Schema.org and Microdata

If someone told you that there was a quick and easy way that many of you could improve your SERP CTR for minimal effort, you'd all stop in your tracks and give them full attention. Yet, Schema.org and rich snippets are still horribly under-utilized. Affordable Web Technology

Since Google (and Bing!) officially introduced schema.org in June 2011, its fair to say motivation to implement it has been mixed. However since its introduction Schema.org has already evolved a lot, adding a lot of new stuff that people havent paid attention to.officially introduced schema.org in June 2011 Affordable Web Technology

What are Microdata, Rich Snippets, and schema.org? Affordable Web Technology

Microdata is a language, much like HTML. MicroData (also known more or less as Microformats and RDFa) are structured data to help Search Engines to understand larger concepts. Affordable Web Technology

Rich snippets (the visible result of MicroData) are additional lines of information that appear near a search result. They are designed to give the user a sense of what the web page may contain. Affordable Web Technology

schema.org is a vocabulary (adopted by Google, Bing, and Yahoo) to decipher the language of Microdata. (Remember when we tried to use XML to construct sites? The problem then was that XML is an extensible language - but with no traffic cop [i.e. schema.org] it was nearly impossible to know what attribute would actually get interpreted) Affordable Web Technology

Why would you use these? A few benefits of rich snippets include: 1) Drawing a user's attention to your relevant result. Rich Snippets increase CTR by providing aesthetically pleasing layouts including stars, asterisks, photos, etc. that draw more attention than plain text. They also help break up lines of text in SERPs. The result: More click throughs to sites with rich snippets. Affordable Web Technology

Providing instant information as related to their query. Many companies see a % rise in CTR with rich snippets. Users know what to expect before accessing the site. The result: More qualified visitors who are likely to stay on the site longer. Affordable Web Technology

3) Increasing click-through rates and lessen the amount of bounces due to searchers not finding the content they were looking for. Properly using microformats is the best thing since sliced bread for an enhanced search display. There are SEO murmurs that sites without microformats will soon be left in the dust in the SERP display. Affordable Web Technology

5 Great applications of schema.org data (Thank You Colleen Wright) Events - You can get very specific about events that you host Jobs - Be very specific about the type of job you are trying to fill Reputation - A great way to make a very targeted page about YOU! New Sites/ New Content - The NewsArticle type reinforces how much emphasis Google places on fresh content E-Commerce - Use rich snippets to rank higher than your competition and gain more SERP Real Estate in the process. (There are approximately 10 types, not counting the 6 primitives types - and over 60 sub-types) Affordable Web Technology

How Do I implement them? Affordable Web Technology

Analyze your site content and tag data accordingly with microformats supplied by schema.org. You can have many schemas on one page, like webpage, product, reviews, breadcrumb and video. Follow the schema guidelines exactly.schema.org Affordable Web Technology

My name is Bob Smith but people call me Smithy. Here is my home page: I live in Albuquerque, NM and work as an engineer at ACME Corp. Micro Data Example Affordable Web Technology

Here is the same HTML marked up with microdata. My name is Bob Smith but people call me Smithy. Here is my home page: I live in Albuquerque, NM and work as an engineer at ACME Corp. Micro Data Example Affordable Web Technology

My name is Bob Smith, but people call me Smithy. Here is my homepage: I live in Albuquerque, NM and work as an engineer at ACME Corp (Nested) Micro Data Example Affordable Web Technology

How Do I implement them in Wordpress? Affordable Web Technology

Show the Raven tool along with an example of what it does to the page. Login to affordablewebtechnology.com and look at the About Daryl page. Search daryl welch Search daryl welch portland Affordable Web Technology

Use schema-creator.org to produce an example that can be copied and pasted into a wordpress page using the HTML editor. 2. Convert the s to s. 3. Then remove the line breaks at the end of each span. Either itemscope, itemscope=, or itemscope=itemscope is acceptable syntax. See affordablewebtechnology.com/about-2 Affordable Web Technology

Test... Test... Test... The Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool is at Webmaster Tools Provides visibility to your markup as well. After going live, Bing has a microformats validation tool that you can use. Affordable Web Technology

Resources From seomoz.org 3/13/ wer= From seomoz.org 11/13/ The official introduction June, schemaorg-search-engines.html From SeoMoz.org 9/26/12 microformats wer= schemaorg-search-engines.html microformats Affordable Web Technology