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Text messaging has become one of the most popular modes of communication, and it’s not just for teenagers or young people who have grown up in the information age. Texting has also become an effective marketing tool for businesses across myriad industries.

Step up your PT marketing plan with text messaging, and take advantage of one of the simplest ways to keep in touch with clients and prospects. When you reach out to clients on their digital devices, you increase the likelihood of getting a response, growing your practice one message at a time. Read on to learn how to use texting to your advantage.

Keep it Simple

Texting is convenient because people today typically keep their phones or devices within arm’s reach. You can maximize your texting outreach campaign by keeping your messages short and sweet. 

Most people react to text messages in the same way they interact on social media—long messages are generally considered a turnoff. Wordy messages coming from an unknown number are likely to go unread and be deleted. To use texting successfully, let them know who you are and get right to the heart of their needs with just a few sentences.

Be Relatable

A down-to-earth message can go a long way in making text recipients feel like you understand them. Start with a short greeting that includes your practice name. If you’re reminding them of an upcoming appointment, be sure to tell them you look forward to seeing them. To promote a special deal, or a new product or service, phase your message as an invitation to take advantage of a great opportunity.

Incorporate Healthcare SEO

Getting more real-time engagement with your clients and prospects is not the only advantage of texting. You may also get a bump in your overall search engine optimization (SEO). As recipients read your messages and click on the embedded links, it will drive more traffic to your website and other online assets.

Be sure to include links to your articles, landing pages, and website, to entice readers to engage with your content. The more visitors you have, the more relevant your practice will appear when it comes to Google ranking.

Use a Texting Schedule

One message is not enough to nudge your recipients into action. You need to court them over time, with the right messaging at the right times. The best way to do this is to create a texting schedule. Sending messages too often might annoy some people, and sending them too infrequently may cause them to forget about you.

Spread out your text messages no more than seven days apart. If you have an upcoming event or appointment, you can temporarily increase the frequency of texting until your last reminder prior to the event.

Time Your Messages Well

The last thing people want is a marketing call or message during dinner, late at night, or early in the morning when they’re getting geared up for work. The best times to send text messages are generally between noon and 3:00 pm. Weekend afternoons are also considered especially good times, since most people are free then, and more likely to read and respond to your messages.

HIPAA: Protect Client Data No Matter What

Whenever you share your client’s data over an electronic medium, you need to maintain compliance with HIPAA standards. Texting is no different. Make your clients aware that you are doing everything you can to guard their protected health information, and be sure to include automated consent forms before releasing their health info via text.

Put Texting on Autopilot

As a business owner, you understand the power of automation and the importance of streamlining your activities. For texting, use services like Front.com that let you schedule and send text messages using your email. Automated texting makes things easy for your employees who are already online all day to send and respond to text messages without switching devices. 

Front.com will keep a record of all text conversations for you, and store them all in one place for easy access. That way, if a client communicates by text with different employees, your staff can pull up their records to get all the info they need.

Get Ready to Engage

Texting shows recipients that you are available to listen to them and address their questions and problems — so long as you are responsive. Think about delegating the task of replying to texts to a trusted staff member, so clients’ messages get a response as soon as they come in.

Most people use texting to quickly volley questions and answers between parties, so provide your designated texter with a cheat sheet of quick responses. When a client requires a more in-depth response, that’s the perfect time to invite them into your practice for a consultation.  

Scripts Make Things Easier

Scripts are a great tool for automation that helps you streamline text messaging with your clients and prospects. Maintain a list of common answers to frequent questions that your staff can refer to for quick responses. Provide cheat sheets or handy cue cards to make it easy for your staff to respond within the ideal 10–15-minute window.  

Analyze Your Results

Use analytics tools like PatientPop to keep track of your campaigns, and to identify which links are generating the most clicks. With this information, you can see which promotions, times of day, or messages are most appealing to recipients.

Contact the Pros for Help

As patients’ preferred modes of communicating evolve, your physical therapy marketing strategy should be flexible enough to keep pace. The pros at Clever Solution are web development experts who can help you cultivate a stellar text marketing strategy that helps you grow your practice.

