Is being in position 1-3 without a featured snippet better for conversions?
-
I'm a cosmetic dental practice so we're local and want people to visit our website, look around and make a booking.
I've followed very closely the featured snippet debate on WBF and in the blogs here and everywhere else on the web. I've got many 1-3 positions and have been optimising for featured snippets with great success.
I have noticed though that once I get a featured snippet the CTR of the page that the snippet is taken from drops significantly. This can often put me from position one into two or three. The same thing happens sometimes on the local listings. You get in the pack and people start visiting your homepage rather than the particular services page in the SERP.
At a conference I was at, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iXlVcbpvd0 (11:14) there is a suggestion that Vodafone de-optimise because a position one or two is better for their sales than a featured snippet.
After all my interests are not the same as google. They want to answer questions and I want to sell cosmetic dentistry. So is answering a question without bringing a user to my site a good idea? I've certainly seen the amount of enquiries drop once the category has a number of featured snippets.
Are they as good as everyone says they are? I think possibly not from my data and this Vodafone talk is the first time i've heard anyone agree.
I've scoured the web for answers and it's all just "GET FEATURED SNIPPETS", "HERES HOW TO GET THEM" etc. But my business is not about getting more traffic it's about selling. Could someone please point me to research on conversion rate and featured snippets. or ROI and featured snippets?
Thanks.
-
Yes you are right realises own confirmation bias I love how new this all is, it's so interesting and I feel we're on the cutting edge of something. I'll get some more data together and do my own little study. #alwaysbetesting
-
_Do you find that the FS can so detrimentally affect the CTR that you drop out of 1-3 altogether? I've seen that happen a couple of times but can't say for certain it's because of the FS. _
It depends on the topic and niche you are in. Can't say anything exact, in my experiences works better being in the tops positions WITHOUT a FS rather than having a FS and being the chosen one.
_Check out search console data. It all goes 100% haywire when I got the snippets. CTR right down and impressions through the roof. Clicks are stable (ish). That research you recommended looks great. Thanks so much. _
Yeap, the effect in the impression with the FS is fantastic. Be cautious, you do have more clicks even dropping down the CTR.
If I were you, I'd try to de-optimize one FS and test the results.
SEO is tough and many times is just trial and error -
Thanks Gaston, I'll test that out. I'm also thinking that you're right about the nature of the FS being question answering. It's almost as though local traffic is still visiting the site but the national traffic is just looking at the snippet and leaving. So it's worth looking at the location demo too I think.
Do you find that the FS can so detrimentally affect the CTR that you drop out of 1-3 altogether? I've seen that happen a couple of times but can't say for certain it's because of the FS.
Check out search console data. It all goes 100% haywire when I got the snippets. CTR right down and impressions through the roof. Clicks are stable (ish). That research you recommended looks great. Thanks so much.
-
Hi Ed!
Definitely **YES! ** Being position 1-3 _without_a featured snippet will drive more visitors to your site. You are clearly seing that.
The math here is simple: less visitors to your website, less conversions.
There are 2 clear studies to show here:Ahrefs’ Study Of 2 Million Featured Snippets: 10 Important Takeaways
MozCon Slide: Reverse-Engineer Google’s Research to Serve Up the Best, Most Relevant Content for Your AudienceIn the last one, the key information to extract is that google chooses more often FS that contains rather informational keywords than transactional ones.
As you say that mastered the process to win FS, there might be a chance to optimize (if that's even possible) the information shown in the snippent to include a text telling the searcher to go in the site and buy.Hope this helps.
Best luck.
GR.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Better use Google Analytics? This is for Conversion Rate Optimization purposes
Hi Moz-ers, I've had much help from the Moz community and hoping you can help me out on this one too. I would like to track everyone who visits our town listing pages. We operate much like ratings and reviews websites like tripadvisor and booking.com. What is the best way to track visitors coming to our listings pages only (for example tripadvisor shows top 10 hotels in London.) I would like Google Analytics on London and all other towns including Birmingham, Southampton ect... Is it possible to set up Google analytics to track this? These are our highest volume pages so having an idea of the traffic behaviour is crucial for SEO and Conversion Rate Optimization. As usual, looking forward to the advice we receive! Thanks,
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Eric_S
Eric0 -
UX and/or Conversion Help for Ecommerce
Good Morning, We recently revamped and relaunched our ecommerce website and we believe we have built a great site that is easy to navigate, find what you're looking for, get all details, and purchase. We were hoping to get some of the Moz community to take a look at the site and let us know if you have any suggestions on usability or conversion techniques that we could implement to improve user experience and amount of orders placed. You can view our site here Looking forward to your feedback. Thanks in advance
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Prime850 -
Tracking Facebook Mobile Visits to Desktop Conversions?
Hi. If I set an ad in Facebook, I can obviously track visits, conversions and so on from that ad and see if they where mobile or desktop. However, how do I, if possible track a mobile visitor who the converts on a desktop? Eg. I go on XXX Facebook Ad on my mobile whilst in work, look around. Like what I see. Then I go home from work, open my laptopn and go on XXX website and send an email enquiry form in. Is this possible to track? Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | YNWA0 -
Are website optimization and conversion rate optimization roughly the same thing?
This is mostly a semantics question, but I also want to check that I have a basic understanding of the two concepts. Are the two terms more or less interchangeable or are there any crucial differences? I always thought of website optimization as the complementary partner to SEO. While the ultimate goal of SEO is getting people TO your website, website optimization is focused on refining your website so that those people STAY on your website. When I think of conversion rate optimization, I'd imagine that's pretty much the same goal. Refining a website so that more people stay and ultimately convert (buy something, subscribe to a newsletter, etc). Is my understanding of one (or both) of them flawed, or is it six of one, half a dozen of the other? Thanks!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | BrianAlpert780 -
Sudden drop in conversions!
Over the past week, I have noticed a drop in conversions. By drop, I mean NONE at all. The traffic to the site seems steady from different sources, so I don't think we've been hit with a penalty. I have looked through the site, and there are no problems with the functionality. Is it possible that you lose conversions because of the type of keywords that are driving traffic? In other words, the impressions and queries remain steady, but you are not getting traffic that converts (if that makes any sense). Thanks in advance for thoughts and advice.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | inhouseseo0 -
Suggestions for Conversion Rate Optimization low cost companies?
Does anyone have a list of suggestions for lower cost companies to do conversions. I am a new business and just wanted my "Cart" check out with maybe some suggestions for improvement and a little testing to see if it is done correctly. Thank you, Boo
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Boodreaux0 -
Can someone recommend a guide to getting started with Rich Snippets?
It's a bit tough to find info about getting started with Rich Snippets and how to start associating that information with the website. I'd appreciate some links to guides on how to get started, followed by how to get good at it. Thank You All in advance
Conversion Rate Optimization | | HMCOE0 -
Conversion Rate Optimization Coruses?
Hi is there any well recognized certified courses like Google Analytics or Adwords qualification that Google offers. I'm after a course which is on split testing, multivariate testing and CRO overall. Any suggestions?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | monster990