Rich Snippets is the well-known term when it comes to optimization, and they are the page description which arises as a result of the Google search. You can make these rich snippets or rich results stand out from other search results visible on the page.
However, if you are an SEO beginner, then rich snippets are the complicated term that requires comprehensive planning and research. Optimizing rich snippets is not an essential factor in ranking well in SERP, but it will improve the ranking. Read on to find out what rich snippets are and how they can be useful for your business? Let's jump right in to find out:
What Are Rich Snippets?
The structured data markup added to the website for making the site and its information visible to the search engines is referred to as a rich snippet.
Adding rich snippets around your website information will make search engines communicate that information to the searchers. In simple words, adding a rich snippet in the HTML of your website will search engines to see what your webpage is about.
Search engines make search results complete with rich snippets using product ratings and review stars under the search result.
Say, for example, when you will be re-introduced to someone you have met before but cannot properly remember them. Then your friend might give a slight description of that person so that you can remember it. Those details add a rich snippet for that person in your brain; likewise, search engines add more information about your search query to help you.
How Rich Snippets Differ from Featured Snippets?
The search engines generate both rich snippets and
featured snippets from your website, but there is a difference between them.
A featured snippet is the results which appear above the normal SERP results, whereas rich snippets are known for enhancing the pre-existing search results.
What Do Rich Snippets Do?
Rich Snippet mainly does three things:
✔ Enable the search engines to deliver better, more relevant and more specific search results.
✔ Searchers can view relevant information about your search queries like reviews and ratings.
✔ It increases the click-through rates, conversion rate and reduces bounce rate. The increased information on the search results will help searchers better understand what they will get after clicking on your website.
See the SERP result of the query Sketchers Men's Go Run 600 along with the review rich snippet in the image above.
How Does Rich Snippet Affect Search Results?
Three main things are currently showing up on your website: a site title, the URL, and Meta description make this information richer by adding the rich snippets.
Information like the review, a product, a person etc. are accompanied with the result to give you a better understanding of the query.
How to Get the Rich Snippets?
The rich snippets are created based on the structured data available for certain content, and this data is organized and formatted to make it easy for Google to understand and use it for SERP.
Let's take an example - Instead of extracting key information from this:
1. It
will take 25 minutes to make white sauce pasta. These are yummy white sauce
pasta— which have calories around 396 per serving.
It is better to have this in the structured format:
Cooking
Time: 25
Calories:
396 per serving.
The second example is much easier for Google to read, and once we check the search result, it will be visible like this:
When we talk about structured data in SEO, we meant schema.org vocabulary used to mark up the content.
Here's how you can implement this markup and get most out of the rich snippets.
1. Ensure Which Rich Snippet Will Work Best For You
With standard search result snippets, you can get a good overview of the content. Apart from title, URL and description of the website, which snippet will be right for enhancing your site information?
See the list of rich snippet markup that are eligible for the search results enhancement are:
a. How to markup
b. Reviews and ratings
c. Product type
d. FAQ Markup
e. Software markup
There are other options too, but they are specific to any particular website categories like the recipe markup you saw in the above example. Other snippets markup are:
f. Flights
g. Videos
h. Recipes
i. Events
k. Sitelinks
l. Business Information
m. Product availability
2. Implement Structured Data
It's simple to create and deploy the markup in your website regardless of how it is built. You can use one of the easiest methods to deploy the code in your site's head section. Using
Google Tag Manager, you can deploy the markup code; however, the plugins have got your back if you are using WordPress.
3. Validate Markup
You can make the foolproof deployment process by using the markup generators and plugins. However, it's best when you run the markup through
Google's Rich Results Testing Tool so that you can know whether the code is eligible for the rich results or not.
Conclusion
The addition of the rich snippets on your website will impact your site rank and what information is displayed on the SERP. So, does your website have rich snippets?
Advology Solution strongly recommends adding them since it doesn't cost anything and there's no downside to it.
