You’ll find more and more results with what Google calls “featured snippets”. Here’s an example below:
In this particular example, diynetwork.com comes up #4 in the results below that (which you don’t see in this image) but is given a chance to beat #1 because it’s got the “featured snippet”.
In some cases, the snippet will be informational enough to actually get you all of the information that you need. So oups, no need of clicking on the site, even though they are even beyond #1 in the rankings.
Google is getting better and better at this but you won’t find snippets everywhere. I don’t know the percentage but if you start typing all sort of random keywords, you’ll see that it’s small percent only, though enough in some cases to probably hurt #1.
Often you will see that the snippet is actually taken from the website ranking as #1 for that keyword. So these guys pretty much have it made for that search result.
If you see a raise or decrease of visits to a particular landing page you knew was getting its traffic from a keyword, look and see if Google started to show snippets for it. It may be a factor to consider.
Also make sure you do the same SEO on your Youtube videos, FB posts, etc… as these will also be featured up there. Write a good description for each one of your online properties.
If you want that spot, you need to do your homework. Study a bunch of these results, go to the winners’ websites and see what they have done and how they presented the content. It’s work but it’ll pay off. You may not get the spot right away but you’ll certainly have a better page page for the traffic you’re currently getting.
Another reference:
searchengineland.com/1-reason-position-1-doesnt-matter-248390
