December 1, 2021
This is an article about the various rich results that can help you get more traffic, improve visibility and increase CTR.
There are many more, but I am only focusing on the rich results that you can influence and those who actually bring more visitors to your site.
What are rich results?
Rich results are extensions to the traditional organic result, which is called a ‘snippet’. Without rich results the snippet only consists of a title, a description and breadcrumb, which reduces your visibility and blends you in with all the other results in the search engine result pages (SERP).
See example of a traditional organic snippet below.
Why should I care about rich results? What are the benefits of using rich results?
Rich results have additional information and are presented in a way that draws the user’s attention. These can be images, stars, additional text, content and company information from your website presented in cards
They increase the click through rate (CTR), improve your visibility and some also make it easier for your client options to contact you, buy a product from you or simply consume your content.
What are the different types of rich results?
In this article I will cover some of the most common rich results, show you what they look like and explain how you can get them.
I’ve divided them into two groups:
Sponsored
Which are rich results you can only get by paying for a specific service:
- Google Ads
- Google shopping
Free
Rich results you can get by optimizing content and implementing structured data (schema) and which are shown in the organic part of the SERPs:
- Local business
- Local map pack
- Featured snippet
- FAQ rich snippet
- Review rich snippet
- Video
- Image pack
- Breadcrumbs
- Search box
- Product
- Sitelinks
There are many more types of rich results, but most of them we cannot influence or they do not benefit us as they do not link to our site, so I will not cover them right now.
Sponsored rich result types:
Google Ads
🤖 What is it?
Paid search results that always include a title, description, and URL. They can be expanded with sitelinks, callouts, images, review ratings, telephone number and contact form.
👀 What does it look like?
Placed at the very top above all the other results or at the very bottom of the page and marked with “Ad” (or “Annonce” in Danish) in bold at the start of it.
🦈 How do I get it?
These are paid search ads and you can create them in your Google ads account.
Google shopping
🤖 What is it?
When searching for a product, the user gets results from various companies displayed in an image gallery.
The product is displayed in a card among all the other shopping ads for the same product sold by other companies.
👀 What does it look like?
These paid search results are always at the top of the page. You can also see them by clicking on the “Shopping” tab right below the search bar.
🦈 How do I get it?
These are paid ads that you set up in a shopping campaign of your Google Ads.
Free/organic rich result types:
Google My Business card
🤖 What is it?
A rich result displayed on the right side of the traditional search results mostly triggered when a user is performing a brand name search.
👀 What does it look like?
This rich result is displayed in the shape of a knowledge card that shows a company name with all the relevant information on this company (address, opening hours, reviews, products and services). It also includes various CTAs (like a call button), links to the website and directions to the physical location of the company.
🦈 How do I get it?
You must have a verified Google My Business profile to be able to influence the data displayed about your company.
In cases where you filled out all the information in your GMB profile, but they are still not being updated or displayed properly, you should look into setting up a local business schema that will help Google connect the information from your website and your GMB profile.
Local Google map pack
🤖 What is it?
The local Google map pack or the local 3-pack rich result is triggered when a user searches for services in his/her local area.
Example: if your user is located (at the time of search) in Odense, Denmark, and searches for “seo bureau”, they will see 3 companies that best match the search term in the Odense area, closest to their location.
👀 What does it look like?
This rich result looks like a Google map with 3 selected company results displayed under it.
The information is displayed is the company name, star rating, opening hours, location, phone number and a link to the directions and website.
🦈 How do I get it?
A properly set up GMB profile and local business schema with matching information and included information for service areas are a big help if you want to rank in the map 3-pack.
Featured snippet
🤖 What is it?
A featured snippet is a short piece of text that Google considers as a relevant answer to the user’s query that shows at the very top of the SERP.
It is most commonly displayed when the user’s search query takes the shape of a question and starts with a wh-word or ends in a question mark. But it can also be shown for any other search term that shows informative search intent.
👀 What does it look like?
