What are Rich Snippets?

Rich snippets (a.k.a. extended snippets) most often appear as a result of using a specific type of structured data on a page. Their purpose is to provide search engines with additional content information. Rich snippets are simply a way to enhance the appearance of your site in search results by providing specific context and content information on the page. However, this is not their only source – they can also appear, for example, as a result of placing a correctly formatted HTML table on the page.

There are many different types of extended snippets, including:

• Product Reviews: show stars and number of reviews for products.

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• Cooking recipes: provide information such as cooking times, calories, and reviews.

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• Events: show information about upcoming events, such as date, time and place.

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• Persons: display information about people, such as occupation, employer and education.

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• Videos: display video information such as duration and thumbnail.

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By using structured data markup to add rich snippets to your website, you can help search engines better understand what content your site is discussing and provide users themselves with more useful information right from the browsing stage of search results.

How do extended excerpts affect your website’s SEO?

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Extended snippets can have many benefits for your website’s SEO.

Here are some of them:

1. Increase attractiveness in search results

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Extended extended snippets will make your website stand out in search results. At the same time, it will provide potential users with more context and information about the content. Thus, when users see rich snippets in search results, they will be more likely to click on a link leading to your website And this can lead to increased traffic and visibility.

2. Increase Click-Through-Rate (CTR)

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Studies show that well-built rich snippets increase the click-through rate (CTR) of your website. Naturally, a lot here also depends on other aspects – such as user intent or the competitive environment.

However, it is important to remember that the presence of Rich Snippets will not always positively affect CTR. A study of CTR values conducted on a sample of 8 million phrases by Senuto shows this precisely. Particularly strong is the increased CTR on queries containing extended snippets with knowledge graphs, extended snippets including maps, or simply a large number of paid ads. In extreme examples, the first position of organic results is outside the section above the fold!

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3. Increase user engagement

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Rich snippets can provide users with more useful information and context, which can improve their experience on your site. When users find the information they need directly in search results, they are more likely to engage with your site and continue to interact.

4. Improve conversions

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Rich snippets can alsohelp improve conversions on your website. Even at the stage of the organic results themselves, they can inform:

• the price at which you offer your product,

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• its availability,

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• the average rating from customers,

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For landing pages or blog posts, you can answer user questions by implementing an FAQ section.

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How to add rich snippets to your website?

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In order for rich snippets to start appearing next to the search results associated with your site, you must first implement structured data tags. Depending on your content management system (or lack thereof), this can be done in several ways:

• Using a dedicated plugin,

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• Implementing them manually:
  • JSON-LD code – the most widely used, while being the easiest to implement.
  • Microdata, that is, in the form of attributes placed in HTML tags found in the code of the page template.
  • RDF, which is the oldest standard, like Microdata having the form of attributes in HTML tags, but the most complicated in its design.

The number of types of metadata that can be used is steadily increasing – the full documentation can be consulted at Schema.org. With its help, defining and applying structured data with the help of a developer will become relatively painless.

Once you’ve added structured data markup to your website, you can use the structured data testing tools to check that your extended snippets are correctly defined and displayed.

However, it is important to keep in mind that implementing Schema tags alone does not guarantee that they will appear in search results. Their display already depends on Google’s individual algorithm evaluation.

On the other hand, in the Senuto tool itself, you can use two tools related to rich snippets: Direct Answer and HTML SERP Snapshots, from which you can find out what rich snippets your domain has and what your domain’s environment looks like in the SERPs.

Direct Answer

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Using this tool, you can see which queries your domain displays with a snippet in Direct Answer:

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If you notice a sudden drop in traffic from many of the phrases that are in the first position, this tool will allow you to quickly verify that they are displaying with this snippet.

SERP HTML snippets

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SERP HTML snapshots give you the ability to verify,with which extended snippets a particular key phrase displays. The available options give you the ability to select several dates at once. This, in turn, opens the way to trace changes in the appearance of search results, which gives you another view of changes in CTR values.

Summary

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Rich snippets are a way to enhance the appearance of your website in search results. They can help improve visibility, CTR, user engagement and conversions on your website. Properly thought out, planned and implemented, they will attract users and make it easier for them to navigate the site structure.

Now you know their functionalities and how they can help increase your website’s CTR. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you implement structured data and use rich snippets to increase your site’s visibility!