SEO Guide: How To Dominate Featured Snippets Using Keyword Research


Read this article to know how you can dominate Google's Feature Snippers in search results using the Google's Keyword Research tools for advertisers.

Content marketing can be an unbelievably strong SEO strategy for those who have a good understanding of the process and the landscape. As with most forms of marketing, research is vital to the success of a project and should not be overlooked or undervalued. All good boxers will tell you that fights are won in the gym and this is no different than content marketing.

This article focuses on keyword research and the pivotal role it plays in achieving featured snippet listings.

What Is Keyword Research?


Keyword research is the process of analysing the words, phrases and questions users of Google enter to find what they are looking for. There are a number of important metrics that content marketers and SEO agencies should pay attention to when informing their content that can make or break a marketing project.
Search Volume

Keyword search volume is a measurement of how many people, on average over the past 12 months, have searched for a given keyword. This is a universal metric offered by all keyword research tools but does vary slightly from tool to tool. We would recommend going straight to the source and use Google's Keyword Planner tool, but other tools won't be too far off or even necessarily less accurate.

It's important to set your location targeting to the area where you would like to gain visibility. There's no point in looking at global stats if nobody in your country actually searches for that keyword.

Another tip is to create keyword groups and total up the search volumes across each of the related keywords.

Number of Results


Assessing the number of results for a keyword can help indicate the level of competition for that keyword. Although this metric is not considered overall solid, from our experience it is still worth taking a look at.

If you are a new website with less authority, try finding keywords that have search volume but also less than 10,000 results. Ideally, you would want a high search volume keywords with as few results as possible, but they are difficult to find.
search results

Keyword Difficulty


SEMrush offers an excellent metric within its Keyword Magic tool, which is simply called "keyword difficulty". In SEMrush Keyword Difficulty is measured as a percentage from 1% - 100%, with the greater the percentage the more difficult it is to rank within the top 20 positions of Google.

Previously we mentioned creating keyword groups and totaling up the search volume, but it's also a good idea to create a keyword group and average out the Keyword Difficulty. Thankfully SEMrush does this for you.
keyword search tool google

How Can The Above Apply To Content Marketing


Google's SERP is ever-changing and in its current form has excellent features for a savvy content marketer who understands keyword research. The area of focus in this article is featured snippets and the People Also Asked section. Both of these sections on Google's SERP are a brilliant way of jumping the queue and promoting your content in an are where people look like a priority.

Featured Snippets


Featured Snippets are snippets of content pulled through from a website directly onto Google's SERPs with the aim of directly answering the searcher's question without the need for a click.
what is featured snippet
Now you may wonder why you would want a user to consume your content without getting the click credit. Well, there are a couple of reasons. Firstly it positions your brand as an authority and expert on the subject matter, which is great for building brand equity and loyalty. Secondly, these are snippets, and rarely answer the question to the fullest extent.

This encourages users to click through to your site over that of the other listing present on the SERP. With a preexisting acknowledgement of expertise from both Google and the user, the rest of the content and related articles are much more likely to be engaged with.

In order to achieve a featured snippet, you must first rank of page one for the search term. Google will then extract what it considers the most relevant snippet of content from one of the sites on page one. Make sure you have a section of content that directly answers the question with minimal noise within the answer itself, and you may just secure yourself a snippet. Take into account the metrics from the first section and you will stand a much better chance of securing this prime real estate.

Using the points detailed in the keyword research section you'll be able to hopefully identify a number of low competition but high search volume keywords to target that trigger featured snippets. By incorporating a comprehensive keyword research phase into your content strategy, you'll very quickly be able to start picking up featured snippets!


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