Mastering SERP features: How to claim Google’s prime real estate in 2025

As a fellow SEO professional/enthusiast, let me guess, you’ve spent hours, maybe days, optimizing a blog post, tweaking title tags, refining meta descriptions, building links, and then… 

Google serves you a SERP where your “hard-earned #1 spot” barely matters. There’s a People Also Ask box stealing attention, a featured snippet flaunting your competitor’s content, and now this new AI-generated overview quietly cites someone else. 

Sound familiar?

If you’re nodding, pause and take a deep breath. You’re not failing, you’re just playing by yesterday’s SEO rules. Because in 2025, ranking first isn’t enough. 

Visibility isn’t just about that blue link anymore; it’s about claiming every piece of premium real estate Google offers. 

Featured snippets, local packs, video carousels, and AI overviews are not obstacles; they’re opportunities waiting to be seized.

Source (Yep! You gotta do, what you gotta do!)

Over the past decade, we’ve seen fellow SEOs obsess over organic ranking alone, only to watch traffic stagnate while competitors appear in every SERP feature imaginable. 

We’ve also learned that with the right mindset, strategy, and a bit of structural wizardry, you can dominate multiple features for a single query sometimes without even being #1 organically.

So, grab your coffee, pull up a chair, and let’s demystify SERP features. 

By the end of this read, you’ll know exactly what they are, why they matter, and how to optimize your content to show up everywhere Google gives you the chance. 

Consider this your personal guide to owning the SERP, increasing your clicks, and regaining your SEO sanity.

What are SERP features and why should you care?

At its core, a SERP feature is anything on Google’s search results page that isn’t a traditional blue organic link. You may think of them as eye-catching shortcuts that Google provides users to access information more quickly, often without requiring any additional clicks.

Some of the most common features include:

• Featured snippets (Position 0)
  
• People Also Ask (PAA) boxes
  
• Knowledge panels
  
• Local packs
  
• Video and image carousels
  
• Review stars and rich snippets
  
• AI Overviews
  

Here’s why you should care: according to SEMrush’s Sensor October 2024 data, only 1.53% of Google searches have no SERP features at all. That means almost every query presents an opportunity to grab visibility beyond just organic rankings.

A single page can appear in multiple features. For example, a blog post can be:

• A featured snippet
  
• Appear in multiple PAAs
  
• Cited in an AI Overview
  
• Shown with rich snippets
  

…all on the same SERP. Imagine owning four spots for one keyword. That’s real SEO gold.

The main types of SERP features you must know!

To keep things succinct and ready to consume, here’s a reader-friendly guide on the most impactful SERP features, along with examples and why they matter:

How to optimize SERP features ~ Unveiling tales from the SEO trenches

Let me take you behind the curtain and show you how we actually approach SERP features.

Featured snippets: The holy grail of position 0

We’ll never forget the day one of our clients’ blog posts claimed its first featured snippet. Honestly, it felt like striking gold in SEO overnight. But the truth? It wasn’t magic; it was a mix of empathy, structure, and relentless testing.

Here’s the secret: Google doesn’t just want keywords. It wants clarity. We start by pinpointing the exact questions users are asking, typically long-tail, intent-rich queries that align with the page’s content. 

Then we craft answers that are concise, scannable, and human-readable, consisting of one or two crisp sentences at the top of a section, followed by a deeper narrative that educates, rather than just feeds a machine.

Tables, numbered lists, and occasionally a quick visual comparison? They’re not just decoration, they’re the formatting that makes Google’s algorithm nod and say, “Yep, this is snippet-worthy.” 

People Also Ask (PAA): Opening doors to your content

PAAs are like little gateways scattered across Google results, each one a potential invitation to your content. But here’s the trick: you have to think like a curious human, not a robot.

For every target blog, we delve into Semrush and Ahrefs to identify the related questions people actually type. Then we answer them with mini-essays embedded naturally under H2s and H3s, conversational and to the point. The magic lies in keeping these answers concise yet insightful, so that someone reading them feels like they just had a mini-consultation with an expert, not a FAQ page.

We remember one post that ended up in four different PAA boxes for the same search query. No extra content creation, just smart structuring and answering questions humanly. Four doors into the same article, and visibility multiplied without spamming the page. How cool is that?

Knowledge panels: Your brand’s shiny digital badge

Knowledge panels aren’t just aesthetically pleasing; they’re a form of trust currency. When Google hands you a panel, it’s saying, “We trust this entity.”

Our approach is methodical. We claim and polish Google Business Profiles, ensure every online mention aligns perfectly, and implement structured schema across the site. One client, a boutique marketing agency, saw their knowledge panel help land PR collaborations and partnership inquiries. Because once Google officially “recognizes” you, others do too. It’s not vanity; it’s authority.

Local packs: turning searches into foot traffic

Local packs are pure intent-driven traffic. If someone searches for “best coffee near me,” they’re ready to act.

We’ve handled campaigns where NAP inconsistencies or outdated profiles were silently killing local rankings. Fixing that, actively engaging reviews, and optimizing every detail in Google Business Profile transformed visibility. 

For a small café chain, this meant appearing in the local pack for 15+ high-intent keywords in just three months. Foot traffic surged, and the owners were literally giddy about seeing new faces every day. Local packs are where SEO meets real-world action.

Video carousels: Engagement in motion

Video isn’t optional anymore; it’s the storytelling medium Google rewards. Embedding well-optimized YouTube tutorials or explainer clips in blog posts accomplishes two key objectives: it visually satisfies user intent and signals to Google that your content is multidimensional.

Titles, descriptions, tags, timestamps, they all matter. We’ve seen dwell time increase and bounce rates drop for pages where video was thoughtfully incorporated. One client’s “how-to” series started ranking in the carousel for multiple queries within weeks, driving visibility both on the blog and in the YouTube ecosystem.

Review & rich snippets: Credibility you can see

Stars are more than glitter; they’re click magnets. But generic or fake reviews? They sure to backfire. We focus on authentic, detailed reviews and embed them with structured schema.

Responding to reviews personally and thoughtfully isn’t optional; it’s human branding. One SaaS client transitioned from underperforming pages to achieving a 30% CTR increase by implementing schema and actively engaging reviewers. Google noticed. Users noticed. And conversions followed.

Sitelinks: Google’s nod to a well-organized site

Sitelinks aren’t granted, they’re earned. Google rewards clear, intuitive site architecture.

For clients, we obsess over internal linking, logical hierarchies, and user-first navigation. One e-commerce site transitioned from generic search listings to multiple sitelinks in under six months. Simply because both humans and bots could understand the structure instantly. 

Clean architecture equals extra SERP real estate. Simple as that.

AI Overviews: The new frontier

Well, these are tricky. Google’s AI-generated summaries pull authoritative info from multiple sources, sometimes even without clicks.

Our approach is straightforward: we produce highly structured, factually accurate, and human-readable content, complete with clear headings, tables, and concise summaries. 

Even if no one clicks, your brand gets mentioned. Over time, these citations accumulate, bolstering authority and recognition. One may think of it as an SEO invisibility cloak turned into a brand visibility weapon.

On that note, you might want to explore ~ Importance of Brand Mentions in the Generative AI Age.

How to go about tracking SERP features like a pro

Manual checking can go for a toss with these savvy tools in your kit!

The road ahead

On that note, as we sign off only to meet again (hopefully), may we interest you in reading, “Rising beyond the blue links ~ Mastering Google AI overviews for SEO success in 2025”, next?