The post Healthcare: Use Text Messaging to Grow Your Practice appeared first on noupe.

The cloud has probably impacted the future of business more than any other single factor. When attempting to effect a digital transformation from traditional on-premises hardware, the 24/7 data availability undoubtedly is of tremendous benefit, but a constantly moving perimeter brings with it increased security challenges.

If there is one thing that the Covid-19 pandemic taught, is that with increased operational flexibility and remote work, attack surfaces, insecure data transfers, and even compliance issues also increased tenfold. Security challenges to physical business premises also increased with either ill-intentioned incursions or health and hygiene issues.

The importance of cloud security is now front and center for any website designer or developer. Building and managing a web design service can be challenging as it is, but any service needs to focus on a client’s needs and be able to customize offerings. 

Integrated cloud security systems become fundamental in web design and development because even a single intrusion can create havoc for a client and have repercussions for your own design business. You may lose clients and even be penalized in search results.

What Is a Cloud-Based Security System?

When considering cloud security, we are referring to a variety of technologies and procedures that have been formulated to protect a business against both internal and external security threats. With the digital transformation of businesses across the globe and the increased use of cloud-based tools, the security of technology becomes a necessary part of any business infrastructure.

The technological optimization of business organization brings with it new security challenges. Undoubtedly, cloud-based tools improve both the capabilities and flexibility of a business’ on-premises physical structure, but if these capabilities are not secure, there can be grave consequences. 

10 Key Reasons to Select Cloud-Based Security Solutions 

1. Data Security

Data security is one of the top issues, if not the number one concern, for both companies and consumers. The protection of privacy and personal as well as financial data is the basis of trust between a company and its clients. The increase in the use of personal devices has allowed for an increase in attacks.

Cloud-based security solutions can protect the entire lifecycle of data through encryption, safe passwords, MFA – multi-factor authentication and continually tested backups. The integration of multi-factor authentication featuring several levels of authentication is designed to increase an organization’s level of protection.  

Web designers must protect personal data and payment information from data breaches, data loss, cross-site scripting intrusions, and DDoS attacks whether volume, protocol, or application layer attacks.

2. Threat Management

Cloud-based security will be applied to all organizational endpoints such as access points and ports, applications, devices, etc. Cloud-based solutions will include a central management hub with all security procedures integrated onto a single platform. 

Necessities such as visibility, the monitoring of internet-based security attacks, physical property intrusion, logistical management, access point and video management of physical properties, fire, and smoke detection, can all be managed from a single platform that is directly connected to law enforcement and emergency service providers, and it will be active 24/7 for 365 days a year. 

3. System and Cost Scalability

One of the principal benefits to cloud-based systems is scalability. Security can be scaled to specific needs for security coverage, capacity, and eventual fluctuations in an organization’s demands. The expenses incurred will vary with the organization’s needs. If you have seasonal high traffic, the server capacity will be increased to avoid crashes and meet operational requirements. If the company has a period of scaled back activity, expenses will be reduced as well.

4. Automatic Compliance with Regulatory Demands

Regulated industries and sectors have a constant concern to comply with regulatory requirements, updates, and modifications, especially when dealing with privacy and data security. Cloud-based security systems are continually updated to comply with federal and local regulatory requirements. 

5. Technological Support

A principal and debilitating problem with physical onsite security solutions can be a complete system failure and the amount of time required for repair. Cloud-based security solutions can keep a system up and functioning even if single components may fail. The constant technological monitoring, failover protocols, and geo-redundancy are all designed to avoid system failure and interruption. System monitoring permits host providers to address problems immediately.

When designing, a complete support system needs to be integrated affording clients 24/7 protection. Building in redundancies can ensure that a clients web service is always up and running with built-in preventative security measures. A specific process has been designed into the system to step in and repair any potential security challenge.

