What is Featured Snippet?
The boxed answer Google shows at the top of search results (position 0) — paragraph, list, table, or video — that directly answers a query.
Featured snippets are the rectangular answer boxes Google places ABOVE the first organic result. They drive 8x the CTR of position-1 results because they're the first thing users see. To win one: format content as a direct answer to a question (Google extracts featured snippets from pages that explicitly answer the implied query in 40-60 words near the top of the page). The four formats: paragraph (most common), numbered list, bulleted list, table. Structured H2 headings as questions ("What is JSON-LD?") plus a one-paragraph direct answer underneath is the canonical winning pattern. You can't request a featured snippet — Google picks them algorithmically from pages already ranking on page 1.