Over the past few months, we’ve discussed a number of marketing trends that are proving to be important this year. One of those trends is “SERP Position Zero.” While this one sounds complicated, it’s actually not. But it does require a little background knowledge to get your head around it. First, you need to know that SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. That’s the page(s) that comes up on, say, Google, when you search for anything online. As you know, most everything you could possibly think of has tons of results – often millions. And if you sell something or offer a service, etc, you want your product to come up as #1, right? Well…not so much, anymore. What you want now is to be in “position zero,” which also goes by the names “PO,” “rank zero,” and “featured snippet.” What all those terms refer to is the text that appears in a box before the search results. A featured snippet is designed to directly answer the question being asked by the searcher so that they don’t even have to clink on any of the search results.
Hold on…What is Rank Zero?
For example, if you search “how do you make tea?” the resulting featured snippet looks like this:
That Sounds Great…How do I Get There?
Well, reader, there are a few ways to help get your website into the featured snippet spot. The main thing to remember is that you want your content to answer a specific question, and there are particular formats that do that well. Here are three of them (for more info, check out this blog from webfx.com)
- “How-to”
The featured snippet above that answers the question “how do you make tea?” is a great example of this. It includes a series of short, easy to follow steps and a graphic to illustrate them.
- “Best of”
Featured snippets often take the form of “best of” lists. For example, when you search
“what’s the best eyeliner?” you’ll get this result:
- “5W Answers”
The five W questions are what, why, where, when, & who. If your content answers one of these questions succinctly, your site is in a better position to land in position zero. For example, if you ask, “why is the ocean salty?” the featured snippet is:
Ready to mine SEO gold?
Keep in mind that SEO is an art as well as a science, but following these tips are a good way to grab that coveted position zero.
Want an even better way? Call the SEO experts at Tree Ring Digital. We’ve helped thousands of businesses get better SEO results, and we can help you, too!