Snippet posts are fairly short posts and either answer one question or convey one main idea.
They are contrasted with Pillar Posts which are longer, better researched, and convey more information.
Both of which are part of Topic Clusters.
Snippet posts are generally 500 to 600 words long, and are for SEO purposes are published frequently.
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Snippet Posts are not Featured Snippets
Snippet posts are not to be confused with the Google featured snippet.
A Featured Snippet is a block of text that shows on the top of a SERP (search engine) results page that contains a summary of an answer and a link to the webpage from which it was obtained.
Featured snippets are provided for the top ranking page for a given search query.
This article is NOT about featured snippets, this article is about snippet posts.
What are the benefits of snippet posts?
They make your site larger and busier
While Google does not share the details of their search algorithm, it is easy to figure some things out by looking at search results.
And one very important idea is that within a defined niche or topic, Google tends to rank large busy websites higher than websites that are smaller and less busy.
Snippet posts are a way to generate more content, more frequently, so that your website becomes both larger and busier.
Which provides an SEO benefit.
That’s it in a nutshell.
They create an internal link structure
No matter what algorithm updates Google releases, links matter and will continue to probably forever.
While links matter a little less than they used to, links as “votes of confidence” are integral to Google’s core functionality.
Something that is easier to understand when you learn about Google’s origin story.
And links within a site matter, in the same way that links between sites do.
The pillar post / snippet post structure creates a “cluster” of internal links around a specific topic.
Topic clusters are pillar and snippet posts
At some point, the pillar post / snippet post setup changed into “topic clusters” which are very similar, but not identical.
The main difference seems to be intent.
The snippet post / pillar post concept was about publishing more often.
The topic cluster is more about leaving no stone unturned. When creating a topic cluster, you use a tool such as AlsoAsked to get a set of questions related to the core topic.
The main post on the topic is your pillar post, and each “related question” post is a snippet post.
And they link up and down and across as appropriate creating a topic cluster set of internal links.
How do you use snippet post?
The key is to think in terms of “answers”, “main ideas”, “related questions” and “series”.
Answers
Great snippet posts are answers to questions customer and prospects have asked you. If you get the same set of questions over and over (and what business doesn’t), each question is a blog post waiting to happen and the bulk of those posts will be between 500 and 600 words.
Main ideas
Main ideas are, as the name states, main ideas. They are not in depth descriptions. They exist to convey one main idea about something in a format we might think of as being an overview.
Related questions
As the name implies, related questions are questions that are related to, but different from, a main topic.
Series
A series of posts is where you have 8,000 words to say about something, and that topic breaks up nicely in 500 to 600 word sections. Rather than publish one 5,000 word pillar post, consider publishing one 2,000 word pillar post and 12 snippet posts and publishing the snippets at intervals, such as every 8 or 12 hours.
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