How to Optimize for Google's Featured Snippets

Google’s featured snippets started as an experiment almost a decade ago. They have since become integral to Google’s SERPs, showing up for many queries. In fact, featured snippets are now considered organic position #1, making it a part of any SEO strategy.

What are featured snippets?
Featured snippets are highlighted excerpts of text that appear at the top of Google's organic search results (below the ads and AI Overviews). Sometimes referred to as position zero, featured snippets provide quick answers to the user's question and mostly feature for informational searches.

Here is a featured snippet example caught in the wild:

Screenshot from Google SERPs showing Featured Snippet
Clicking a link below the featured snippet takes you to the part of the page featuring that answer.

Recent studies reveal that featured snippets have an average 35% click-through rate. The higher click-through rate can be explained by the many search features added to organic search results over the years.

Getting featured means being on top of organic search results. The newly launched AI overviews precede featured snippets when a searcher is logged into Google and searches from the United States.

AI Overviews may be stealing some clicks from featured snippets, but even with them showing up, featured snippets have much better visibility than the rest of the organic results.