What is a snippet and how to configure a snippet in Yandex and Google. Snippet: how to force search engines to show the snippet you need Writing a snippet
A snippet is a piece of text next to a link to a website in search results. And this is not just some text, but a business card of the page to which this link leads. Even if your site is not in the TOP 3, but is on the first page of search results, you can receive many more clicks than your leading competitors. And all thanks to an attractive snippet.
The first thing you need to know is that a snippet cannot be written at will. It is formed by a search engine, extracting certain pieces of information from a website page. But this does not mean that its appearance cannot be influenced. We'll tell you how to do this.
What does the snippet consist of?
The snippet consists of the main part and extensions. Main part presented:
- heading (1),
- breadcrumb trail (2),
- fragment of description (3).
Extensions may include additional information about the site and company:
- quick links (only in Yandex search)(4),
- address, telephone, work schedule (5),
- link to the map service (6).
As well as product data (in the case when a specific product query was specified in the search bar):
- price (7),
- review rating (Google search only)(8),
- delivery information (only in Yandex search) (9).
Extensions not only make the snippet stand out from a number of competitors, but often bring orders even without the user going to your site. For example, if a client sees the name of a product, an attractive price and a telephone number, he can call you without visiting the website.
Creating an attractive snippet
#1 Making the right headline
For snippet title search engine uses the page title text (Title). Therefore, make sure that the Title strictly corresponds to the content of the page and is not spammed with keywords.
Good: “Buy an air mattress in Moscow with free delivery.”
Bad: “Air mattresses in Moscow: buy an inexpensive air mattress in an online store” .
Important! The length of the snippet title is 70 characters (Yandex) and 60 characters (Google), including spaces . This should be taken into account in order to prevent the phrase from being cut off.
#2 Building a breadcrumb trail
The breadcrumb trail below the title shows the path that leads from home page until found. Best option, when the chain is presented in Russian (1). In this form it is more readable and understandable to the user. An unoptimized chain is not an error, but it reduces the attractiveness of the snippet (2).
To get a well-readable chain, you need to do a lot of work with the site (if your webmaster did not provide for this when creating it). You will need:
- provide a tree structure of the site (for example, catalog > subdirectory > product cards);
- configure CNC (so-called “human-readable” page addresses);
- implement a “breadcrumbs” navigation system on the site and mark them up using Microdata or RDF formats.
#3 Making a good description
Description is the main element of the snippet, which succinctly conveys the content of the page. It could be brief description company, catalog assortment, product or service characteristics. The more specific it is in the form of coherent text, the better.
The search engine takes text for the description from the Description meta tag or from the text of the page. To be sure to get a good description, you need to consider all the options. You will need:
- place in Description the description that will be the business card of this page;
- The paragraph that you want to get in the snippet, place it at the beginning of the text and make it no longer than 250 characters with spaces, use the keyword in it in the exact form, but without spam.
Important! The snippet description length ranges from 150 (Google) to 250 characters (Yandex), including spaces. This should be taken into account in order to prevent the phrase from being cut off.
#4 Getting extensions
Extensions in the snippet can be obtained by participating in the partner services of Yandex and Google or by introducing special code on the site pages - micromarking.
Quick links in the snippet are generated automatically and lead to the most popular pages of the site. Please note that this feature is not available for all sites. You can read more about how this works in Yandex reference materials.
4.2. Contact details
You can get your company contacts to appear in the snippet as follows:
- for Yandex: specify data in the Yandex.Webmaster panel (Site Geography > Site Region) or add data about the company to the Yandex.Directory service;
- for Google: add company information to the Google maps service;
- universal: On the contact page on your website, embed Schema.org micro-markup code (Organization and Place schemas).
4.3 Product cost
Indicating the price in the snippet increases its click-through rate. Use this opportunity:
- for Yandex: take part in affiliate program Yandex.Market or upload a special file in the Yandex.Webmaster panel with information on the cost of goods and delivery for different regions. When performing these actions, the product card snippet in Yandex search will look like this:
- universal: On product pages on your website, implement Schema.org micro-markup code (Product, Offer, AggregateOffer schemas). In this case, the product card snippet in Yandex and Google search will look like this:
A product snippet can be “decorated” with product rating stars based on the reviews that customers leave on your website. This is only available for Google search results. It is implemented by introducing Schema.org micro markup code (AggregateRating scheme) on the product page.
