3 Tips for Standalone Content for Ranking in Google’s Featured Snippets | Standalone Content SEO

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Everyone agrees that we should be writing in topics. (Okay, not everyone, probably, but everyone who is likely to read this blog.) Everyone agrees we should write in topics. But no one agrees on what a topic is. Actually, that’s not entirely true. When asked to describe what a topic is, almost everyone in the business will come up with the same essential adjective: standalone. Everyone agree that a topic is a standalone piece of content. Unfortunately, no one agrees on what “standalone” means.

A brake caliper is a basic component of a car. But does the brake caliper stand alone? Certainly it can stand alone on the shelf at the auto parts store, but it serves no function until it is attached to the car. In this sense, it does not stand alone — it can only perform its function when integrated into a larger system. So, a topic is a component of a book in the same way that a carbon atom is part of a hamburger, or a brake caliper is part of a car. In this sense, to say that it stands alone seems to mean at most that it can exists separately and be identified separately. What it cannot do, in this definition, is function separately. You cannot lunch on a carbon atom or go for a ride on a brake caliper. They do not stand alone functionally.

Here is where we have to impose some limit on what it means to stand alone. To say that an article stands alone is to say that it is not designed to work as part of some larger information product. But neither is an article expected to work in a complete information vacuum. Indeed, many of the articles you find online are useful precisely because you can highlight a term or concept you don’t understand and select “Search Google for…” to find more information. The article stands alone not because it is entirely self-sufficient, but because it exists in a rich information environment that the user can call on to further their understanding. It stands alone not because it depends on nothing, but because it depends on everything.

Rich as it is, the information environment of the Internet can be a frustrating place, full of distractions, interruptions, and false leads. As Nesbitt points out, Googling the Net can be better than trying to find information in a monolithic textbook style manual, but it has its own set of drawbacks. A deliberately constructed Every Page is Page One information set can potentially offer the advantage of the Internet’s rich environment and unfettered navigation with fewer of its distractions. It can provide more wheat and fewer tares per acre.

This this is what stand alone means to me. It means that each topic in a well governed information set works as page one for the reader. No matter how they enter the information set, and no matter how they move around in it, no topic makes any assumptions about where they have come from, and enforces no prescription about where they should go next. But, just an an article does not attempt to be self sufficient, but relies on the whole Internet, so an Every Page is Page One topic does not attempt to be entirely self sufficient, but relies on the whole information set.

Such a topic stands alone because rather than relying on particular individual topics, and being functional only in specific relationship to those topics, it relies on all the other topics, allowing the reader to move readily to whatever other topic they need to further their understanding or complete their task.

Stand-alone content can be a hard concept to grasp at first, but the more you learn about standalone content seo and how it can help you win featured snippets, the more you'll be able to write this kind of content. This video will show you how to win featured snippets and how to rank content on google by using standalone content seo. If you want more tips for featured snippets, then check out our stand-alone content FatRank blog: https://www.fatrank.com/featured-snip...

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