Snippet optimization

In October 2010, the topic “Optimizing the appearance of the site in the search results of Yandex” appeared on the Yandex blog, detailing the new features of Yandex.Webmaster that contribute to optimizing the visual presentation of the site in the results.

More about snippets
Today, it’s no secret to anyone in the SEO world that search engines, along with content, are paying more and more attention to the visual content of the site – design, interface. In other words, the robot is trying to evaluate sites with the “eyes” of users. Thus, along with textual content and usability (usability), the visual appeal of the site begins to play an increasingly important role.

In order to better understand how the search engine robots evaluate your site in terms of visual presentation, let us recall the main goal of website promotion. It is to ensure that your site ranks high (in the TOP) in the results of search engines for key queries.

Imagine your site is in the TOP. At the same time, traffic on the crossings, and, consequently, the number of targeted visitors did not increase. This state of affairs makes you wonder why this is happening. The reason may be an improperly composed, unattractive snippet that repels the attention of users.

What is a snippet and how can it affect the growth of positions and traffic using its optimization?

Snippet is a description of your site in the search results, directly under the title of the page. Thus, a well-written snippet is the first opportunity to attract a potential visitor, forcing him to follow the link to your site. And you need to skillfully use this opportunity. How exactly – consider next.

Snippet optimization options
In order for the snippet optimization to bring exactly the results that the client expects, the optimizer needs to be clear about what needs to be done for this. Here and later in this article we will talk about the optimization of the snippet for issuing the Yandex search system, since Google uses several different algorithms to determine the text of the snippet of a particular page.

The Yandex service for webmasters offers a wide range of options for configuring snippets.

The first thing you can do is to add data about the client’s organization to the “Organizations Reference” section of Yandex, after which, after a while, the address and phone number of the company being promoted will appear in the snippet. This is very convenient from the point of view of a visual presentation – the user can, without visiting the site, obtain the information of interest: the address and telephone number of an organization, working hours, etc. Thus, he can make a choice – whether this site will be useful to him or not, even before he clicks the link in the results of the issue.

Further, the provision of data for snippet optimization depends on the subject of the website being promoted. Yandex is constantly working to improve the service, so the number of topics and resources for which it is possible to create extended snippets will continue to grow.

For example, it is now possible to transmit data for sites of the following headings:
restaurants
cafes and coffee shops
travel companies
fitness centers
cinemas and so on. (the full list at the moment can be found here).
For example, if the site being promoted refers to the “Restaurant Business” heading, the optimizer can transfer the following data to extend the snippet using simple manipulations in Yandex.Webmaster:
restaurant opening hours
average bill per person
kitchen features, etc.
additional data – the presence of wi-fi, karaoke, etc.
Thus, after the work on snippet optimization has been carried out, much more information about your establishment will be available to the user on the page for issuing a certain request. This, firstly, attracts additional attention of users, and, secondly, helps them to make a choice in your favor.

Criteria for Snippets Optimization
Let us briefly list the main requirements that should be followed when forming the snippet of the website being promoted:

Fill your site with unique content – Yandex often “takes” text for snippets from text, not from meta tags, like Google.
Do not write too long sentences – snippets in the issuance of Yandex, as a rule, consist of 150-180 characters.
Properly write the meta tags of the promoted pages – it is likely that the text of the description tag will be taken as a snippet, if the Yandex robot does not detect occurrences of the desired keyword in the text of the document.
Write key requests to the page headers H1, H2, etc. – the title is obliged to attract attention and in a short form the description.