Advice! At this stage, you may find the following material useful, which explains in detail how to work with micro markup when creating a rich snippet.
What to optimize first?
Forming an attractive snippet is quite a troublesome task. However, this investment will be fully justified: you will not only receive a greater number of clicks from the search results, but you will also put the pages of your site in order, which is extremely important for the growth of its positions in both Yandex and Google.
If you have limited resources, start small - optimizing page titles (Title) and text descriptions. I recommend that online stores use free opportunities to broadcast the price of a product in a snippet, namely participation in the Yandex.Market service.
We wish you successful promotion!
listen to the podcast with Evgeny Kostin.
Did you like the article? Share with your friends!A snippet is a small piece of text that we see on the search results page along with a link to the site. Previously, the snippet contained only text, so all 10 addresses that we saw on one page looked almost the same. Search engines were the first to think about how to solve this issue: to show the user as much information as possible about the resource they are looking for in the search results, so that they can immediately go where they need to go. For digital marketing, a snippet is an important tool in the fight for user satisfaction. How to quickly compose a high-quality and comprehensive snippet? Just recently, digital agency PlayMedia published a detailed infographic, “10 Ways to Use Rich Snippets for Google,” which is our top recommendation. Read about how to apply this knowledge in practice in our post today.
Should I work with the snippet now?
First, let's look at the current trends to decide how relevant it is to work with snippets in general - is the game worth the candle? How relevant is working with snippets now and is it worth our time and effort, albeit small? We go to Google Trends and look at the graph of the popularity of the query “snippet”:
Here we see that in Russia we can trace the dynamics of growth, starting from 2010 to the present day. The next step is to try to roughly “estimate” how relevant this will be within the framework of search engine promotion and site promotion. To do this, let’s turn our attention to the dynamics of the popularity of the query: “site promotion”. Comparing the popularity of these queries will help us track the process of growing demand for advanced management of snippet generation:
Here you can see that with a certain increase in the popularity of the snippets topic, they have never been one of the primary trends in the matter of website promotion in search rankings. You can “play around” with the queries “traffic”, “volume” external links", "positions" to see that the main attention was, of course, concentrated on them.
Even taking into account the fact that there are large fluctuations in the popularity of the request “site promotion” and the formation of this graph clearly does not include fluctuations in the popularity of the search engine itself, one thing can be said for sure - Since 2010 and to the present day, the correct formation of a snippet has been an integral part of website promotion!
What does this give us right now? By making our snippet as user-friendly as possible, we can bring it to our website, even if we are not in first place in the TOP, while other promotion specialists have not yet gotten around to snippets.
HOW TO COMPOSE AN EXHAUSTIVE SNIPPETS?
Method 1: Influence the snippet title
For header search results PM most often uses title of the document itself(Title). If it is too long, the PM selects the fragment that most closely matches the meaning of the given request.
Important: Write the Title using a keyword that is literate from the point of view of the Russian language. Make the headline readable and include a call to action. It should be clear to the user from the title what awaits him on the site.
Method 2: Influence the snippet text
Snippet text in Yandex
To form page descriptions, Yandex selects all fragments of document text containing words from the query. Each of these fragments is divided into several more parts - for example, with words from the request at the beginning, at the end and in the middle. Then the program compares them all and selects the best ones - they end up in the snippet.
Google snippet text
Google mainly generates a snippet from the site description (Description meta tag). If the description for a page is not specified, or it contains irrelevant text, then the most relevant fragment of the page text is automatically displayed as a snippet.
Important: The page description for Google must be relevant. Although in this case, the PS can replace desc with whatever it deems necessary and will show exactly this information in the snippet for a specific request.
Method 3: Use special characters
If you think about it, we don’t have many options for how to stand out with a snippet, so as one of the extremes, we’ll immediately consider this method and point out its possible “side effect.” Easily added via a unique encoded text character code.
