Featured Snippets and Capitalising Titles of Text Capsules

1. 98

   eugbugposted 4 months ago

   Should the words making up titles of text capsules be capitalised if the text modules are steps in a tutorial type article? If the steps end up as an FS, all capitals looks a bit odd.

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      96

      Robinposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      You could create a table of contents of sort at the top that has a clear subtitle of the FS query and add the steps at the top of the Text Capsule in a numbered list.  Then go into more detail about each step below in your article.  For example
      
      5 Ways to Reduce Energy Consumption in Your Home (subtitle)
      1.  Install More Efficient Lighting
      2.  Upgrade Your Heating System Controls
      3.  Reduce Electricity Consumption of Appliances
      4.  Track Electricity Usage With an Energy Monitor Adaptor
      5.  Install or Upgrade Insulation

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2. 98

   eugbugposted 4 months ago

   That's actually what I've been doing Robin to all of my hubs. It's probably a bit early to know whether it pays off though. I think it's better than trusting the Google algorithm to come up with reliable results for an ordered list type FS by trawling through text capsule headings. (It seems to go wonky sometimes and use titles as entries in the list)

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      96

      Robinposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      Of course I chose the article you haven't done that to yet.  Sorry!  Featured snippets are still in their infancy and there's a lot of improvements that still need to be made.  You're right the algo doesn't always choose the best items from your article.  I think adding it to the top for now is the best idea, and it is a way for readers to get their answer quickly and know what's in your article—both good signals.

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      1. 98

         eugbugposted 4 months agoin reply to this

         On the subject of ordered lists, we were discussing in another thread the option of specifying the starting index for lists (so that a list could be broken up, intermediate explanatory text inserted and then the list continued). So we would need to be able to use the "start" attribute in the HTML.
         Is this something that could be supported, or do you thing it would be a bad idea because if Google chooses a portion of the list other than the first part for an FS, the fact that the index wouldn't start at '1' would confuse readers?

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3. 42

   Venkatachari Mposted 4 months ago

   Your above-mentioned article on energy is quite good and perfect. It doesn't need any change in my opinion. It should certainly get the traffic in due course.

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   1. 98

      eugbugposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      It only gets 1 view on average per day, so I'll have to think up some new titles and subtitles and add new content to improve traffic!

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