SERP features are the enhanced elements Google shows alongside or instead of standard blue links: AI Overviews, featured snippets, People Also Ask, local packs, image and video carousels. They now dominate the page. Advanced Web Ranking puts their share of total visibility at around 65%, and in 2024 only 1.53% of Google queries returned a results page with no features at all. Which means the ranking you are optimizing for may not be the thing anyone sees first. I am Adrian Dąbrowiecki, and two pieces of standard advice on this subject stopped being true in 2023: FAQ rich results are effectively gone for most sites, and HowTo results were retired entirely. Most guides still recommend both.
What Are SERP Features?
SERP features are the elements in Google’s results, such as featured snippets, image carousels, local packs, People Also Ask boxes and AI Overviews, that appear alongside or in place of standard organic listings.
They exist to reduce friction: a quick fact gets an answer box, a product query gets a shopping carousel, a visual query gets an image pack. Each is Google deciding what format satisfies the intent behind the query.
“You don’t need to rank #1 to win the click” Landingi, SEO SERP Features: Definition and How to Optimize for Google
That is the strategic point. You can sit at position three and appear above everyone by holding the featured snippet. You can outrank national brands locally through a well-maintained Business Profile. You can pull traffic from the image pack while your page sits on the second page.
What is SERP feature analysis?
SERP feature analysis is the process of checking which elements appear for a given query, rather than only where you rank for it.
Search “best running shoes for flat feet” and you might get a video carousel, a People Also Ask box, shopping results and star ratings. That layout tells you what format Google considers correct for the query, what intent it has detected, and how much room is left for a standard listing. Sometimes the honest conclusion is that there is not much, and the keyword is worth less than its volume suggests.
Why Are SERP Features Important?
SERP features are important because they occupy the positions users look at first, and because appearing in one signals credibility before anyone visits your site.
The visibility argument is straightforward: features sit above organic results and frequently above ads. The trust argument is subtler and real. Google selecting your page as the answer reads as endorsement, and that affects click-through on your ordinary listing too.
There is also a defensive reason. On queries dominated by features, the traffic available to organic listings shrinks considerably. Knowing that before you commit three months of content production to a term is worth the ten minutes the analysis takes.
The 11 SERP Features Worth Optimizing For
The eleven features with the most practical impact are AI Overviews, People Also Ask, featured snippets, local packs, rich results, knowledge panels, image packs, video carousels, shopping results, sitelinks and People Also Search For.
1. AI Overviews
AI-generated summaries at the top of the results, assembled from several sources rather than one. They answer the query directly, which reduces clicks on informational terms, and the source links sit underneath rather than in the summary itself.
How to compete: put the factual answer first, keep language precise, cite verifiable sources, and update content regularly since these summaries favour current information. Clear heading structure matters because it determines what can be extracted.
2. People Also Ask
A box of related questions that expands in place, usually near the top. Appearing here puts you in front of users regardless of your position, and the questions themselves are a live view of what people are actually asking.
How to compete: use real user questions as H2 or H3 headings, phrased the way people search them, and answer immediately underneath before expanding. Short paragraphs and clean formatting.
3. Featured snippets
A single-source answer above the organic results. Unlike AI Overviews, this pulls from one page, which makes it the most winnable premium position available.
How to compete: target question-shaped long-tail queries, answer in 40 to 60 words directly under the relevant heading, and use the format Google already displays for that query: paragraph, list or table.
4. Local packs
The map results for location-based queries, sitting above almost everything organic. Proximity matters but so do relevance and prominence, meaning profile completeness, reviews and mentions across the web.
How to compete: complete every field in the Business Profile, add real photos, keep hours current, maintain consistent name, address and phone details across directories, and ask for reviews consistently.
5. Rich results
Enhanced listings showing prices, availability, ratings, event dates or video runtimes, driven by structured data. Product, review, event and video markup are the ones that still reliably produce them.
How to compete: make the markup match what is visible on the page, because Google cross-checks. Use complete properties rather than the minimum, and validate with the Rich Results Test before deploying to a template.
6. Knowledge panels
The entity box on the right of desktop results, drawn from the Knowledge Graph. It cannot be created directly; it is earned through consistent, verifiable information across trusted sources.
How to compete: consistency across Wikipedia, Wikidata, industry databases and your own site, plus Organization or Person schema with sameAs pointing at those profiles. Inconsistent naming is the usual blocker.
7. Image packs
A row or grid of images for visually driven queries, each linking back to its source page. On product and recipe content this is a genuine traffic channel rather than a bonus.
How to compete: descriptive filenames, accurate alt text, compressed files, relevant surrounding content and original photography. Stock images rarely win here because hundreds of sites use the same file.
8. Video carousels
Scrollable video results for instructional and demonstrative queries, mostly pulled from YouTube.
How to compete: match titles to search intent, use custom thumbnails, add timestamps and chapters, and include a transcript. If hosting on your own domain, VideoObject schema is required rather than optional.
9. Shopping results
Product grids on commercial queries, largely paid through Google Ads, with organic listings available through Merchant Center feeds.
How to compete: full Product schema with price, availability, brand, SKU and reviews, all matching what is visible on the page, plus a clean Merchant Center feed if you sell directly.
10. Sitelinks
Additional internal links displayed under your main result, generated automatically when Google understands your site structure. They increase the space your listing occupies and push competitors down.
How to compete: clean architecture, strong internal linking to your key pages, descriptive anchor text and short readable URLs. There is no way to request them.