Full table of Unicode symbols: http://unicode-table.com/ru/sets/special-symbols/
It is possible to place special characters in the description and title of the page, but this should be done extremely carefully, observing moderation, otherwise it is easy to create a snippet that can be downright scary to click on:
Method 4: Use bread crumbs
For Google the most in a relevant way formation bread crumbs is the use of micro markup (semantic markup) Yandex automatically creates breadcrumbs, mainly based on the hierarchy used by the site. An example of using micro markup to form the necessary breadcrumbs in a snippet:
Important: After creating breadcrumbs or other micro markup, do not forget to check with a validator:
Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
Yandex: http://webmaster.yandex.ru/microtest.xml
Method 5: Draw a good favicon
- a small icon that is placed next to the search results, it is also placed in the site tab. Look up in your browser and look at the Habr tab: do you see favicon H? (your answers in the comments). You see the same favicon in search results with search results leading to Habr.
The favicon is the main visible element, invariably reflected on all snippets and for all ranking queries. If the favicon is made bright and attractive, then there is a high probability that, with your icon constantly appearing in front of their eyes, the next time the user will choose yours among other sites.
Important: favicon.ico must always be on the site!
Method 6: Specify the publication date
The publication date is shown when it is relevant to the user. For example, if we are talking about a blog snippet.
Important: If the site has a news feed or message feed, then you need to configure the formation of the URL so that it explicitly contains the date (/yyyy/mm/dd/ or /yyyy-mm-dd/)
Method 7: Edit Quick Links
Editing quick links in a Yandex snippet is possible from the site management account in Yandex.Webmaster.
Google, in turn, has a process for automatically adding links similar to Yandex, but unlike Yandex, it does not provide direct access to editing quick links, and can also lower the URL rating of an inappropriate link.
If the PS is sufficiently loyal to the site, the site has good behavioral and citation levels, then you can see a picture where Google adds its own unique descriptions to the main quick links:
In this case, the height of such a snippet is three times larger than the standard snippet, which makes it much more noticeable and clickable.
Method 8 (no longer relevant): Add social network icons
Although the integration of snippets with social networks is not relevant at the moment, we provide details of this “ancient” method in case search engines do return this feature.
Improved snippet display due to the presence of company social network icons has been available for some time. Adding icons was edited in the card I.Organizations website, in the “Links to social networks” tab. At the moment, there is no exact information about the life of the functionality for displaying social networks in the Yandex snippet. The only fact is that it existed and there is a high probability of its return, since the “Links to pages on social networks” tab still exists and there was no announcement of the closure of such an opportunity to inform the audience.
After launch social network Google+, in the snippets for some time there was a +1 icon for recommending the page to your friends and displaying recommendations from friends on Google+. Now the presence of this button on the site has more to do with behavior than with the snippet. However, we recommend that you add the button in any case. This is not difficult to do:/p>
Source: https://developers.google.com (here and full description of this process)
Method 9: Use Twitter and hashtags
Current information from Twitter is updated almost in real time. This fact allows us to distinguish this social network into a separate “constantly re-indexed” group of sites, which mainly contains news publications.
Important: we get the opportunity fast indexing, by publishing a link to the page we are interested in on Twitter.com.
If we want to quickly change the Title or Description of the snippet, after correcting these parameters on the site, it is best to inform the audience of your Twitter account about this event by adding a link to the ranking page between two popular tags like: #megaindex or #dentistry
Method 10: Add to Yandex.Directory
Yandex.Directory allows you to add an address and information about the organization, which can also ultimately be reflected in the snippet. This is currently possible for the following organizations:
For each type of organization, its own parameters are selected that are most interesting to users. For example, a snippet on a company’s official website might look like this:
All data about organizations is collected and edited in the Yandex.Organizations service and is displayed not only in snippets, but also in other Yandex services. Sign up For some specific topics, it is possible to display the Sign up button directly in the snippet.
Also, this button is available on Yandex.Map, but only for some clinics or beauty salons.
