What is SERP feature?
A SERP feature is any prominent result on a Google search results page that is not the standard blue link with description.
These characteristics seek to enhance the search process by giving users faster, more precise answers — often without having to click through to a page.
It stands for search engine result page.
Common SERP feature
The most common SERP features are:
- Knowledge Panel
- People Also Ask
- AdWords Top and AdWords Bottom
- Featured Snippet
- Image Pack
- Local Pack
- Knowledge card
- Knowledge panel
- Shopping outcomes
- Top Stories
- Thumbnail
- Tweets Box
- Video
Local Pack That’s a lot! And SERP features grow year by year in quantity, displacing the traditional organic search results.
By including individual SERP features, I found that:
- 7% of the keywords having Ads (Top or Bottom)
- 15% of keywords trigger a Featured Snippet
- 36% keywords have Videos within them
- 39% keywords have Image Pack
- 95% of keyword have Sitelinks in SERPs.
Factors that make SERP features more important
1. Zero-Click Searches Are Increasing
Most users now receive answers on the results page, without having to click.
Featured snippets, People Also Ask, and knowledge panels deliver intent in a snap.
If you’re outside of the feature, you may see zero traffic even if you’re #1.
2. Visual Attention & Real Estate
SERP features stand out and largely exist above organic results.
They command attention and require screen real estate, particularly on mobile.
Increased visibility = increased click-through potential (CTR).
3. Voice Search Optimization
Smart assistants (like Alexa or Google Assistant) will read from featured snippets often
SERP features have power voice results, and ranking there provides more voice exposure.
4. Google’s Focus on User Experience
Google likes fast, useful answers, so it’s promoting more features (such as FAQs, How-Tos, and Reviews).
Structured data (schema markup) may have such impacts — making technical SEO more valuable.
5. Content Authority & Trust Signals
Being included in a SERP has the power to make your brand/content look more authoritative and credible.
It’s as though Google is reacting, “Hey, this page actually knows the answer.”
6.Mobile first experience
On mobile, the SERP results are even larger (usually fill the entire screen).
Optimizing for these equals greater mobile visibility, where traffic originates from the majority of now.
SERP features good or bad for SEO?
- SERP features are typically beneficial to SEO, although they do have some complexities
- . Although some features such as answer boxes decrease click-through rates, most SERP features eventually enhance website visibility, drive more clicks, and convey trustworthiness to searchers.
- Generally, SERP features are a useful component of SEO and must be actively sought after as part of an integrated approach to enhancing website visibility and driving more traffic.
- Though there are certain features that diminish clicks on organic results, the net positive benefits of added visibility and signals of authority and trustworthiness usually outweigh any negatives.
How SERP features are important in SEO?
- SERP features are important because they can drive more traffic to your site.
- Since these features occupy more real estate and show up front-and-center in search results, they’re likely to catch users’ eyes. And get clicked.
- On this SERP below, you can easily notice how the AI Overview, featured snippet, and PAA box stand out more from the organic results.And winning SERP features can indicate to searchers that your content is reliable and credible. Because Google most likely wouldn’t show your webpage so prominently if it didn’t consider it to be credible.
- In short, SERP features are worth going after.
Types of SERP feature
The most frequent forms of SERP features are (we will explore each in greater detail later :
1.Featured Snippets:
Brief answers extracted from websites, presented above organic results.
2.Top and Bottom Ads:
Classic text-based ads presented at the top or bottom of search engine results.
3.Video Carousels:
Swipeable or rotating sets of video results on your search.
Rich Snippets: Details such as ratings, reviews, and recipe ingredients in search results.
4.Sitelinks:
Extra links to individual web pages on a website below the core result.
People Also Ask: Related question and answer blocks directly below the core search result.
5.Local Pack:
Listings and map for local businesses around the search term.
Knowledge Panels: Informational boxes regarding entities such as individuals, locations, and objects.
6.Image Packs:
Thumbnails of visually relevant images to your query presented in a grid.
X (Twitter) Cards: Rich media X (Twitter) snippets from X (Twitter) accounts embedded in search results.
7.Top Stories Carousel:
Rotating carousel of news stories pertinent to the query.
8.AI Overviews:
Brief summaries of complicated subjects written by artificial intelligence. Although not as common as other SERP features, these AI overviews provide an intriguing look into the future of search.
Most important SERP features
1. Featured Snippets
Featured Snippets are big boxes that feature a certain part of a webpage. And display that part within the results themselves.
Google SERP – SEO campaign
The most popular forms of Featured Snippets are:
The Definition Box — a text snippet meant to provide users with a straightforward definition or description, typically brief
The Table — a snippet that reveals data which Google extracted from a page and presented in a table format
The Ordered List — a snippet that displays items in an ordered fashion. Google tends to employ Ordered Lists for questions that put things in a particular order or questions requiring a sequence of steps
The Unordered List — an excerpt that is listing items which don’t necessarily have to be in any specific orders
Featured Snippets drive a huge effect on organic click through rate. Snippet receives around 8% of all organic clicks.
2.Top and Bottom adds
This is fairly straight forward.
Google’s SERPs contain two prominent Google Ads advertising positions:
One at the top of the page (above organic listings). And one at the bottom of the page.
Link Building SERPs Top And Bottom Ads
Wordstream statistics indicate that the overall CTR for a Google ad is some 3%. So, definitely, ads have an effect on organic CTR. But far less than Featured Snippets.
3.Video Carousels
- Video carousels are a collection of video results (typically from YouTube) that show up in the results.
- Google does not display video results for the vast majority of search queries.
(Actually, according to Semrush, only around 6% of searches return a video result.)
- Video carousels are noteworthy, however, because they occupy a large amount of SERP space. And they tend to show up at or near the top of the page which increases the likelihood that people will click the video thumbnails they contain.
4.Site Link
Sitelinks are in two broad types:
- Links that direct searchers to a page on a site.
Tesla – SERPs Sitelinks
- Or those that direct searchers to a part of a page.
Google SERP – Sitelinks
Either one, sitelinks are intended to display a list of links below a regular result. That way, users can bypass a page or content that they desire to view directly.
The most prevalent type of sitelinks are those that show up below a homepage for branded searches.
- Google SERP – Backlinko – Sitelinks
And sitelinks assist you in finding the page you need to visit quickly.
It’s the same story with page-level sitelinks. They let you skim the top sections of a page. And, if you click, you get taken to the section of the content.
5.Image packs
- An image pack is a collection of images that Google shows in the search results.A set of images that Google shows in the search results. Google recognizes those search queries where users wish to see a collection of images. Sometimes, such queries are clear (e.g., “pictures of cats”). But sometimes,
- Google can determine which queries ought to have an image pack based on user activity. That is why image SEO matters.
- For instance, consider a keyword such as “press release”. You might not anticipate that search to return an image pack. But it does.That’s probably because Google has experimented with the results with and without an image pack. And the search results with an image pack provided searchers with what they were looking for. So they opted to display it by default going forward.
Conclusion
SERP elements have transformed the way people interact with search engines — providing faster, more complete, and more immediate access to information. From featured snippets to People Also Ask boxes, they take over the results page and frequently draw eye-share before regular listings.
For businesses, bloggers, and brands, SERP feature optimization is no longer a nicety — it’s a necessity for visibility, authority, and traffic driving in a crowded search environment. By learning how the features work and deliberately organizing your content, you can stake out valuable real estate at the top of Google’s results and intercept users exactly where they’re searching.
