Rich snippets

Rich snippets are a tool that allows you to stand out better in the organic search results of the Google search engine and are often used in a SEO optimization. A snippet provides extra information about your web page in search results, which may make it more likely to be clicked through.

By default, organic search results consist of the title of the web page, the URL and a short description. These are contained in the so-called meta tags of the HTML code of your web page and are read by the search engine. With a snippet you can add extra interesting and relevant information for the searcher.

Why a snippet on my web page?

Google wants its search engine to show users quick and, above all, relevant results for their searches. As a result, they will continue to use the Google search engine. If you include extra information in the source code of your web page, Google can better assess whether your page matches the search query.

The knife cuts both ways, so to speak: Google has a satisfied customer and you get a good quality lead. The potential customer has chosen your website thanks to the extra information from the snippet. So a higher CTR and better chance of conversion!

What information can you put in a snippet?

In principle, any information you want, as long as it is coded as structured data in the web page. Before you create or have a rich snippet created, you need to know what extra information you want to show in the search results. Here are some examples:

• Ratings and number of reviews for products
• Price and whether a product is in stock.
• Frequently asked questions about your product.
• Services that your company provides.
• Contact details, address and logo of your company.
• Photo and opening hours of your company.

These are just a few examples. These informative extra fragments in the search results can be used very effectively, especially on landing pages.

Featured snippets

Featured snippets are at ranking position 0 of the search results. Right at the top of the page! If a user types a what or how question, Google shows the best answer at position 0. This is solely determined by Google's algorithm and cannot be influenced and you do not have to pay for it. So here you also have a reason to provide good content.

If Google quotes the snippet of your web page in a featured snippet, this can mean a lot of extra traffic to your web page. The featured snippet only briefly summarizes the answer in a few sentences, so the searcher will have to click through if he or she wants to continue reading.

Rich snippets and voice search

Search queries are increasingly being spoken instead of typed. This is obviously the result of the popularity of the smart phone. With a voice search, only one search result is read out: the featured snippet!

How do you make a snippet?

In programming language, a snippet means a fragment of code that can be used repeatedly. The additional snippet you want to show in search results is defined in the source code of the web page. Creating a rich snippet is done via the programming language JSON-LD, Microdata in the HTML code of the page or with RDFa (Resource Description Framework in Attributes). It is not very complicated, but you do need some programming knowledge to integrate snippets into your web page.

You see, using rich snippets offers many possibilities and benefits and if you are not using them yet, it is definitely worth considering!

Tip: Read more about backlinks and how to best use them here.