The recording is available for organizations that have entered into a cooperation agreement with Yandex partners:
For restaurants, cafes and other establishments
ZON , GetTable , LeClick , Reserve Online , Gourmetization , Restoran.ru , Tomesto , Menu.ru , Restaurant Rating
For clinics
InfoDoctor , DocDoc.Ru , Timetovisit , Clinics Online , YClients , GBooking , Timeliner , LookMedBook , Doctu.ru , GidPoZubam , Medihost
To book directly on the hotel website
wubbook , travelline
Method 11: Add to Yandex.Market
How can a store improve its snippets and attract visitors interested in purchasing to their website? The first is to simply upload your products to Yandex.Market, and then information about the products will be automatically “broadcast” to the search. The second (if participation in the Market is not interesting for a store for some reason) is to upload information about products via Yandex.Webmaster- it's completely free.
You can participate in the snippet improvement program if:
- Your website is an online store, a representative office of an offline store, a company providing services, or a site that aggregates offers from other companies.
- Your website is hosted on an English-language domain.
- The site presents a catalog of products/services and for each product/service there is a separate page on your site.
- The website provides contact and legal information about your company.
- Products in your store can be purchased by individuals at retail.
- You have read and agree to the requirements and conditions given in the section Terms of cooperation.
Method 12: Use Yandex.Services
To participate in the Yandex.Services affiliate program, you must provide information about, for example, what deposits and loans the bank considers necessary to place on the service. Transfer data about deposits and loans to Yandex by creating XML feed in a special format and place it on your website, specifying the path to the file in the form intended for this purpose Yandex.Webmaster service.
It is concluded with all partners Agreement on information cooperation.
Method 13: Share recipes correctly
For site pages with culinary recipes, a snippet can be generated containing structured information that helps the user quickly understand the features of your recipe and select the desired link among many identical headings.
To generate such a snippet, you will need to organize the transfer of data about your recipes to Yandex by creating XML feed in a special format, place it on the site and specify the path to the file in the form provided for this purpose Yandex.Webmaster service.
To create a snippet with photo recipes, you must place at least three illustrations + it is advisable to add semantic micro-marking in the format to the HTML code of the pages containing recipes hRecipe or Schema.org.
Method 14: Join the Yandex.Dictionaries affiliate program
In order to fully take advantage of the capabilities of the Yandex.Dictionaries service, you first need to study the requirements for partner sites by Yandex.
Sites containing a significant amount of dictionary and reference materials (hereinafter referred to as “articles”; the totality of articles is hereinafter referred to as a “dictionary”) are invited to join the affiliate program. The site as a whole, dictionaries, individual articles from them and the site pages on which the articles are posted must meet the requirements described below:
In the search results for pages with dictionary entries, a special snippet will be generated, which can also be enhanced with semantic micro-markup.
Method 15: Use special markup for your abstract
A special snippet may be displayed for pages describing your abstract. This snippet includes those attributes of the abstract that are important for the user when making a decision about uploading: heading, type of work (abstract, term paper, diploma, report), date added, number of downloads, abstract or table of contents.
For which sites and pages is it possible to create a special snippet?
Method 16: Post vacancies correctly
Participation in the Yandex.Work affiliate program allows you to significantly increase traffic to recruiting sites and partially expand the target audience.
If you are the owner or administrator of such a site, first of all you need to study the requirements for a potential participant in the Yandex program.
Method 17: Snippet and reviews
At the moment, special snippets for Yandex are generated only for reviews about cars.
There are several ways to include ratings in Google reviews. Often, you just need to indicate next to the reviews /*Rating: 4.5*/ and this will be enough to place a rating in the reviews.
Regardless of the scoring method you choose, you can convey this information using microdata, microformats, or RDFa (or Resource Description Framework in Attributes) markup.
RDFa is a way of marking up content to describe a special type of data, such as a restaurant review, an event, a person, or product data. These data types are called entities or elements. Each entity has a number of properties. For example, the person entity includes properties such as name, address, job title, place of work, and email address.
Good afternoon, dear readers.
Today there will be an interesting article that will show you how to use snippets more rationally to increase traffic to your resource.
