What are Rich Snippets?

If you’ve bumped into “rich snippets” during your Google research, you likely wonder what it is and how it can impact your search process. You’ve also noticed that some websites disclose little information, affecting your search capabilities.

On the other hand, others display information about a product or service and provide extra details like ratings, photos, and many others. That is where rich snippets come in handy.

For example, if you want to create a recipe for preparing a turkey for thanksgiving, you want to include extra details like:

1. The number of calories the turkey and other ingredients contain
2. How much traffic the site has attracted
3. Ratings
4. The writer’s inspiration behind the recipe
5.  Other product’s description

By displaying all this information, you make your users work easy to know what you’re going to talk about.

How can you get Rich Snippets to show in Google?

Searching for information on Google can be easy if you give extra details. Put yourself in your guest’s shoes. You want to buy a camcorder. You type the model’s name into the search box, and these are the results you get:

1. The manufacturer’s website
2. A page displaying the model’s name, year of manufacture, and product description
3. A page displaying the model’s name and description, number of reviews, and the number of products available

Which result will your visitor find more inviting? The third option.

It starts with creating a “spoiler alert” to help your webpage attract more traffic. To make your webpage more search-worthy, the first thing you should do is to add a type of structured markup to your HTML using schema markup, which establishes trust and attracts the click by having the most reviews and displaying the price.

For example, if you are into plumbing, any person looking for a plumber or expert advice should know what you intend to share.

Besides your site’s HTML, other details like your ratings, number of reviews, and what you have in stock should also feature.

Minimum requirements

Optimizing rich snippets on Google works through the following steps:

Step 1: Find a good old keyword research

Using long-tail keywords is the easiest way to make your webpage visible to visitors. For example, if you’re an electrical company in Miami, Florida, you can use keywords like:

“Get a licensed electrician in Miami, Florida, to provide appliances, make repairs, and conduct routine maintenance.”

Step 2: Aim at answering each question precisely

An average length of a rich snippet paragraph on Google is 45 words, while the maximum is 97 words. However, Google prefers giving lengthier paragraphs more attention. Your blogging style should:

Have an answer to a question that most visitors might pose

Have a one-paragraph answer to the question

Have an elaborate answer to the problem

Step 3: Ensure one article answers common questions

When users pose a question, they likely want immediate answers from various articles on your webpage. That means you should structure your words in a way that addresses common questions. The smartest way to increase visibility is by addressing several questions in your article. For example, if you’re selling an age-defying cream, address common concerns like:

1. How your body reacts to aging symptoms
2. How aging can affect your self-esteem
3. How age-defying creams can restore your confidence

When answering questions, ensure you use data to make your idea more credible. Even if you are selling an age-defying cream, don’t exaggerate by saying that the product will work in 24 hours. In the real sense, the cells in your body need time to utilize the cream to fight aging symptoms.

How long does it take?

Rich snippets can only be visible for pages on Google with specific information between two and twelve weeks. However, there is no guarantee because Google may decide not to display your page as a rich snippet at all. Consequently, it’s vital to be patient because Google might not have found your structured data valuable to your potential searchers.

Advantages of having Rich Snippets appear in the Google

Having rich snippets appear in Google has many advantages like:

Increasing your webpage visibility

Having rich snippets produce eye-catching results. It makes your webpage more search-worthy and attracts visitors’ attention from your competitor’s listings to your result.

Increases Click-Through Rates (CTR)

Have you ever wondered why visitors on Google hardly go through second or third pages when researching? For starters, Google displays web pages on a CTR basis.

The more visitors go through your webpage, the easier Google ranks you.

For some reason, it may take Google weeks, months, or years to display a webpage as a rich snippet.

Google takes a lot of factors into consideration, like the authenticity of your information and its practicality. The more factual your data is, the easier Google will be to consider your rich snippet.

Any WordPress plugins that can be used to make the process easier?

Adopting rich snippets starts via schema markup. The data you generate rich snippets don’t dwell in the meta description. Instead, the extra data sits in your website’s source code as structured data.

But if you aren’t that tech-savvy, a WordPress platform will do the trick. You can implement rich snippets via WordPress by embracing formats and languages like:

1. Microformats
2. RDFa
3. Microdata- uses HTML tags pan or div to create descriptive names to properties and items

To get a free WordPress-rich snippet plugin, aim at inserting schema microdata into your posts. Google allows you to display specific formats like

1. Videos
2. Events
3. People
4. Software reviews
5. Personal reviews
6. Recipes

Once you install the plug, look for the meta-box beneath the text editor. I will give you a drop-down menu with all the available snippet types. Now is the best time to make your selection, fill in the appropriate fields and click the “Publish” button.

Whether you’re planning to use a plugin or markup the data on your own, there is no better way to make your page have a powerful visual impact that can generate massive traffic than optimizing through rich snippets.

Give them a try today, and watch the benefits they can have on your site’s visibility and dominance.