The featured snippet is a short excerpt of text automatically pulled from the content of a webpage indexed by Google. It usually contains 40-50 words, the page URL and can show a featured image from the page also if it exists.
How do I get it?
You need to answer the question as close, as detailed and as precise as possible. Include the question in your content and try to keep your answer in the 40-50 word range and placed as close to the question as possible.
Another trick that might be helpful is to use content styling to your advantage. Use the correct headings for your titles/questions and separate the answer in its own paragraph.
FAQ rich snippet
🤖 What is it?
This type of rich result expands your usual organic snippet with 2 or more questions and answers to those questions.
👀 What does it look like?
Two questions are usually displayed underneath your usual organic snippet and the users can see the answer after clicking on the downward arrow.
🦈 How do I get it?
The only way of getting the FAQ displayed is by implementing FAQ schema (structured data) on the webpage that the snippet links to (landing page).
You need to have a minimum of 2 questions and the content in the schema needs to be the exact copy of the webpage content.
Even if you add this schema, it is still up to Google to decide if they find it relevant to expand your snippet with this rich result and it might not get shown in the SERPs.
Review rich snippet
🤖 What is it?
This type of rich result expands your usual organic snippet with a star rating.
👀 What does it look like?
The star rating displayed under your organic snippet can either be an aggregated rating and show an average rating calculated from all your reviews, or it can be a review rating from one individual. If the rating is individual, then the reviewer’s name and company are also displayed next to the stars.
🦈 How do I get it?
The only way to add the star ratings to your snippet is to include the review schema (structured data) to the landing page.
You can add both the aggregated and the individual reviews in schema, but the individual ones have a higher chance of being shown.
Even if you add this schema, it is still up to Google to decide if they find it relevant to expand your snippet with this rich result and it might not get shown in the SERPs.
Video rich result
🤖 What is it?
A rich result that shows a video instead of the traditional textual search result.
The video can be shown as a part of the traditional SERP or listed in the video section.
👀 What does it look like?
Video rich result as a part of the traditional SERP
Video rich results in the video search page
🦈 How do I get it?
How you get your video listed in these two places depends on where your video is originally posted.
If your video is uploaded on YouTube you will need to do a bit of YouTube SEO and optimize the title and description and also add a transcription.
If your video is uploaded on your website, however, you will need to implement Video schema.
Sitelinks
🤖 What is it?
In brand name searches, your snippet might be expanded with additional internal links to some of your webpages.
👀 What does it look like?
🦈 How do I get it?
If Google does not already show sitelinks in your snippet, there are several ways to try and influence this:
- Make sure that the site structure and navigation on your website is crystal clear
- Add a sitemap.xml file via your Google search console account
- Have a unique brand name and rank number one for it in google search
- Build more internal links to the pages you want displayed in the sitelinks
Sitelinks search box
🤖 What is it?
When your snippet shows sitelinks (which mostly happens in brand name searches), sometimes Google might find it relevant to add a search box as well. With this rich result, the user can perform a search across your entire site directly from the SERP.
👀 What does it look like?
The search box is placed between your meta description and sitelinks in your snippet.
🦈 How do I get it?
If Google considers it to be relevant and you already have sitelinks added to your snippet in brand name searches, it might add the search box to your snippet without you needing to do a thing.
If, however, you would like to influence Google into adding it to your sitelinks, you will need to implement WebSite schema with a SearchAction to the homepage of your website.
Product rich results
🤖 What is it?
The product rich results displays additional information on the product displayed on the landing page. This information can be price, star ratings, stock availability and various descriptive information.
👀 What does it look like?
The additional product information is shown right under the traditional snippet.
🦈 How do I get it?
To get the product rich results added to your snippet, you will need to add Product schema (structured data) to the landing page where the product can be found or (on ecommerce sites) to the product page.
That’s it for our rich result list. Hopefully, this gave you some ideas and you will be looking further into setting up schema or structuring your content better to get that extra visibility on Google.