Naturally, you will learn how to compose it correctly and what are the features of formation in both search engines(Yandex and Google).
We'll start with a definition and look at examples in Yandex and Google.
What is a snippet and its examples
A snippet is a small fragment of text description of a specific website page, designed to give the visitor information about the page that he can visit. By and large, this is the most relevant piece of text that is taken out of the text or description of a page to more accurately show the user what the page is about and whether they will get an answer to their question.
The snippet in the search results has a very important role in promotion, since it directly affects one of the most important behavioral factors- CTR, that is, click-through rate in search results.
The more attractive it is and the more accurately it conveys the content of the page, the more visitors we can attract. We will also not attract visitors who are not interested in our content, since this piece of text will show them that the page will not give them the answer they need. They will not follow such a link and thus will not increase.
If we take the most interesting search engines for us, Yandex and Google, the snippets in them have some differences and the tools for increasing the click-through rate of our resource among others will also differ. We will consider them further.
In Google, the snippet is formed quite simply and has the following form.
In Yandex, the snippet is a little more interesting.
As you can see, in addition to the 3 main elements, there is also a favicon, that is, an icon displayed next to the link. This is also a very important point and should definitely be used to increase the click-through rate of our resource in Yandex search results.
How to write correctly to increase click-through rates
First, you should understand that in Yandex and Google there are differences in the formation of the snippet, which forces you to take appropriate measures for its correct display in the issue.
As for Google, everything is simpler with it, since this search engine takes into the search results that piece of text that we indicate in the page description in the description meta tag. Filling out this meta tag becomes available when installing one of the plugins SEO optimization(for example, all in one seo pack, wordpress seo by yoast or platinum seo pack).
As for Yandex, the page description is not indicative for it and this PS can itself determine the most relevant fragment to the user’s request, which quite possibly will not increase the click-through rate, but even lower it.
Yandex tries to include in the snippet that fragment of text that contains the largest number of keywords, and this is not bad, because the presence of a keyword in the text of the snippet will increase its click-through rate. This also gives us some kind of snippet management tool in Yandex. More on this below.
And now there are 4 key points in compiling a snippet for all search engines:
If you look at the snippet that I took as an example above, then all 4 rules are met and this fragment of the page description gives a clear idea that on this page the user will learn how to install Yandex metrics on the site. This can be seen in the title, in the address, and in a small text fragment.
Now let's get back to some of the delicate aspects of compilation in both search engines.
By one of these delicate points I mean the length of the page title and its description. It is very important that the keyword in the title is fully contained and that the description is not cut off so that the idea of the page is fully conveyed.
Try to fit the title into 60-70 characters, and the description in Yandex and Google have significant differences. Yandex can take the most relevant piece of text up to 240 characters, and Google no more than 160 characters.
I always stick to writing a description that contains the keyword and is limited to 160 characters. By the way, for Google the length will be a little shorter, since the description will be cut off due to the presence of a date near the text in the search results.
Since some snippets do not contain this date, it is most likely that it can be removed somehow. But the date can provide a significant boost to traffic if the relevance of information in your niche is constantly changing. A later publication date will show the visitor that your information is more relevant at this point in time than on other resources.
For example, in some topics, when searching for information, I look at the date of publication to find out how relevant the information is. It is very important to display the date in software, where programs are constantly updated and it is necessary to recognize their features in the newest versions.
Snippet management in Yandex
I wrote above that a snippet in Yandex has its own characteristics when determining the most relevant text in order to insert it as a brief description of the page. This point can be controlled by compiling a description of the page and its text so that its specific part is as relevant and dense as possible to the search query. keywords was maximum. In this case, Yandex will consider such a fragment of text the most suitable and will throw it into the snippet.
This kind of fraud has long been known and is carried out quite simply. All you have to do is place a small fragment in the text, compiled according to a certain rule.
Key word + a couple of words to end the sentence. New sentence + keyword + possibly more words.
Such a structure contains at least one keyword, which must be located at the very beginning of the text fragment and description, as well as the same keyword at the end of the fragment. The second key can be used in another word form to reduce the risk of over-optimization.
