I’m going to try to rank four pages in the first position of Google using a beginner SEO technique anyone can use I’ve got less than 7 minutes for each page and for every page I don’t get in the first position.
If you can press keys on your keyboard for a few minutes you can copy this simple tactic to get rapid rankings in Google. You don’t need any money or tools, plus it works for website not just e-commerce. This technique is the Holy Grail of SEO because it is the easiest and fastest way out of any other SEO method to get to the top of organic search.
My SEO team has used this beginner SEO technique to rank hundreds of Shopify pages in the number one position for popular keywords and you don’t need any skills to copy. This is a technique and how I discovered it 2 years ago. In a highly competitive niche with an article by adding H1 and H2 tags and making a few minor content tweaks the page in under a week got crowned number one.
The article has stayed first because the phrase with H2 tags directly above the definition making it a breeze for Google to interpret. Even with a low search volume for this keyword there was an instant surge in Impressions and clicks from this one page. In 2014 Google made a change to search results that pissed off a lot of SEO markers. This old Google update is what will let you rank first in under one week.
Google began to show snippets of a web page that gave answers to search queries directly from search results. The search feature displays a summary of text, tables or list called Featured Snippets. Many marketers worry that people don’t need to click through to the website but that is not the case because a link of the source is shown which generates traffic and sales.
The Epic benefits of following this article to rank for Featured Snippets include; increased visibility, improved brand Authority, higher organic clickthrough rates, and greater chances of driving website traffic. An Ahref study of 2 million Featured Snippets found it.
Google only features pages that already rank in the top 10 so you need to optimize a page ranking in the top 10 of search results that contain a Featured Snippet. If you’re not ranking top 10 for anything or want to get more pages in the top 10, the study found that you can create in-depth content for long tail keywords by filling in blanks that searchers might have. This increases your chance of rapidly ranking. Featured Snippets are fantastic for SEO because you can quickly outrank competitors, getting into the number one search result. There’s no danger in getting penalized because you’re updating your content to better serve users. This is what Google ultimately wants. You can also get more clicks.
The Ahref study of Featured Snippets found clickthrough rate depends on the intent of the search query. When the user wants a quick answer like a definition they don’t need to click any result. This is a prisoner’s dilemma if you don’t play the game, some other website will steal the position.
A third benefit of Featured Snippets is that you’re optimizing for voice search. A Backlinked study found that 40.7% of all voice search results come from a Featured Snippet. To show you how to do this, let’s find what opportunities exist for Galen Leather and I’ll try to rank four pages for certain keywords in under a week, all with less than 7 minutes of work.
You can find what search query gets a Featured Snippet by looking at the average position data in Google search console, then searching those keywords in Google. That is the free way. The best method I suggest is going to the Ahref site Explorer, look at the organic keywords, filter results by Featured Snippets, remove first position rankings with another filter, bam! I have full list of keywords and content that I can quickly rank for with Featured Snippets. These are all opportunities. If you want to give yourself the greatest chance of success, it’s not about editing pages that are ranked two or three. Featured Snippets have their own ranking system. I gained this pearl of wisdom from Matt Diggity he revealed a hidden ranking system queue for Featured Snippets.
You can see where your website stands by sifting through Google so that you can then optimize the right page for the right keywords. This is the Google holy grail because you can see what’s needed to rank. Let’s look at the Featured Snippets for the query ‘dopp kit meaning’ plug this into Google writebestblog.com has the number one Featured Snippet.
What I’ll then do is remove the website from search results with the minus site search query by typing in -site: writebestblog.com next I see the number one ranking so I’ll add -site graveltravel.com to the search. I repeat this process until my website is ranked number one. The number of websites you exclude in your search is the ranking queue for Featured Snippets.
If you’re limited in time go after the ones where your website is ranked number two then three then four Etc in the featured Snippets queue. For this experiment I’m going to ignore the queue. Screw it right?
