A snippet is a brief description of the page text that is visible to the user in the search engine. It may also contain additional information about the company: prices, phones, address, quick links, photos.

It is the quality of the snippet that determines the overall perception of your page by the user and whether he wants to click on the site, or ignore the link. If you believe the statistics, an unsuccessful description can scare away about 60% of potential visitors.

How is a snippet formed in search engine output?

The search engine system generates a snippet automatically. However, webmasters can indirectly or directly affect its appearance. Google and Yandex algorithms use the Title tag as the snippet header, however, if it is absent or incorrectly describes a page, they choose the most appropriate text placed in the body of the page (most often the header).

Key elements of the snippet in Yandex and Google

They include three parameters: title, address and description (the number of search output in Yandex).

The quality of the snippet header is different:

the presence of important keywords at the beginning of Title (preferably in direct entry);
the readability of the keywords;
high informative value (no stop words or empty adjectives);
correspondence of the title text to the page content;
moderate length (50-70 characters).

The address is nothing more than the URL of the page. Like the title, it should be informative, readable, as well as display the content of the page and contain the keyword.

The description of the snippet is collected on the basis of the citations of the document. It can be identical to the meta tag Description, provided that it meets all the requirements of search engines. The description must also contain at least one keyword and fit 140 characters for Google and 160 for Yandex.

The text of the description is also important. It should solve the user problem and contain practical information (good price, assortment, delivery terms, unique offer, etc.).

The idea to create a snippet by copying information from successful competitors is a failure, because search engines filter out the same data in favor of a more authoritative resource.

Additional snippet elements

They differ depending on what search engine we are talking about and, depending on the type, are not available to all sites. Additional elements include:

favikon;
quick links;
contact information;
price;
rating.

Favicon

Favicon is a small icon (16×16 pixels) displayed only in Yandex. It is located on the right side of the snippet title and serves as an additional marker, which increases the recognition of your brand. Favicon can be created manually, in a special online service, or downloaded from a free collection of which there are many on the network.

Quick links in the snipe

These are additional links that allow the user to go to the most important pages of the site in the shortest possible way. In Google they are placed under the snippet and look like one or more columns. In Yandex, quick links are placed under the header.

Advantages of fast links:

allow the user to assess whether the site has additional useful information;
improve the recognition of the site and increase its CTR;
saves time and traffic of visitors.

And although a properly configured snipe does not directly affect the promotion of web site in google or Yandex, by increasing the “clickability” of your site will quickly pay off your efforts not only to create a snipe, but in general all the work on the optimization and promotion of the site on the Internet.

Quick link setup

The catch is that search engines determine for themselves whether some pages on your site will be added to quick links. Most often, fast links are present in the most reputable web resources. If you have reached the top of search engines, then following the recommendations, you can increase the probability of including the right pages in the fast links. The algorithms of creating fast links in Yandex and Google are significantly different.

Quick links in Yandex snippet

Setting up quick links in this system is done in the control panel Yandex.Webmaster. Conditions under which the page may appear in the issue of quick links:

The page was in the top twenty of the search results;
Among the quick search pages, the searched page is in the top three of the most relevant.

Yandex allows not only to determine the appearance of links, but also to select the method of their sorting and, if necessary, deactivate. Please note that the system provides only 70 characters with spaces for the site for quick links. This often leads to the fact that the page of interest simply does not fit into the visible space.

Quick links in Google snippet

This system is more severe to the webmaster and gives him less ability to manage links. The search engine algorithms do everything themselves. However, a good alternative are the so-called “breadcrumbs”, which can functionally replace fast links. Breadcrumbs can be configured as a Google system, and in Yandex. Only Yandex configures them automatically, and Google requires a customized micro markup.

Contact information, price and rating

These parameters are also elements of an advanced snippet. They are added with the help of micro markup, and serve to increase the level of trust and provide more information to the user. You can specify in microlabeling:

store opening hours;
pictures;
contact information;
rating asterisks.

The most popular way to add extended information is to use Shegma.org schema of unified semantic markup.

Why and how to make the right snippet for the site: Conclusion

The importance of the snippet as an element of influence on the user can hardly be overestimated. Its correct setting does not guarantee, but it significantly increases the probability of increasing behavioral factors. At the same time, independent configuration of snippets requires some experience in HTML-marking and significant time expenditure. Errors during creation of this element are fraught with significant reduction of conversion. Therefore, for optimal snippet tuning, it is more rational for beginners to contact specialists.