How Google Uses Subheadings to Create a Featured Snippet List (and the Magic Number!)

byDianeScorpio

18.3K followers

3 years ago

So, when searching something from Google, you may have noticed that the featured snippet is a list.

But did you know, that the post might not have been written as a list in the first place?

Let's take a look.

The search term is tips on moving house, and here are the results with the featured snippet.

But when you click on the post to read it, there is no actual list.

And no numbers.

What Google has done, is taken each of the subheadings, allocated a number and turned them into a list!

And here's the magic...

Whenever you see one of these featured snippets, Google will display a maximum of 8 subheadings.

And underneath, it will say, More items...

(You can see that from my first screenshot.)

And that creates intrigue for the potential visitor.

They will see that they haven't got the full answer and that there are more tips to read, and so it is likely to lead to more clicks.

So, if you think your post may be suitable for conversion to a list-style featured snippet, have more than 8 subheadings!

Thanks for reading.