The way Google ranks content changes all the time as it analyzes how people search for content and what can be considered the most useful content.

Basically, Google prioritizes its users. It wants to help us find the most relevant content based on what we search for and how we interact with what is shown to us.

To that end, these are the types of content (search results) we see most often these days for pretty much any search terms:

If you’ve searched anything on Google recently, you may have come across these four types of search results:

Want to know how to optimize your content for these 4 things? Then sign up for my upcoming blog writing workshop. Join the Spring 2022 cohort now!

---

A definition or a short paragraph

If you search for the term “digital marketing” on Google, the first result that comes up, as of writing this, is a content snippet, also known as a featured snippet from a MailChimp article as you see above.

A list

If you search for something that hints at a list of things, you may actually see a list featured snippet as the first item on Google’s search engine result page (SERP).

For example, in the demonstration above, we searched for the term “digital marketing.” And Google showed us a definition of/paragraph about digital marketing as the first item in SERP.

But what happens if we change the search term to “digital marketing tips?”

Boom! Google shows you a list! Because the word “tips” ideally hints at a list of tips, yea? So, here’s what Google shows: A list featured snippet from one of HubSpot’s articles (as shown in the image above.)

A video

This is ideal for video content creators because Google loves to show videos, when relevant and available, as its featured snippet.

A table

I see tables rarely, but that may have something to do with the type of content I search for. But in short, if you’re searching for something that could be shown in a table (for example: comparing flight prices from Denver to Miami on a specific date), then Google will show that to you as a featured snippet.

Pro tip: Increase organic traffic by optimizing your blog posts for featured snippets

As a blogger, the most relevant types of featured snippets are the paragraph and list snippets, and so your goal should be to always optimize your content for these two types. Because if you can manage to show your content as a featured snippet, trust me, your organic traffic will go through the roof!

Don’t believe me? Here’s an example:

When you search for “Sell Canva Templates,” Google shows you a featured snippet from my blog post on the same topic. And this blog post alone drives a bulk of my organic traffic from Google. Incidentally (by design,) this blog post acts as one of the entry points to my online course: Side Income with Canva Templates, which, by the way, brings in a huge portion of my monthly income from this blog.

Not just this specific search term, but this particular blog post shows multiple featured snippets for multiple search terms, all relevant to selling Canva templates.

Pretty cool, right? But it wasn’t by accident; it was by design. And in my blog writing workshop, of the many things we’ll discuss, one of them is getting your blog to rank at the top of Google’s search engine, preferably with some type of featured snippet.

So, if you wish to learn how to get a lot of free, organic, Google traffic to your blog, join the Spring 2022 cohort right now! Only a few spots are open 🙂