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You are here: Home / Google / Don’t Make All Content Q&A For Google’s Featured Snippets

Don’t Make All Content Q&A For Google’s Featured Snippets

June 21, 2016 at 3:43 am PST By Jennifer Slegg

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q and a featured snippetAt SEJ Summit Santa Monica earlier this year, Maile Ohye from Google was asked about featured snippets.  She mentioned that a good example of content seen in featured snippets at the top of the search results was Q&A type of content where the site is providing information and answers about the topic.

This isn’t new – Google has long said that site owners should make sure content is answering the questions that visitors expect, especially when the title heavily implies that the answer will be found.

Ohye was then asked about whether making all content into a Q&A format was the best option, especially for something with technical info, and if that was what Google is looking for.  Since Google tends to show a lot of featured snippets for content that does answer questions, it does make sense that perhaps site owners should create content specifically in that format, to increase the odds of featured snippets being displayed from the site.

No, no.  Not necessarily.  We have different ways of extracting it, so its not that you need to make everything in Q&A format.

This is true.  In Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines, they talk about how not all queries ask a specific question but rather have an implied question.  For example, someone searching for “Daniel Radcliffe’s height” are really wanting to know “how tall is Daniel Radcliffe”, even though the first query doesn’t explicitly state the question, but rather implies it.  Likewise, content can be created this same way, with the content merely implying the question, without it explicitly stated on the page.  And Google does the same for choosing featured snippets.

If you are looking to earn more featured snippets for your site, you can follow Google’s advice.

Bottom line, don’t turn all your content into a Q&A format, unless your site actually is a Q&A type of site like Quora or a forum type site like Stack Overflow.  Just make sure your content is high quality and it answers the question or contains the information the searcher is seeking when they land on your page.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.
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Latest posts by Jennifer Slegg (see all)

  • 2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates - August 1, 2022
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines: The Low Quality 2021 Update - October 19, 2021
  • Rethinking Affiliate Sites With Google’s Product Review Update - April 23, 2021
  • New Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Update Adds Emphasis on Needs Met - October 16, 2020
  • Google Updates Experiment Statistics for Quality Raters - October 6, 2020

Filed Under: Google, SEO, Uncategorized

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