Some Google searches show a descriptive box at the top of the search results. Google calls these boxes 'featured snippets' because unlike their regular web listings, the page's description (the 'snippet') comes first.

Google reverses the usual format with featured snippets. They’re featuring the snippet, hence the 'featured snippet' name.

Google displays featured snippets in search when they believe this format will help people more easily discover what they’re seeking, both from the description and when they click on the link to read the page itself.

According to Google, featured snippets especially helpful for those on mobile or searching by voice.

Mobile search traffic has surpassed desktop traffic worldwide. And with the growth in voice-activated digital assistants, more people are doing voice queries. In these cases, the traditional '10 blue links' format doesn't work as well, making featured snippets an especially useful format.

Google continues to show regular listings in response to searches along with featured snippets because featured snippets aren't meant as a sole source of information.

According to Google, featured snippets get clicks. When Google introduced featured snippets in 2014, there were some concerns that they might cause publishers to lose traffic. What if someone learns all they need to know from the snippet and doesn’t visit the source site?

It turned out that featured snippets do drive traffic. For featured snippets, Google cites the source page in the spoken result and they provide a link to the page within the Google Home app, so people can click and learn more:

According to Google, they recognize that featured snippets have to work in a way that helps support the sources that ultimately makes them possible.

The Ranking Monitor in SEOprofiler does not only track the position of your web pages in the search results. It also tracks the result type with which your web pages are listed. For example, a monitored keyword will be marked with a star in the list, if your website is listed with a featured snippet:

The Ranking Monitor also tracks other results types, such as local results, Sitelinks, news results, video results, etc. Details on how to improve your chances of being listed with a featured snippet can be found here.

"On Twitter, Google’s John Mueller and Gary Illyes explained that Google’s Page Speed update has no impact on indexing. The mobile speed update affects only ranking in mobile search results. That means that Google will index slow pages. However, they won’t rank as well as fast pages."

Editor's note: Check the speed of your pages with the SEO website audit tool.

"The key to using ROAS to improve the performance of your paid search campaigns is great conversion and sales tracking. After all, if you don’t know which campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords are producing which conversions and sales, you can’t exactly calculate and use your ROAS. [...]

Since the whole point of marketing your business is to overcome deficits and make money, any campaign element with a 2x ROAS could probably use some work."

"Overall, in Q4 2017, search ad click volume growth slowed by 9 percent as the average cost per click (CPC) increased 14 percent. Spend rose 24 percent year over year. Engagement and conversion performance from search ads improved, however, and clicks from phones accounted for 50 percent of all clicks for the first time."

"The CPC of brand terms is often determined by Google’s algorithm as opposed to the competitive landscape, so brands are often left to Google’s mercy in determining the price paid for this traffic. [...]

Testing reductions in bids for brand keywords to assess the impact on traffic can give a clearer picture how high bids need to be in order to land top spots for most searches."