How to find featured snippet opportunities using competitor research

Executive overview

Featured snippets appear above the #1 organic result — ranking there can drive more traffic than ranking first. The challenge is finding opportunities at scale.

Use a competitor's existing featured snippets as a shortcut: identify which keywords they already own, then target those where you have a first-page ranking.

Reverse-engineer competitors' featured snippets to find your fastest path to position zero.

Finding competitor featured snippets in Semrush

• Open Organic Research, enter a competitor domain
• Scroll to the bottom, filter by "Featured snippet" under "Linking to a domain"
• The report lists every keyword where that competitor holds the featured snippet position
• Look for competitors with many featured snippets — more data means more opportunities

Qualifying and acting on the opportunities

• Only target keywords where your site already ranks on page one — Google rarely pulls from page two or three
• Visit the competitor's page to understand why it earned the snippet
• Look for structural signals: a clear H2 question ("What is dwell time?") followed by a direct, concise answer
• Restructure your own content to match that pattern — lead with the question, answer immediately and objectively