Also make sure that such a piece of text fits into the required length of the snippet.
I can give you this snippet as an example so that you have an idea of how it should be done. Let me take the keyword “Guitar” as an example.
The guitar is the most popular musical instrument among young people. If you want to learn how to play beautiful music, then you definitely need a guitar.
If there is no other piece of text on the page that contains more frequent use of keywords, then this particular option may end up in the page description in search results.
I would also like to say that if you do not have an analytical base and the ability to track the formation of a text fragment for the pages of your resource, then I would not recommend using this moment in manipulation, since no one has yet lifted the sanctions and it is quite possible to get caught.
In addition, such a fragment of text already implies the presence of 1-2 key phrases, which may be unacceptable for some queries. There are queries for which most of the pages (or all) in the TOP results do not contain the key in a direct occurrence even once. In this case, using a key phrase at least once in the text can already bring into question the reality of its entry into the TOP.
To do this, you should definitely do an analysis of competitors’ pages from the top ten search results in order to find out the number of keywords used on the page for a specific request. If there are quite a lot of keys, then it is quite possible to use this option for managing the snippet for the Yandex search engine.
But you must understand that when forming such a fragment of text, you need to rely on readability. The text should under no circumstances contain an extra keyword if it is explicitly used for manipulation and makes it unreadable.
Let's move on to the last question of this material, which will clearly allow you to think about it and use the technical points that I will describe below.
Advanced points in creating a snippet to increase click-through rates
In addition to standard knowledge in correctly filling out the necessary data to increase click-through rates, there are also more advanced aspects that allow you to make your snippet more clickable than sites in the first positions, even if your resource is in the 5th or 7th-8th. But this is a very powerful signal to search engines if your resource gets better clicks than sites from the TOP-3.
To achieve this effect, it was previously possible to confirm authorship in the search engine. Google system, which made it possible to display an avatar from social Google network+ in issue.
Only thanks to such an avatar I managed to get about 50% click-through rate on my previous blog. Out of 1000 page impressions for one request, I received 500 clicks, which is just a crazy indicator. In addition, for some of these requests I received about 30 visitors a day, when, according to keyword statistics from Yandex Wordstat, it should bring a maximum of 3-5 visitors. Such a beautiful snippet paid off.
Quite a long time ago, Google canceled this option of rich snippets and we had to move with the times. New tools have appeared, namely:
- Rich snippets;
- Video snippet;
- Rating in the snippet.
Rich snippets have a place in both Yanlex and Google. They show quick links to individual sections of the resource, company address, and even a location on the map.
Here is an example in Yandex.
And here's what it looks like on Google.
This option has recently become very relevant and I advise you to implement it. But this requires some technical skills and markup of your site using microdata or microformats. I will tell you how to do all this in other articles.
The next very interesting and most attractive option is a video snippet, which next to the description shows a small graphic frame from the video (preview) if you use it on this page.
This option is very cool, since in addition to increasing the click-through rate, the visitor also understands that a video on the topic is waiting for him on the page. Who doesn't like watching videos these days?
The implementation of this option also requires some technical skills and features, since the video snippet is not generated by itself. You should do it yourself and point it out to search engines. But this has an effect.
The last option that will increase the CTR of a resource in search results is a star rating for each page.
As you can see, this attracts attention.
Another subtle point is the micro-markup of breadcrumbs using schema.org microdata, so that the snippet does not contain a link, but a clear navigation chain. In the image above you can see the differences between this type of link in the SERP and a simple link.
You can combine all these options. Of course, you will have to suffer if you are not strong in all this. In all cases with rich snippets, micro markup is required that will point search engines to all important elements of the resource.
Little by little I will show how to implement all this on your resources. The next step will be material about the implementation of micro markup. I have it done a long time ago and some more. There are no difficulties in its implementation.
If anyone knows how to make video snippets, please post in the comments. Does anyone have links to good instructions? If so, then I will only be grateful and wait for you in the comments.
This concludes this material and I hope it was useful to you.
But I forgot about one point that is also worth considering. It concerns the use of the site icon in the search results. Another way to increase click-through rates is to use a bright red or orange icon. These colors attract attention.
