serve as endorsements of your trustworthiness and skill.

Keep Your Forms Short

When a user visits your site, naturally as an online marketer you want to collect as much data as you can from them. However, when it comes to creating a good landing page, less is more. It is extremely important that you make users fill out a few form fields as possible. The more fields you ask a visitor to enter, the less chance you have of them filling out the form and completing the desired conversion. If your conversion requires a form, only ask the essentials of what you need. Remember, you can always ask for more info on the thank you page.

Landing Page Testing!

The final hallmark of a good landing page is testing. An effective landing page simply cannot be created without a thorough amount of testing. Testing and tracking results are essential for seeing what your landing page is doing right, and what it is doing wrong. Test, test, and test some more!

Try these tips of what makes a great landing page with your next paid marketing and create a sales generating machine for your business. Need help promoting your brand? Let us help tell your brand’s unique story today!

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