6. DDoS -Distributed Denial of Service

Ill-intentioned hackers target an organization’s computer system by flooding it with numerous requests simultaneously. Websites automatically will slow for loading and risk crashing as request numbers exceed site limits. Cloud-based security systems will look for, identify, and stop bulk traffic that is suspected of targeting an organization’s servers. This means preventing downtime that will inevitably cost a company money. 

7. Updates and Maintenance

One of the principal causes for viruses and malware infections is unpatched software. For many organizations it’s quite difficult to maintain software updated when occupied with daily operations. This allows for disruptions, loss of data, and occasionally falling prey to ransomware. Cloud-based hosting providers install patches and update software continually, meaning organizations will not experience any system downtime. 

Automated updates and alerts facilitate rapid responses to hackers and cybercrime. Security credentials can also be updated without any delay. Cloud-based systems feature advanced automation that can be used to monitor and control workflows and people flow.  The possibility to integrate cloud-based systems with physical location security data will improve an organization’s overall security thus lessening vulnerabilities, saving time, and avoiding attacks that can affect operations.

8. Data Recovery 

Human error, power outages, and natural disasters can all lead to the loss of data. While organizations should be prepared with a Disaster Recovery Plan, that should also be tested at regular intervals, many do not. A cloud-based security system will store data in an entirely different location that benefits from automatic backups and around the clock security and surveillance.

9. Flexibility and Remote Management

The remote management of security tools using cloud-based platforms can also meet physical security needs. Management will be able to access, modify, and offer quick responses to issues that arise. 

Cloud-based systems do not require a physical server. Data can be managed from any location as long as there is an internet connection. Less space is needed at physical premises for an infrastructure that might eventually be compromised due to component failure, natural disaster, or the ill-intentioned. Cloud-based security management facilitates an organization’s remote operations and enables an immediate response to any type of security need. 

10. Integration of IOT Devices and Artificial Intelligence 

Wireless devices vary in capabilities from managing smart locks and RFID door readers, to smart lighting, which can all be managed from a cloud-based security system. Monitoring and sending alerts are rapid and easy. Cloud-based security systems also can host artificial intelligence programs to permit the recognition of specific threats and undesirable behaviors rapidly and alert to security risks allowing for quicker intervention.

In Conclusion

Traditional working methods have been challenged by globalization, technological advancements, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Traditional on-premises hardware alone is no longer up to the challenges posed. Fortunately, the advancement of technology has also provided cloud-based security solutions to contrast threats and mitigate risks management.

While web design naturally focuses on performance, cloud security can no longer be an afterthought. Cloud security now more than ever requires security being built into platforms from day one.

Cloud security design permits customers to maintain a secured IT structure despite adding new capabilities or the rapidity of operations, and they will not be able to be easily or readily bypassed or compromised. Because cloud environments are complex and the speed of applications have increased, incorporating security into development and design from the beginning is one of the best tools available for guaranteeing cybersecurity.

The post 10 Reasons to Choose a Cloud-based Security Solution appeared first on noupe.

What determines the success of your company? Is it your social media following? Or the number of trial users, perhaps? 

While these contribute to a company’s success, without user feedback, they are not sustainable—therefore, not profitable. You can watch the graph going up; however, to actually achieve long-term success, you must listen to what your users are saying and implement necessary changes to improve their experience.

In this article, we will guide you through different types of user feedback, and how you can collect and analyze it to maximize the longevity of your product or app.

What is User Feedback?

User feedback is all the information and data directly gathered from your users regarding their reactions and experiences with your products, apps, services or websites. This feedback can be collected in various ways, such as through Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) or Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys. User feedback or customer feedback reveals valuable insights into user experience and level of satisfaction.

Why Do You Need User Feedback?

Feedback from users is the bread and butter of product teams. Scheduling 1:1 interviews, creating custom forms and polls or embedding surveys in your app or service is the best way to notice early trends to improve your product and provide better value for your customers.

Understanding what makes customers happy and making product decisions according to their responses ensures increasing the number of returning customers who will gladly spread the word about your services and attract new potential users.

Investing in user feedback may seem daunting initially, but the results will help you reach your long-term goals.