Very often they resort to using various triangles in the first couple of days of a site’s existence, until they have their own unique logo. When the site already has a rating in the eyes of search engines and is well visited, you need to change the favicon, since assessors will inevitably pay attention to your resource and consider using an icon that is too bright as a manipulation to increase click-through rates.
That's all for sure. I hope that the material was useful. If anything, I'm in the comments. Bye.
Best regards, Konstantin Khmelev!
“Advanced” optimizers know: to get targeted traffic to a website, getting into the search TOP is not enough.
If your site is presented with an irrelevant description in the search results, it is unlikely that it will be able to boast of profitable orders.
Compare two descriptions for the query “trip to Turkey”.
First: Türkiye is a country where everyone has dreamed of visiting, and it is not surprising that many tourists are increasingly purchasing last-minute trips to Turkey.
Second: Last minute tours to Turkey, Egypt. More than 700 million offers from budget to luxury. Today at 17:00 there was a drawing for a trip to Turkey for two.
Which snippet sells and which one talks about banal truths?
Roughly speaking, the Internet audience can be divided into two large groups: those who want to buy and those who want to find out. And if the main task of your business resource is to sell a product or service, then the target traffic (to a greater extent) will be representatives of the first group.
When we know and understand the basic needs of a potential audience, we can influence their motivation using a snippet: provide in the site description those arguments that will encourage the cherished movement - clicking on a link from the search results.
This is where two main questions arise: 1. How to make a snippet selling. 2. How to draw the attention of snippet robots to it?
What should a snippet do?
First, let's go over the tasks that the snippet should perform. Without this understanding, it will be difficult for us to choose the right tools to influence the audience.
- Sell a product or service.
- Work on the image of the company, person, brand.
- Fight negativity.
- Give a specific answer to a search query.
As you can see, the snippet’s objectives directly depend on the business objectives of your project: selling, informing, building an image.
A competent snippet = high CTR (click-through rate), a large percentage of lead visitors, good site browsing depth, a low bounce rate.
By the way, after the cancellation of the link in Yandex (so far only in Moscow), it is these indicators (the so-called behavioral factor) that affect the ranking of the site in the search network.
What does the snippet consist of?
A snippet (information about a site in search results) consists of two parts: a title (Title) and a description (Description).
With the title, everything is simple: it is formed from the “Title” meta tag, which is filled in the site’s administrative panel using special plugins for optimization.
The average title length in Yandex and Google is 65 characters (11 words). Our colleague Sergei Sosnovsky conducted an interesting experiment on the length of “titles”, in which he derived this figure. If interested, check out the results
In the Google search network, the second part of the snippet (description) is formed in two ways:
- If there is no completed Description meta tag, the robot will automatically use any text fragment that best matches the search query;
- If there is a completed Description meta tag, then it becomes the descriptive part of the snippet.
The description for Yandex is more difficult. The robot can take it not only from the “Description” meta tag, but also from the text on the site (even from different fragments), from fragments of the Yandex Catalog, DMOZ (if your resource is presented here).
And our task is for the snippet writer to select the text fragment that is interesting, first of all, to us.
In addition to these two parts, the snippet consists of system add-ons, the so-called additional fragments for the design of the snippet. Some of them we can create using special resources, and some are generated automatically.
We'll get back to them a little later.
How to “feed” the required text to the Yandex snippet engine?
This is a very important part of the article. Agree, you can write a super-selling snippet, but if it is not designed according to the rules, then it is unlikely to get into the search results.
Therefore, be patient, now there will be tips, the implementation of which requires painstakingness, perseverance and a thirst for experimentation.
Important! Here we provide general information that may influence the choice of Yandex robots. It does not guarantee that the desired text fragment will become a descriptive part of the snippet the first time.
The rule is: try, try and try again.
- Fill in the “Description” meta tag. If it is designed correctly, there is a high chance that this particular text block will be included in the snippet.
- In “Description” the key phrase in the exact occurrence should be in the first place. Further synonyms search query accompanied by relevant words (buy, price, sale, review and so on).
