Most Effective Technical SEO: Rich Snippets. 95% of Fake Gurus Don't Understand (Part 1)

Not many bloggers talk about rich snippets

Honestly, I don't really want to talk about this kind of deep, hardcore stuff either. First, I know it won't get traffic—who doesn't want those "learn SEO in 1 minute" tutorials? But once you get to truly advanced stuff, it definitely takes longer and readability suffers, discouraging readers.

Second, because I need to explain both what and why very clearly before readers can barely understand, which creates a problem. I'm also a beginner practitioner—I can show you hands-on operations, but explaining the theory is hard. I have to dig through various documents and official docs to make sure I'm correct, otherwise I'd be misleading people.

But since I've already started the SEO series, some things have to be faced sooner or later.

What. "1 Minute" to Tell You What Rich Snippets Are

Side hustle doable, moms doable, amazing passive income, no coding required, no inventory, learn with just a phone: Rich Snippets.

Let me explain in one minute.

As usual, real scenarios and examples.

For example, if a user searches "how to make pizza," normally we only see this kind of search result in Google:

But this search experience definitely feels like something's missing, right? Chinese internet users are even more familiar with this—when we search similar content on XHS or vertical apps, the presentation is much better than this dry text.

So Google started thinking, can I optimize for certain needs?

Thus Rich Snippets were born. When we now search "how to make pizza," the results look like this:

You can see Google has made some structural designs for certain user search scenarios. Website owners put their content into structured "code templates" to present more direct and concrete search results.

For this cooking scenario, Google provides a Recipes structured data framework.

In summary, as the internet develops and user search needs become more diverse, search engines think about how to optimize user experience. So they optimize different SERP (Search Engine Results Page) effects for various functions and scenarios.

Why. Do I Need to Explain Why Learning This Is Important?

The above examples are clear enough, right? Let me save effort and use "magic to defeat magic."

I asked Google this question directly. You can see when I searched "is structured data better for SEO" in SERP, the red box is Featured Rich Snippets, the yellow box is PAA (people also ask box).

As a user, I'll definitely prioritize clicking such content. So this gives website owners direction—do everything possible to make your website's SERP effects more diverse and richer.

So besides making your content itself excellent or diverse (like adding videos, images, tables, etc.), the main technical method is to adapt your existing content by adding corresponding Structured Data code, making it easier for Google to understand what SERP your content fits.

How. Less Talk, Three Steps

Step 1

First, clarify what rich snippets you need. For example, for global selling, Product Snippet is the most basic rich snippet.

When you write blogs, you might need Article Snippet.

Check Google official docs (advanced users can check schema.org): https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery

Actually, some platforms or plugins already give you basic structures. If you use independent site SaaS with SEO features, the SaaS platform automatically generates basic Product Snippet data structures every time you list products—like product images, inventory, descriptions, etc.

How to check? Use Google rich result test: https://search.google.com/test/rich-results

Step 2

Advanced optimization—add more snippets to basic data.

Note, SaaS usually only fills basic data. If you've seen my GMC optimization content, you know there are many "hidden" optimizable data specifications to supplement.

Just one Product Snippet has countless specification data to add. For example, product review snippet that I emphasize repeatedly—you might need review plugins supporting rich snippets to achieve this structured data presentation.

Here's a comparison: Search 1 has excellent Logo, Review, price, images and other rich snippets, while Search 2 is obviously weaker. Which would you click?

Step 3

Go further, explore more rich snippets.