3 Types of User Feedback

Before understanding the methods for improving user feedback, let’s take a look at different types of feedback, what they mean for your business, and how to use them to understand the role of customer experience better.

1. Proactive Feedback

Proactive user feedback refers to customer surveys or direct feedback from customers conducted prior to any fallouts or negative reviews appearing online. In other words, proactive user feedback measures the ratio of happy customers and unhappy customers and provide actionable insights.

You first inform your customer base about the possible problems in your app or service and share the solution you’re working on to deter users from posting negative feedback. A proactive customer feedback approach allows you to make immediate changes to retain loyal customers. It sends a strong signal to potential customers about how they will be valued and listened to when they encounter an issue.

In that sense, proactive feedback is a type of qualitative feedback that helps companies build user experiences that align with their needs better. You can implement proactive user feedback into your business in several ways, but Net Promoter Score (NPS) feedback surveys are the most popular option.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple question, asking real users to rate their experience and likelihood of recommending your service to their peers, family or colleagues. It usually gives a scale from 1 to 10 to users, 1 being the least likely and 10 being the most likely to recommend your services.

With software like UserGuiding, you can measure app experience, embed NPS into websites or apps and use your score to invest in product improvement with a no-code design that will save you time and money. NPS surveys are especially helpful for customer success teams to keep customers happy and active on your platform. You can also send follow-up questions to get in-depth product feedback and improve your response rates.

2. Reactive Feedback

The difference between proactive and reactive user feedback is that reactive feedback comes unsolicited, meaning the users respond to your app or product with a specific demand in mind. There might be a bug to fix, an improvement to an existing feature, or something completely broken. In short, customer service teams step in after a problem occurs.

Reactive feedback includes the Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT) and Retention Survey. Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT) is similar to the Net Promoter Score (NPS) in that they both calculate the level of satisfaction and collect customer insights into product design, product development, and more.

Retention Survey, on the other hand, closely monitors why users have downgraded their paid plan and let you gauge customer loyalty towards your brand.

These feedback types are helpful for detecting already-existing problems within your product or service. However, since the problem has already caused some damage to the customer, the customer journey is more likely to suffer from friction and volatility. Therefore, it is important for customer success teams to examine customer feedback carefully and take measures, such as open communication, a sincere apology, etc.

3. On-Demand Feedback

On-Demand feedback is another name for ongoing user feedback. This feedback type can include in-app surveys, open-ended questions on websites, regular email surveys, social media feedback from actual users and potential users, and so on. Although the feedback forms have a wide variety, it is important to add your personal touch to stand out among the rest.

Jotform’s form builder is the perfect tool to create custom user feedback templates for your company. Based on the replies you receive, you can tweak and improve the form and work on your customer loyalty.

With these forms, feedback from users can be collected and assessed anytime, anywhere, so you do not have to worry about creating multiple reports to stay on top of the valuable feedback you receive.

In addition, Jotform offers over a hundred integrations with other apps, which is very useful for tracking your data. You can also collect payments and donations from loyal customers with its no-code builder.

3 Best Ways to Improve User Feedback

Whether you have low customer satisfaction levels or raving user feedback online, there is always room for improvement. We’ve gathered three essential tips you can implement to keep customers happy and make the best of the feedback from customers. Check it out:

1. Get to Know Your Users

Although there is a connection between you and the users, you still need to nurture this relationship and establish a collaborative environment. Without focusing on customer interactions, you cannot grow as a business.

But how can you get to know your users better?

Once again, polls and surveys are very productive in taking measurable actions based on negative or positive feedback. You can tease a product idea, promote digital products better, or define a clear product roadmap. While creating polls and surveys, make sure to follow these steps:

• Without a clear direction, you will be unable to hone your questions or come up with follow-up questions to optimize the user experience.
• Make sure that what you ask and how you ask match in tone and scope. Not every question will resonate with every user and you must be okay with that. Segment your users based on their activity, status or even motivation. This will make your surveys more efficient and your product marketing more on point.
• Include multiple formats if necessary. From open-ended questions to multiple-choice and rating systems, you can work with a variety of options to measure how familiar the user is with your brand and satisfied with your product. Keep in mind to go over your poll or survey more than one time to ensure the formats do not clash and create confusion.

