Bryan Kelly Future Proof your Website for Organic Search Visibility (using Microformats)

Hello My name is Bryan Kelly  SEO & Usability Advocate since 1997  Previous Clients include:  William Hill Plc  The Racing Post  FinSoft  Microgaming Systems  Sportsbook.com  Usability labs in Texas, New York & London  Current role: e-Strategy Specialist, Cytrus Technology (

Today, you’ll learn  What is SEO & SEM?  What are Microformats?  4 Practical Uses of Microformats  Why you should be using Microformats  Data Web Marketing - A New Channel

But first....Herding Cats

Search Optimisation & Search Marketing Getting higher rankings on major search engines, is about finding the right balance between Search Engine Optimisation (on-site), and Search Engine Marketing (off-site) factors.

Search Engine Optimisation Refers to the factors that you can control on your web site  The text on your web page  The number of web pages on your website  The number of keywords and related keywords on your web pages  The links on your web pages to other pages of your site  The links on your web pages to other websites  The structure of your website  The HTML code of your web pages

Search Engine Marketing Refers to the ranking factors that are usually out of your control The most important off-site factor are the links to your web site:  The number of backlinks that point to your website  The quality of the backlinks that point to your website  How often your website is bookmarked on social bookmark sites  How often your website is mentioned on services such as Twitter

Today we’ll focus on factors we can control MicroFormats

What are Microformats? For years search engine search results were limited to 3 basic pieces of information:  A Title,  A Summary, and  A URL Microformats markup (fancy HTML code) allows Google and other search engines (programs) to identify and make use of structured data present in a web page.

Most widely supported are: reviews, events, businesses and organizations, people profiles, products, videos and recipes. Microformats support is growing...

Future Proof?  Ranking on page 1 of Google isn’t all there is to SEO!  You have to entice the searcher to click.  Microformats may be just the thing to increase (clickthroughs) and conversions  Future proof your organic search visibility for increased SERPs real estate  Google Maps and Google Places will be using microformats to populate mapping apps  Microformats may not directly increase your search engine rankings, but they can still be a vital part of your (local) search strategy.  OK – How? 4 Practical applications of microformats

rel=“me” - Use the attribute to create a “social hub on the web”. Facebook Twitter Before After

hCard - Use the markup to GeoTag address information for local SEO After Before

hReview - Use the markup for dealing with individual user reviews Before After

hCalendar - Use the markup for structured information about events Before After

Why you should be using Microformats  Increase click-through rates (15-31% increase in organic traffic, Yahoo!, Google)  “Give users convenient summary information about their search results at a glance“  Encourages engagement - add contact info to address book, add events to calendars, etc.  Increased search results (SERPs) real estate  More organic search traffic, higher conversion rates. Lower other marketing costs.  It is (relatively) easy to implement  Improve your rankings? More visibility, more user engagement, more authority.

Data Web Marketing – A New Channel?  Websites who tag their content with structured data are rewarded with better visibility in search results and social media streams.  The explosion of apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices has further increased interest in APIs. Publishers can extend their reach via Semantic Travel Vocabularies.  Microformats offer a similar strategic competitive advantage to early SEO, SMM, PPC adopters.  Whose data will be the authoritative source in each market out there?  Whose data will be embedded in the most exciting third-party applications?  Whose industry-specific vocabularies will become de facto standards?

Bryan Kelly e: w: Thank you!

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