Put the question a customer actually asks in a heading, and answer it directly in the first forty to fifty words beneath. Then explain in full, so the page still reads as a page.

The answer above the results

Search a question such as how long a cedar fence lasts, and Google will often answer it before the first result: a short paragraph lifted from somebody's page, with the page's name and a link beneath it.

That box is the featured snippet. It sits above the ordinary results, and Google Home reads it aloud, naming the site, when somebody asks it the same question.

Google chooses the extract itself, usually from a page already ranking well for the question. No form or code claims it.

The pages it picks tend to answer the question directly, right below a heading that asks it. Most small business pages never do, because they were written to introduce the business.

What Google tends to lift

The last does most of the work. A heading phrased as the question, followed at once by the answer, gives Google an obvious extract and gives a reader exactly the same thing.

Finding the questions

The best questions are the ones customers already ask. Keep a list by the phone for a month and note every question that comes in more than once.

Then search your main services and read the People also ask box that appears among the results. Each question in it is one Google has seen people ask.

The new Search Console is useful here as well. Its Performance report shows the searches your pages already appear for, and filtering for words such as how, what and why picks out the questions.

Writing the answer

Start with the answer itself. Not the company history, not "every situation is different", but the thing the person asked.

Keep it to forty or fifty words, in one paragraph directly below the heading, and repeat the words of the question in its first sentence.

Make it stand on its own. The extract will appear with nothing around it, so "as mentioned above" and a "this" pointing at an earlier paragraph both fall apart.

Words such as usually and for most homes are fine where they are true. Then explain fully beneath, for the reader who wants more.

Lists and tables, built as lists and tables

For a process, use a real numbered list, each step starting with a verb. For a comparison, use a real table with a header row.

That sounds obvious, but page builders often produce lists that are only styled to look like lists, and some sites show tables as pictures.

Google reads structure from the code, not the look, so a list built from styled paragraphs may never be treated as one. Worth checking with whoever built the site.

A worked example

A septic services company on the Sunshine Coast fielded the same three questions by phone every week: how often a tank needs pumping, what should never go down the drains, and what a failing field looks like.

Its website answered the first in the fourth paragraph of the services page, after the company's history and a list of its trucks.

The rewrite gave septic care a page of its own, with each question as a heading and a direct answer of about fifty words beneath, followed by the detail.

The pumping answer began plainly: for most households, every few years, depending on the size of the tank, the number of people in the house and how much water they use.

Whether Google would quote it was never in the company's hands. The office began sending the page to callers straight away, a use that does not depend on Google at all.

Not a page full of questions

It is tempting to turn every page into thirty questions with two-line answers. Resist it.

A services page still has a job: what you do, for whom, how it works, what it costs, and what to do next. Questions belong where customers genuinely ask them, two or three to a page.

The rest stays as ordinary writing. A page built only to be quoted reads like it, and the people who arrive find nothing to keep them.

What the box gives, and what it takes

The featured snippet is the most prominent spot on the page, with your name under it, and being quoted lends an answer some authority.

It can also cost a visit. When the question is simple and the answer complete, such as a definition, the searcher may have all they need without clicking.

The questions worth writing for are the ones whose answers lead somewhere. Somebody reading about the signs of a failing septic field is close to needing a company that can fix one.

Keeping the answers true

A quoted answer is an asset only while it is right.

Prices change, rules change, products are discontinued. An answer accurate two years ago can sit in the box above everyone else's, wrong, with your name beneath it.

Put a date in the calendar twice a year to reread every answer on the site, and rewrite anything that has changed that day.

The counter-case

Some questions are not worth chasing. Broad health, legal and money questions are dominated by large reference sites, and a small business is unlikely to be quoted for them.

Some answers genuinely are "it depends". Then the honest answer names what it depends on, briefly, and that can still be quoted.

And on a page whose job is a booking, questions should never push the booking further down. Write clear answers under clear questions, for readers first.

On the next page you write

  1. List the questions customers ask by phone.
  2. Check People also ask for your main services.
  3. Phrase one heading as the question itself.
  4. Answer it in the first sentence beneath.
  5. Keep the answer to about fifty words.
  6. Build lists and tables as real lists and tables.
  7. Reread every answer twice a year.

Step four is the one most pages miss. The answer is usually somewhere on the page already; it is just three paragraphs too far down.

Clearing away the words that bury those answers is covered in words to cut from a services page.

Frequently asked questions

What is a featured snippet?

A short extract Google lifts from a page and shows above the ordinary results, with the page's name and a link. It answers the question in the results themselves.

Can I mark up a page to get one?

No. Google chooses the extract itself, usually from pages that already rank well. A clear question as a heading with a direct answer beneath gives it the obvious choice.

How long should the answer be?

About forty to fifty words, starting with the answer itself and making sense when quoted alone, followed by the fuller explanation further down the page.

Where do I find the right questions?

In customers' calls and emails, the People also ask box in Google's results, and the queries listed in the new Search Console's Performance report.

Should every page become a list of questions?

No. Add two or three genuine questions where customers ask them, with real answers, and keep the rest of the page as ordinary, readable writing.

Can a featured snippet cost me visits?

Sometimes, when a simple fact is answered completely in the box. For questions that lead to needing a service, being quoted puts your name in front of the person most likely to call.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Answers buried under the company history?

Send us your main service page. We will mark the questions it should answer first.

Start a Conversation