If you like or are in the world of digital marketing you know that SEO is a fundamental strategy nowadays, but within search engine optimisation or SEO, there are many different techniques and elements to get to the top of the search results.
One of them is rich snippets, which you may not know by their technical name but once you read their definition you will know what they are because you see them all the time when you do a search on Google. Keep reading so you don't miss anything!
what are rich snippets?
Rich snippets are the highlighted information that appears in Google search results next to the URL. A snippet is the combination of the title, the ULR and a short description, so rich snippets are the enriched version of these. In other words, they offer more detailed information and more relevant elements for the user, which leads to greater visibility of the content, and therefore traffic to a website.
Here is an example to help you understand better. Imagine you are looking for a recipe on how to make paella, a rich snippets would be the result of the SERP where a list of ingredients appears next to the title of the post and the URL. In many cases it is also accompanied by an image. Another example, you put in the search engine "hotels in Mallorca", organic results will appear where accommodations on the island with prices, reviews, ratings, etc. appear .
As you can see, this result would stand out above another article about paellas that only contains the title, the URL and a brief description. Rich snippets are much more visual for the user.
Types of rich snippets
Not all rich snippets are the same and are not displayed in the same way, there are different ones depending on the information. The best way to achieve one is to create high quality content and have a well optimised URL, to help search engines, in this case Google, to show you in the top positions.
The main rich snippets are:
- Product: Obviously this rich snippets is essential if you have an e-commerce because it includes a picture of the product and the main data of this. It offers an overview of it before clicking, so it is important to draw the user's attention.
- Events: Contains information about dates, location, time and the main characteristics of an event.
- Music: When you search for a singer, album, band or song, Google will show you an information box, i.e. a rich snippet with a short description of the search.
- Recipes: We already gave you this example in the previous section, but it is one of the most common rich snippets. It is focused on providing information about ingredients, preparation, etc. These are the most common type to see in the first results of the SERP.
- Business: These are those that present the most relevant data of a company, organisation, brand, shop, etc. They usually provide data such as the name, location, opening hours and even social networks. On many occasions they are also accompanied by an image.
- Video: It is very common to see these rich snippets accompanied by a thumbnail of a YouTube video. If you are looking for a tutorial on how to fix the shower in the bathroom, it is very likely that you will see a title accompanied by a screenshot of a video for you to click and play it.
- Reviews are the results that include a rating, they are easily identifiable because they show a few stars. They are useful to show the user the opinions that users have of the page, a product, a post, etc. It offers prestige to the website.
why are rich snippetsimportant ?
There are many reasons why this technique within SEO is fundamental, among them is because it generates a very positive visual impact on the user, as it attracts their attention. When they perform a search, they are more likely to click on those results that have images or data, rather than on a title and a URL.
It allows you to highlight the most relevant information, content and data. Nowadays there is a lot of competition, so it is necessary to stand out from the rest and thanks to rich snippets you can do it. That is why adding stars so that users can see the rating of your site, including photos of your products so that they get an idea beforehand, etc., will make you stand out and draw attention above others.
In addition, Google rewards pages that are well optimised and do a good SEO job, so if you want to appear at the top of the search engine rankings, you cannot leave this practice of search engine optimisation to chance. And as you well know, being in the top results translates into more views, clicks and therefore, increased conversions.
To conclude this post, rich snippets appear to compete for the first position in the SERP of search engines, and as you can see it is a basic element of SEO and very common to see it, since as a user every time you do a search you see this type of results.
we hope you liked this article!