2. Don’t Be a Stranger to Users’ Email Inboxes

Out of sight, out of mind.

In-app interactions are invaluable for sure. However, users do not spend all of their time on your app (as much as you want them to). Therefore, it is important to initiate customer interactions and well-thought conversations outside your app or product to keep your relationship with users fresh.

Email surveys are great for reaching out to your users. You can also fine-tune the results by adding A/B testing to your campaigns. These tests help understand how users behave and frequently interact with your content.

Perfecting your subject lines, including CTAs in your email body, and sending timely follow-ups contribute to improving your user feedback as well.

3. Go Direct

Whether for a new feature, how-to guide, or a discount, you need to count on your users.

Offer them exclusive content and opportunities in exchange for their feedback and review. You can give early access to your new features or connect them with the support team once a problem arises and offer a step-by-step process when they feel too overwhelmed with your product.

Direct and open communication, combined with exclusive benefits, will create a sense of community and belonging for your users. They will be more enthusiastic about working with you to improve the product or app they love using.

Final Words

Even though collecting user feedback seems time-consuming, each new piece of feedback can change your product roadmap for the better. Collecting and analyzing user feedback with multiple forms and surveys will help you decide which actions must be taken to improve user experience. It will also show users that they are cared for, and that their demands will be met, which is a great starting point for building trust.

The post 3 Best Ways to Improve User Feedback appeared first on noupe.

When you travel, you want to be able to experience the culture and feel the local atmosphere. But you also want to relax and experience the freedom of going where you want, when you want. That’s only possible when you plan your trip well, but it also requires spontaneity. The best way to experience both is to plan your trip and go with the flow.

Whether you’re planning a trip abroad or just want to get out of the city for a day, the best travel apps can help you experience the best of what the destination offers without draining your wallet or breaking your routine. We’ve curated a list of the best travel apps to help you plan your trip, explore the best local hidden gems, navigate cities, and connect with people.

We’ve hand-picked the best apps to help you plan your trip and explore the world quickly, no matter where you are. Some are focused on helping you navigate your current location, while others are better suited for long-term travel planning. We’ve also included a variety of social and networking apps to help you connect with people while you’re on the road.

PackPoint

Once you’ve decided where you’d like to go, the next step is to figure out what you’ll need to bring. One of the best ways to plan for your trip is to use an app that customizes your packing list based on weather forecasts and a series of questions about your trip. The app developer of your choice will ask you where you’re going when you’ll be there, and what you plan to do while you’re there. You’ll also be asked questions about your trip, such as what kind of weather you like to travel in and what types of activities you prefer to do.

Hopper

The Hopper app is one of the most popular ways to find cheap flights. It uses complex algorithms to analyze billions of flight and hotel prices across the web daily. It draws on historical data to generate a color-coded calendar showing the cheapest dates and times for a given destination. The app is best used when you have a specific flight or hotel in mind, but it can also be used as a general travel planning tool. This information can be used to build a basic travel budget and generate a rough estimate of the cost of a trip, but it doesn’t offer the fine-tuned planning features of the apps above.

The app uses your location and the dates you’ve selected as part of the algorithm to generate a calendar of prices and color-codes it to help you assess the risk of making a purchase. You can also access the app’s “Hopper Research Library” to see what your friends have purchased and share it with them to help.

Wanderlog

Whether looking for flights, hotels, or a destination, Wanderlog makes it easy to find the best deals with travel app ideas. You can even search for flights, hotels, and destinations simultaneously to compare prices side by side. Whether you prefer to book your travel on the app or your phone, you can keep all your flight, hotel, and restaurant reservations in one place. That way, you can focus on the fun stuff — like planning your road trip route and coordinating with friends.

