Increase organic traffic by optimizing for featured snippets.

Getting to #1 on Google can be tough, but getting to the first page is a little easier. And from there, you can jump to #1 by winning the snippet. Optimize for featured snippets to get to the top and increase traffic.

Featured snippets are answers that appear as tables, lists, videos, etc. above Google's organic search results. They put you right at the top and give you more real estate. It goes without saying that this is great for your brand and (if you do it right) your traffic. Case and point, Cyrus Shepard of Zyppy had a featured snippet and when he experimented with opting out, his traffic went down by 12%. Featured snippets are taken directly from top-ranking pages so you've got to be on the first page to be a contender, and the higher the better. Keep featured snippets in mind when writing new articles. But the lowest hanging fruit is to optimize pages that already rank highly for keywords with featured snippets. Make sure the relevant part of your article uses the same styling (bullets, table, etc.) as the current snippet. State the question that you're answering in H1, then seed keywords in H2s throughout. Use a conversational tone. And of course, make the answers flawless and concise. Not too concise, though — you still want them to click the link.