A practical guide on how to write for featured snippets

You know that little answer box that pops up at the top of Google when you ask a question? That's a featured snippet. For anyone doing SEO, it's pretty much the top prize. It's called "position zero" because it sits right above the number one result, grabbing a huge slice of the clicks.

How huge? Well, a featured snippet can get the highest click-through rate on the page, sometimes as high as 42.9%. That's a lot of traffic. Landing your content in that spot gives you a major boost in visibility and authority, and you don't even have to beat the #1 ranked site to do it.

This guide is a straightforward playbook for winning those spots. We'll cover finding the right keywords, formatting your content so Google notices, and how tools like the eesel AI blog writer can help you create content ready for today's snippets and the AI-powered search of tomorrow.

What are featured snippets and why do they matter?

A featured snippet is basically Google's attempt to answer your question directly on the results page, so you don't have to go digging. It scans the web, finds what it considers the best answer, and puts it in a special box at the very top.

And they're more common than you might think. An Ahrefs study found that over 12% of searches have a featured snippet. That's millions of chances to get your content seen.

I know what you're thinking: "If Google gives the answer, why would they click my article?" It's a good point. While the snippet itself gets around 8.6% of clicks, having it makes you look like the authority on the subject. It can even steal clicks from the actual #1 result. Winning the snippet means you've won the user's trust before they even visit your site.

You'll see four main types of snippets out in the wild, each for a different kind of search:

• Paragraphs: These are the most common. They pop up for "what is" or "why is" questions and give a quick, dictionary-style answer.
• Lists: Great for how-to guides, recipes, or top-10 lists. They can be numbered for steps or bulleted for simple lists.
• Tables: When a search involves comparing data, like prices or features, Google can pull info from an HTML table on a page and display it neatly.
• Videos: For "how-to" searches that are better shown than told, Google will often feature a YouTube video and link to the exact moment the answer appears.

  

The key thing to get is that you can't just ask Google for a featured snippet. Its algorithm decides what gets featured. Your job is to make your content so clear and well-organized that Google can't help but pick it.

Finding keyword opportunities

You can't win a snippet if you don't know where to look. The good news is that snippets usually show up for long-tail keywords and questions. Think "how to tie a tie" instead of just "ties." These are less competitive and tell you exactly what the user wants to know.

But here's the catch: you pretty much have to be on the first page of Google already. An Ahrefs analysis showed that 99.58% of featured snippets come from pages ranking in the top 10. So, the best place to start is by optimizing the content you already have that's doing well, not chasing brand new keywords.

Here are a couple of ways to find these opportunities.

Manual research in the search results

This is the easiest way and doesn't require any fancy tools. Just start Googling questions related to your industry. Keep an eye out for the "People Also Ask" (PAA) boxes. These are the exact questions your audience is asking, and each one is a potential snippet you could win.

For instance, if you sell coffee beans, a search for "how to make cold brew" might bring up a PAA box with questions like:

• What is the best ratio for cold brew?
• Do you need to stir cold brew?
• How long should cold brew steep?

Answering these directly in your content is a solid strategy.

Using SEO tools to speed things up

If you want to find opportunities faster, SEO tools are the way to go. Platforms like Ahrefs and Semrush can show you which of your keywords are already triggering a snippet for one of your competitors.

You can filter your keyword reports in these tools to find keywords where a snippet exists, you're on page one, but you don't own it. This is your list of quick wins. You're already a contender, you just need to tweak your content to be a little better than the current snippet holder. I'd start with keywords where you rank between positions 2 and 5, since a small change there can have a big impact.

Structuring and formatting your content

Once you've got your keywords, it's all about how you structure your content. This is where a lot of people miss the mark. It's not enough to just have the right info; you have to present it in a way that Google's algorithm can easily grab. The bonus is that good structure for bots usually means a better reading experience for people, too.

Write direct answers

To get a paragraph snippet, you have to answer the question right away. Be direct. A Semrush study found the average paragraph snippet is about 40-60 words long, so keep it short and sweet.

How I grab them is to provide a 250-320 character paragraph near the top of the page that completely answers the question.

Reddit

The easiest way to do this is to use the question as a heading (an H2 or H3) and put the short, definitional answer right below it.

For example, if you're going after "what is content marketing," your HTML might look like this:

<h2>What is content marketing?</h2> <p>Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience, and ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.</p>

Keep the tone objective and factual, like a dictionary definition. Save your opinions and extra details for later in the article.

Use clean formatting for lists and tables

For lists and tables, clean formatting is everything.

• For step-by-step guides: Give each step its own heading (H3s are good for this) and be consistent. For instance, "Step 1: Gather Your Ingredients," "Step 2: Mix the Dough," etc. Google is smart enough to pull these headings and turn them into a numbered list snippet.
• For tables: If you're showing data like pricing or feature comparisons, use a standard HTML <table> tag. Google can pull data from well-made tables to create a table snippet. Just keep the table simple, as things like merged cells can throw the algorithm off.

Answer "People Also Ask" questions

Here's a great tip: don't just aim for one snippet per article. A single, well-written post can win dozens. The "People Also Ask" box is a goldmine of related questions you should be answering.

You can add a mini-FAQ section to your post or just work the answers into the main body of the text. For every question from the PAA box, use the question as an H3 heading and give a direct answer right underneath. This works so well because you're literally handing Google the answers it's looking for, which can help you capture multiple featured snippets from one page.

Using AI to write for featured snippets

Let's be honest, trying to manually research, write, and format every article to be perfect for snippets is a huge amount of work. Optimizing a few posts is manageable, but if you want to do this at scale, it gets out of hand quickly.

This is where AI content platforms can be a big help. They can produce well-structured articles much faster, making sure every post is built for search from the start.

Automating the process with the eesel AI blog writer

The eesel AI blog writer is more than just a text generator. It's built to create complete, publish-ready articles that already include all the snippet-friendly formatting we've been talking about.

Here’s how it helps you get more featured snippets without the manual grind:

• It generates assets automatically: The tool can create tables for comparisons, lists for guides, and even infographics. These are the kinds of things Google looks for when creating table and list snippets.
• It does real research: Instead of just writing filler content, it researches the topic to find the direct, factual answers you need for paragraph snippets.
• It's optimized for AEO: Search is moving towards Answer Engine Optimization, and featured snippets are just one part of that. The eesel AI blog writer is already set up to create content for the next wave of AI answer engines from Google and others, so your content will be ready for the future.

We actually used this tool to grow our own traffic here at eesel AI. By publishing over 1,000 AI-generated blogs, we jumped from 700 to 750,000 daily impressions in only three months.

It's also completely free to try. You can see how it structures content for search and start going after those "position zero" rankings. Feel free to generate your first article and see for yourself.

Reading about these techniques is one thing, but seeing them in action can provide another level of clarity. For a visual walkthrough on how to apply these strategies, check out this helpful video that breaks down the process of optimizing content for featured snippets.

A video tutorial on how to find and optimize your website for featured snippets.

Final thoughts

Getting featured snippets isn't some secret SEO hack. It really just comes down to a simple formula: get on the first page, target keywords that show what a user really wants, and format your content so Google can't miss the answer.

The main idea is to answer the user's question as clearly and directly as possible. If you make it easy for the reader, you're making it easy for Google.

While this does mean paying close attention to structure and formatting, you don't have to do all the heavy lifting yourself. Using the right tools can save you a ton of time and help you create content that's ready to win snippets every time. Now you have the playbook, so go out and claim that "position zero" spot.