Wanderlog is a complete package for those looking to customize their trips, but it also includes handy travel guides from users worldwide so you can plan your trip in a pinch. Customization is at the core of Wanderlog, so you can make it your own by adding photos, text, and other graphics. You can even create your maps, showing you your location on the route, so you don’t get lost. This is a great way to add a personal touch to your travels, and it’s super easy to do.

Kayak

Kayak is best known as a travel search engine but also includes booking services. It is one of the best travel apps for researching and finding cheap flights since it allows you to search for flights, hotels, and car rentals. It also gives you a complete list of possible options, including reduced hacker fares where you book outgoing and returning flights with two separate airlines. You can also use Kayak to find and book accommodations for your trip. It connects to many different services, so you can book your reservations without manually tracking down reservations. The only downside is that Kayak can be a little overwhelming if you’re starting, and it can be challenging to get a sense of how much your trip will cost once you start searching for flights.

HotelTonight

If you’re a traveler who prefers to plan as little as possible and show up at the airport or hotel when your flight or accommodations are scheduled, then HotelTonight may not be the best app for you. But if you’re a seat-of-your-pants type traveler or one who likes to have a backup plan in case your reservations don’t work out, then HotelTonight is an easy way to find last-minute hotels and get rooms without having to call or make a reservation. It works like a traditional hotel booking system, where you can choose from various room types, pick your location, and confirm your booking. But instead of calling a hotel directly, you head to HotelTonight.

TrailWallet

Keep track of your spending and save money on the things you can’t be without; use Trail Wallet, the world’s first digital road map, to discover the best experiences, places, and things to do, wherever you go. Just head to the app store to download and use the built-in map to plan the best routes and get the most out of your travels. No more digging through maps and guides to find hidden gems and experiences, no more guessing where to go next, and no more overpaying for things you don’t need. The best part is that you never even have to carry cash when exploring.

GlobeTips

The best part about traveling is experiencing different cultures and norms regarding tipping. Many countries have a different tipping culture than the United States, which can be confusing and even frustrating if you don’t know what to expect. GlobeTips can help you navigate different tipping norms across countries so you can best understand and appreciate the service you’re getting. You can also use GlobeTips to help you decide if a tip is appropriate for the service you received, such as restaurant waiters or cab drivers.

GlobeTips can help you navigate different tipping norms across countries, so you never have to guess how much to give and never feel awkward not giving enough. Just head to the app to find the right amount for the situation, and you’re good to go. You can even pull up a custom tip calculator for any country to get a better estimate of how much to give, and if you want to leave a tip extra for the bartender, head to the built-in map and choose the “tip” option. The app will automatically calculate the right amount for you and show you where to leave it. 

EatWith

Eatwith takes the guesswork out of finding the best local experiences. The app connects you with hand-picked locals from more than 130 countries passionate about sharing their culture and showing you the best parts of their hometowns. You can use Eatwith to book food tours and cooking classes, but it can also be an excellent resource for finding things to do on your own, such as visiting museums or going for a drink at a local bar. The app will help you connect with suitable hosts for the experience you’re looking for and help you book it in minutes.

You can use the app to host dinner parties, food tours, and cooking classes with your host, or you can use it to book a private experience. Once you’ve been matched with a host, the app will connect you so you can start planning your adventure. You can also customize your host experience by choosing the language and cuisine you want to learn about and the cuisine you want to know about.

CultureTrip

The CultureTrip app lets you explore a city’s personality, culture, offerings, and intricacies through original video series, stories, and listicles. You’ll be able to dive into the personality of a city—from the people who live there to the things that make it unique—through in-depth video series and engrossing narrative stories. You’ll be able to tap into the experience of our award-winning writers and videographers. They will bring you close encounters with the people, places, and experiences that define the city.

The app will also connect you with the best local adventures, so you can discover new things to do and see in your destination. You can also connect with other culture lovers passionate about exploring their cities and share your experiences with them.

iTranslate

iTranslate is a new app that allows you to type or speak your sentence and get the translation in your chosen language. It’s a pretty handy tool for people who don’t have time to memorize every word in the language they want to speak or understand. The app uses a series of algorithms to translate your sentence into the chosen language, and then you can choose to either hear the translation read aloud to you or see it on the screen in your preferred language. You can also add your custom translations to sentences, which is pretty handy when you need to ask a question in a language you don’t know well.