- “Title” and “Description” are formatted differently. And they should not be duplicated throughout the site.
- The size of the “Description” for Yandex is 160 characters with spaces, for Google - 140.
- In order for the snippet engine to “take” the required information block from the text of the Internet page, it must also be formatted correctly.
- This block should have the highest density of keywords in direct occurrence (compared to the rest of the text on the site page). Adjacent sentences should be short and without key phrases.
- To increase the chances of being included in the snippet, you can enter key phrases in indirect occurrences (inflections, prepositions) in the rest of the text.
- The snippet editor can take text fragments from areas of increased attention: the first paragraph of the text; headings and subheadings, formatted with H1, H2 tags.
As you can see, you need to try very hard to please the robot responsible for snippets. And even if all the conditions are met, there is no 100% guarantee that the exact fragment on which you are betting will appear in the search results.
(Tip: check snippets using special services. For example: Netpeak Spider)
How to make a snippet sell?
We've finally moved on to copywriting!
When we know what a “snippet” is and how it gets into the search results, we can compose the correct text for it, which:
- Will attract the attention of users with the help of special words-arguments;
- Will give a clear answer to the search query;
- Will win against competitors (for this you need to carefully study them);
- Generates targeted traffic.
Let's look at a few examples to show the importance of snippet copywriting in practice. We use a highly competitive query " trip to Turkey».
Example No. 1.
Here the compilers of the snippet are trying to influence using the words “huge”, “most”. But you and I already know that these words themselves mean nothing. We need facts, arguments, evidence.
What's attractive here? The phrase " low prices», « in 2014», « last minute trip to Turkey from Kyiv from February 27 at 19:10».
Example No. 2.
Here we are convinced by numbers: from $328, from $450, from $959. And an avid traveler will immediately determine the value of these offers for his pocket. Specifics and facts are the most convincing arguments.
Example No. 3.
This announcement also motivates with facts: “ there are 1305 hotels in the database», « 4296 last minute tours" The main thing is that the numbers correspond to reality.
Example No. 4.
The title is valuable here. Pay attention to the phrase " direct flights Türkiye - Kharkov." This is a specific advantage included in the Title. Which the rest of the snippets, unfortunately, don’t have.
Let's summarize the block. When composing text for your snippet, use:
- “hot spots” for buyers: timing of service provision, favorable price, interesting delivery conditions, assortment, decent work experience, unique product or service, and so on;
- Motivating words-arguments: free shipping, 10-year warranty, promotion, discount, hot offer, savings, new product, etc.;
- A unique selling proposition that sets you apart from your competitors;
- Place the emphasis sentence with the key phrase first;
- Don't forget the numbers. They work especially well in snippets.
For details on how to compose selling text for a snippet, see the issue “ From scratch", in which Denis Kaplunov talks about scenarios for creating a contextual ad. These techniques can also be used when writing a snippet.
How to graphically distinguish a snippet from competitors?
In addition to text, a snippet in the general search results feed can be highlighted using special add-ons:
- address, contact numbers and office opening hours;
- List of social networks;
- Quick links to sections of the site;
- Site region;
- Detailed information about the product or service (not for all types of business).
Let's summarize
To make a snippet selling, you need to carefully consider two points:
- Comply with the conditions for proper design of the snippet so that it is noticed by a special Yandex robot;
- In 160 characters, include the selling summary of a specific page of a business resource, taking into account the optimization requirements.
The task is not easy. But as we found out above, a competent snippet is a direct path to targeted traffic, and therefore to profit.
P.S. Creating a snippet is just the tip of the sales iceberg. What follows development of page content, so that its content becomes a logical continuation of the information presented in the snippet.
“Denis Kaplunov Studio” fulfilled orders to create selling snippets. We are happy to help you too. by filling out a special feedback form.
Snippet optimization has always been a very important point for website SEO promotion. With the innovation of the Yandex “behavioral factors” algorithm, their role has become even greater. In this article you will get acquainted with the following questions:
1. What is a snippet in search results?
Snippet- this is a brief description of the site in the search engine results, located between the page title (