SEO News Roundup: Google Publishes Guide To Featured Snippets

The latest in industry updates from the world of SEO, including Google’s latest advice on featured snippets.

Google Publishes Guide To Featured Snippets

Google has published a new guide to featured snippets, reintroducing the importance of creating content that specifically targets position 0.

The blog published by the search engine giant details what exactly featured snippets are, the varying ways that snippets interact across desktop, mobile and in voice search results.

The advice from Google suggests that featured snippets are becoming increasingly important for voice search results as the traditional link format of search results won’t translate well via voice results.

Google software engineer, Matthew Gray, commented:

There are often legitimate diverse perspectives offered by publishers, and we want to provide users visibility and access into those perspectives from multiple sources.

Is Another Google Algorithm Update On The Horizon?

At the end of January, some SEOs starting speculating, once again, that a Google algorithm update may have been affecting their site’s visibility.

In the forums, some SEOs have been commenting on changes in organic performance:

Anyone seeing another bump or drop in traffic yesterday/today? We are up 15% today. Yesterday ended 12% up.

We’re not dropping anymore, don’t really see a bump though. At least not yet.

Seeing a nice upswing over here, would be nice to see it stick, but it usually drops back down again.

Have you noticed any changes in your site’s performance?

Does Google Work Out Reading Levels?

In a recent Google Hangout, John Mueller was asked about how Google goes about grading or calculating the reading level of content.

Here’s Barry Schwartz’s take on John’s response:

Sometimes having a super high reading level is not always the best thing for your content. This is because if you have super scientific or technical terms and the average reader has no clue what it means, how is that going to help you rank for what the average user is searching for?

According to Google, the team is still working on an algorithm that can calculate reading level metrics.

Whiteboard Friday – Writing For SEO In 2018

Last week, Rand Fishkin took us back in time.

He helped us discover the ancient SEO content writing techniques that are dangerously out of date and should be avoided, plus a 5-step process for kick-ass SEO content that will be sure to get you at the top of SERPs going forwards.

Watch Rand’s latest video and discover more…

More SEO News and Advice

Read our previous SEO News Roundup: Google Algorithm Potentially Updated 15^th January

Concerned about your site’s organic rankings? Get in touch with our team of SEO management experts – we can provide you with advice on how to build a solid SEO strategy that will increase rankings and drive traffic to your site.