Final Words

There are many great travel apps out there, and even more, are worth checking out. Whether you’re looking for a fun way to explore a new city or trying to find a last-minute flight to Paris, the right travel app can help you get where you want to go. Some of the best travel apps will help you plan your trip, find the best places to visit, and get you where you need to be on time. Some of the best travel apps will also help you make dinner reservations, find a great fitness class, find a cool bar or cafe, and more.

The post Best Travel Apps to Relish Travelling Experience appeared first on noupe.

Gaining top-ranking positions in search results is the goal of anyone working in SEO. Unless you use paid ads, standing out in search results can be a continual battle, even with an effective SEO strategy. Fortunately, featured snippets provide an alternative to outranking your competitors. 

What is a Featured Snippet?

To answer the question ‘what is a featured snippet?’, we’ll use an example of a featured snippet:

Featured snippets (sometimes referred to as answer boxes) first appeared on Google back in 2014. Ever since the Hummingbird algorithm update, Google has been trying to understand the intent that goes into a search.

Featured snippets are one of the ways Google delivers helpful and useful answers to a search query. Featured snippets will typically appear in search results that ask a question (using the 5 Ws and how).

You may also be surprised to find that featured snippets play an important role in voice search. Optimizing for featured snippets can also help you optimize and appear in the voice search results. When nearly half of all searchers are performed through voice, you’ll be helping to further expand your reach.

The types of featured snippets

There are 3 main types of Google’s features snippets. These are paragraph snippets, list snippets, and table snippets. You can also get video snippets.

Paragraph snippets

Paragraph snippets (such as the definition example above) are the most popular form of featured snippet you’ll encounter. These featured snippets display small excerpts from a webpage that answers a particular search query, in the form of a tiny paragraph.

Paragraph snippets sometimes contain images that are relevant to the particular answer provided. Featured snippets will also contain a direct link to the page which the information has been extracted from. You will often find ‘People also ask’ displayed underneath a featured snippet.

The inclusion of a link helps to differentiate from other forms of ‘featured snippets’ that may appear in the search results. For example, a search query to convert a measurement is not a featured snippet and is instead termed a rich answer (or instant answer). These are provided by Google directly and don’t contain any source links:

Research carried out by Getstat found that paragraph snippets appear for around 82% of all featured snippets. 

List snippets

List snippets are the second most popular type of featured snippet you’ll encounter. Getstat estimates that around 11% of all featured snippets use the list format.

Unlike paragraph snippets, a list snippet displays information in a list, using either bullet point lists or numbered lists. List snippets can be both ordered, for steps and procedures, or unordered.

Table snippets

The other type of featured snippet available is the table snippet, where information is displayed in a table. Only around 7% of featured snippets will display a table snippet, according to Getstat, making it the least common.

Video snippets

Another type of featured snippet you may encounter is video snippets. Video snippets showcase a YouTube video that provides guides and tutorials. Sometimes a segment of a video is played that Google believes to be the most relevant to the search query, such as in this example:

Why are Google’s Featured Snippets Important?

Featured snippets can provide lots of great benefits. The main advantage of featured snippets is that they appear right at the very top of the search results, including above the number 1 organic result. Optimizing for a feature is a great way to achieve high visibility without a top-ranking position.

Because of the high positioning, featured snippets are great for improving brand awareness and driving traffic to your site. EngineScout estimates that featured snippets receive around 31% of a results page click share. 

When around 28.5% click on the top organic search result, featured snippets can help you to improve clicks. It mainly comes down to 2 reasons; featured snippets provide a direct answer to a question, and they are much larger and more prominent (especially on mobile, as shown in the example below) than the top organic search result, leading to higher click-throughs:

Other great benefits of gaining a featured snippet include:

• Higher perceived authority from searchers
• More leads and conversions
• Increase in keyword rankings

If you don’t currently have a top-ranking position in search engine results pages, featured snippets could well be worth considering to expand your reach.