11. People Also Search For
Related queries shown when a user clicks a result and returns quickly. Less a target than a signal, and a very good one.
How to use it: treat it as free keyword research. The suggestions show what the previous result failed to answer, which is a direct list of content gaps.
How Do You Track SERP Features?
To track SERP features, use a rank tracker that reports feature presence alongside position, then group keywords so you can see which page types trigger which features.
Semrush, Ahrefs and Advanced Web Ranking all do this. The setup that makes it useful:
- Group keywords by topic, page type or campaign rather than tracking a flat list
- Track which features appear per query, not just whether you rank
- Record when you enter and drop out of a feature, since losing a snippet looks identical to a ranking drop in a standard report
- Watch which competitors hold the features you want, because that shows you the format Google currently prefers
Search Console adds the half no third-party tool has: real impression and click data. A page with high impressions and unusually low click-through is often ranking beneath a feature that is absorbing the clicks.
How Do You Find SERP Feature Opportunities?
Find opportunities by identifying features that appear for your target keywords, checking which competitors hold them, and closing the format gap.
The loop is simple and repeatable. Pull your ranking keywords from Search Console, check which features appear for them, and identify where a competitor holds a feature on a query you already rank for. Those are the cheapest wins available, because the authority is already there and only the format is wrong.
Then adjust: a question as a heading with a direct answer beneath it for PAA, a table where the current snippet is a table, better images where an image pack dominates. Add structured data where it genuinely applies. Then wait, because feature eligibility is re-evaluated on Google’s schedule rather than yours.
What Is the Best Tool for SERP Feature Optimization?
Semrush is the strongest option, because its Position Tracking tool filters by individual SERP feature and reports both your appearances and your competitors’.
That filter is the specific capability worth paying for. You can see which keywords trigger which features, which of your pages are gaining feature visibility, and how that changes over time independently of ranking movement.
Ahrefs covers similar ground with stronger backlink context. Advanced Web Ranking is the specialist option for feature tracking at scale. And Search Console remains the free source of truth for what your visibility actually produces in clicks.
How Do You Optimize a Page for SERP Features?
To optimize a page for SERP features, identify which features appear for the target query, match your content format to them, and support it with accurate structured data.
Start with the SERP, not the page. Look at what Google currently displays. If the query returns a video carousel and a PAA box, a text-only page is competing for a shrinking portion of the screen.
Match intent before format. Informational queries need a clear explanation up front. Transactional ones need price, benefit and a route to purchase. Getting this wrong means no format will save the page.
Structure for extraction. Keyword-aligned H1 to H3, questions as headings where they match real queries, direct answers underneath, lists and tables where the data suits them.
Add structured data that reflects the page. Product and Review markup on commercial pages, VideoObject where video is embedded, Organization and Person where entity recognition matters. Mismatched markup is worse than none.
Keep it fast and mobile-first. Features are competitive positions, and page experience is part of how Google decides between candidates that are otherwise equal.
Then track and adjust. Feature visibility moves independently of rankings, so it needs its own measurement or you will misattribute both gains and losses.
Do SERP Features Look the Same in Every Country?
No. Feature availability and prevalence vary by country and language, so the same query can produce a completely different results page in two markets.
This is missing from most writing on the subject and it changes how you plan international content. Three practical consequences:
- Feature mix differs. A query returning a local pack and shopping results in one market may return a plain organic list plus PAA in another, because commercial infrastructure and data coverage differ by country.
- Rollout is uneven. AI Overviews and newer features reach markets and languages at different times, so a strategy built on what you see in the US may not describe what your German or Polish visitors see.
- Local competitors hold local features. Knowledge panels, local packs and image results in a given market are usually held by domestic players with stronger local entity signals, regardless of your global authority.
Which means feature tracking has to be configured per country rather than run once from your own location. Checking the results page from a Wrocław IP tells you nothing about what a buyer in Chicago sees. More on this in our guide to international SEO.
What Is the Difference Between SERP and SEO?
SERP is the search engine results page itself. SEO is the work of getting your site to appear on it more often and higher up.
The SERP is what a user sees after entering a query: organic links, ads, snippets, packs, carousels. SEO is the practice of optimizing content, technical structure and authority so that page includes you. One is the arena, the other is the training.
Get International SEO Services From Marketer Coffee
Feature visibility is one of the clearest places where a global strategy quietly breaks, because the results page you are optimizing against is the one you can see, and it is not the one your customers in other markets get. Feature mix, rollout timing and the competitors holding each position all vary by country. That is what we do at Marketer Coffee, a Poland-based international SEO agency working with ecommerce and SaaS brands across the US, UK and Europe, at rates 40 to 60% below comparable US and UK agencies. Every engagement opens with a free preliminary audit covering feature visibility per market, structured data and content format gaps, plus a 90-day plan ordered by impact.
See the scope and pricing in international SEO services, or go straight to your market: United States, United Kingdom, Germany. If you would rather see results first, the Landingi case study covers 375% organic growth across 29 months, including AI Overview visibility that outpaced a competitor with three times the organic traffic.
Written by Adrian Dąbrowiecki, founder of Marketer Coffee and SEO consultant with 7+ years in SaaS and ecommerce. Visibility statistics: Advanced Web Ranking. Rich result policy changes: Google Search Central. I also co-wrote a guide on this subject for Landingi: SEO SERP Features: Definition and How to Optimize for Google.