I’m going to pick four random queries from the Ahref report that have the featured snippet in search results and are ranking between the second and sixth position. I’m going to try to rank at number one for ‘What is a patina on leather’, ‘A4 notebook size’, ‘leather grades’ and ‘oil vegetable leather’.
This is a real experiment. It’s getting real. For each page that I don’t get to number one in one week. So, you’ve got your pages that you want to rank for and you know the keyword you’re trying to rank for.
The first secret is to replicate the format of the number one ranking snippet. Most pages I’m trying to rank for are a simple paragraph. Other times you will see Featured Snippets in a table format for prices, years, numerical data. Other times, a list format is used often for queries that list items or require step-by-step instructions.
Videos, often from YouTube, can be used in Featured Snippets for ‘how to’ queries, like ‘how to remove an oil stain from concrete’. I tried to do this recently and still have the darn oil stain stuck. Google said there is no minimum length requirement to get the Featured Snippet, so your best bet is to be like your top competitor.
Copying the format isn’t enough though. How can you make your web page better? How can I make the right changes to these four pages. In 2022 Google search Advocate John Mueller tweeted that Featured Snippets are algorithmic. A variety of factors are used to pick a good snippet.
Before then and since then, John has been secretive about what exactly must be done tweeting there’s no technical method to achieve it. His secretiveness is understandable since everyone would be hacking their way to the top.
So instead of depending on what Google tells us I’m going to depend on data, using large data studies like the one from Ahrefs to understand what gets ranked. I found there are three other main changes you can make quickly to get the top place. First is to be succinct. I’m going to look for ways to use tighter language. If a word is unnecessary it’s going to be culled.
Ask yourself, ‘If I remove this word, does it still make sense?’ The second secret is the inverted pyramid. This is a technique journalists use to grab attention and keep attention. You share the most newsworthy info first which is the who what when where why and how. If there’s room, you then give the important details followed by further background information.
The tactic makes perfect sense because you’re desperate to hook attention as quick as possible then deliver on it to satisfy the people searching. The third best change you can make to rank first in Google for a featured snippet is to improve your rankings using all the good SEO things like optimizing images, having user friendly URLs, and getting back links.
I won’t discuss that I want you to get organic traffic quickly. For help here you can watch YouTube video on common SEO mistakes. So, let’s see what I can do. ‘A4 notebook size’ in search results has a gold spot in number one position. Let’s compare content. Here’s the content on the website where Google pulls the Featured Snippet from.
The Heading is a H2. This is Galen Leather’s content. The Heading is a H4. I can update the heading to H2. I also changed format to notebook format. There’s no perfect way to do this so it’s an experimentation. Here’s the second page I need to rank to save my butt.
The content has a simple paragraph with general language. There’s two possible pieces to modify. One is in a list format, or we can work with the intro. It makes more sense to have a proper definition first since it’s being talked about. Let’s edit the intro to be stronger.
Looking over what I’ve got, I reckon there’s some improvements to make. I can change the H3 to H2. Part of this is removing the redundant H2 tag that targets nothing compared to the H1 tag. I re-jigged the Heading tags and made the definition more chronological in its wording. The changes are done. Google must first crawl the updated pages for the changes to have a chance at ranking first.
Since I’ve got money on the line I want results fast, so I enter each URL in Google Search console then request indexing. I’ve done this for all pages on Monday at just after 2:00, so let’s check in 7 Days, see how the pages rank.
What will be the results? Perhaps I’m a complete fraud like 90% of the SEO industry? I can’t sleep! Wait that’s not because of this challenge – It’s been 7 days since I made the changes. Let’s do the first search. what is pantina on leather.
This is the big thing about Featured Snippets; like any SEO, there’s best practices but nothing is guaranteed. You study what’s best, implement, observe and try again. I can also get more backlinks, improving the SEO page. If what you do doesn’t succeed, try again! That’s the big secret to this strategy that I want you to understand.
I’m now checking the last page, oil vegetable leather. Got it! I just saw I also got number one for ‘Leather Grades’. This beginner SEO technique really works. but seeing that this didn’t happen in a week.