The only downside to featured snippets is you cannot choose which part of your content is extracted to appear. That’s all done by Google. Featured snippets also appear underneath paid ads. While it is unlikely that you’ll come across both in a search query, it’s still worth bearing in mind.

Also, in 2020, the deduplication update removed duplicate listings on the first page of search results. That means if you gain a featured snippet, you won’t appear in the organic results. If you don’t have first-page rankings, the update could work well in your favor!

How can you Optimize Content to Gain Featured Snippets?

Before we outline some tips for optimizing your content to gain featured snippets, it’s important to note that you cannot directly tell Google to include certain content within a featured snippet. Featured snippets are always changing too which means optimizing is a continual process, not a one-off.

Target long-tail keywords

We already mentioned that most featured snippets will appear when a question is entered into Google using the 5Ws and how. The same is true with long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are specific phrases that are usually entered into search engines when a user is towards the point of purchase.

Targeting long-tail keywords is essential for gaining a featured snippet, particularly any keywords already targeted with existing featured snippet content. That’s because many featured snippets are triggered when a long-tail keyword is entered into Google.

Research by SEMrush found that keywords indicating user intent at any stage in the sales funnel are more likely to display in a featured snippet, including long-tail keywords. Conducting keyword research will allow you to find long-tail keywords to optimize for.

Using a keyword research tool, such as Ahrefs or KWFinder, will help you to identify long-tail keywords that are likely to display in a featured snippet.

Content length

Featured snippets are brief, so if you want to gain a featured snippet, you need to answer a question briefly. That’s not to say start developing very short pieces of content (because thin content doesn’t help your SEO).

Instead, you need to provide concise answers for the long-tail keywords you previously found. To optimize for a featured snippet, consider including the keyword in a heading with a concise answer underneath. Afterward, you can expand upon your answer in more detail.

To optimize content for a featured snippet, consider these average lengths:

• Paragraph snippets – between 40-60 words with an average of 250 characters
• List snippets – between 6-8 bullet points, with an average of 45 words
• Table snippets – an average of 5 columns with 2 rows
• Videos – short videos around 6 minutes or less

In the event your content does overrun the length of a featured snippet, a ‘More items…’ or ‘X more rows…’ will indicate the additional content. Clicking on the link will direct the user to the page where the content from the featured snippet is hosted, helping to boost your click-through rates.

Use schema markup

Schema markup is the language of search engines and so implementing schema into your content is another great way of optimizing for a featured snippet. Using schema markup helps search engines to better understand your content, leading to a higher probability of gaining a featured snippet.

Adding schema markup to content does involve accessing the code of a page. Even if you are not too familiar with HTML, you can still easily implement it into your content. Any schema that needs to be implemented can be found on the Schema website. The website also has a test feature to allow you to validate your schema markup.

Implement a content structure

An effective content structure will make use of a title and headings to split a piece of content, such as a blog article, into smaller sections. Not only does an effective content structure improve the readability of your audience, but it’s also essential for featured snippets.

Alongside adding schema to your content, you need to incorporate title and heading tags (or metadata). Headings and lists are fundamental for featured snippets. That’s why it’s important to implement a structure to your content with headings and lists. An efficient site structure can also help boost SEO rankings.

We also mentioned that featured snippets sometimes include an image. Including a relevant and high-quality image is also a good idea. Pages and content are more likely to be used as a featured snippet if there are:

• 1,110 words or more
• An average reading time of 5 minutes
• Around 14 headings (including subheadings)
• 8 images throughout the content

Also, content that stays objective and concise with a clear format is much more likely to be used for a featured snippet.

Conclusion

Gaining a featured snippet is not guaranteed, but following the tips outlined above should stand you in a better position. The great value and benefits that a featured snippet can provide make it a great companion to your existing SEO efforts. And don’t forget to keep publishing high-quality content too for a successful content strategy!

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