• Jay Myers, Emerging Digital Platforms Product Manager, BestBuy.com (@jaymyers)
• Jeff Preston, Senior Manager of SEO, Disney Interactive (@jeffreypreston)
• Marshall Simmonds, CEO, Define Media Group, Inc. (@mdsimmonds)

Coming back from lunch and there are plenty of folks who seem to be eager to learn about Structured Data. This session promises to teach us how companies are implementing markup and benefiting from it. This is one of my favorite things to recommend to clients so let’s get started …

Marshall Simmonds: Authorship and Rich Snippets

The evolution of indexation first began with crawling, when Google would come and grab your content. Then, it evolved to HTML sitemaps and eventually XML sitemaps to show them what kind of data you had on your website (image, video, news, pages). Now, indexation has evolved to include structured data.

Why do we do this?

Schema says you can expect that more data will be used in more ways. There are digital assets you, as a site owner or caretaker, can benefit from as they are served up from the SERPs. Did you know that roughly 30% of SERPs have structured data results being served? Interestingly enough, the structured data results differ across browsers — Chrome will show different results than Firefox for the exact same search only moments apart on the same computer. Factor in that Google is regularly updating their algorithms you have to realize that things are constantly changing and different results are constantly being given based on several different factors. Anytime you can capture some of that traffic on a consistent basis is a good thing, right? Structured data can help you do this.

Authorship is one of the more well known types of structured data being used today.  With Authorship, an author’s thumbnail and name appears in the SERPs. Marshall says this was basically Google’s way of rewarding people for setting up their G+ accounts. He goes on to ask for a show of hands how many people in the audience have G+ accounts and there is a large show of hands. Marshall then goes on to ask for a show of hands of how many actually use G+ and barely any hands remain in the air. Oops! Google keeps telling us it’s important and yet, in a room full of “advanced search marketers” only a small percentage of people are actually using it.

Late in 2013 Google started showing Authorship results less in the SERPs, however Marshall has noticed an uptick in the appearance in the results more recently. There are a few factors at the site level that help a site to appear in the SERPs for an authorship listing. These things include:

• The authority of the site
• Having high quality content on the site
• The domain longevity
• additional factors vary based on queries

There are also factors at the author level to consider when trying to appear for Authorship listings. These include:

• Reputation (who you are, where you publish etc.)
• Quality of content
• Authority of site you’re contributing to
• Additional factors vary based on queries

Remember, there will be times when you roll out enhancements, and you WON’T see an immediate reaction. Some roll outs will need to be looked at year over year in order to get great data on the reaction. For Reviews, it seems that these are picked up rather quickly, and you’ll see immediate reactions depending on the industry. For recipes, structured data can help results for certain searches depending on how specific the search is. Somewhat generic searches for recipes will show structured data results, but very very specific searches will not show rich snippet results. Article markups can encourage in-depth categorization with other factors involved. Video is a great area to be in and snippets greatly help.

Structured data is only one check point in your overall strategy – SEO is still important.

Takeaways

• Authorship has a slow to medium indexation with a sporadic appearance in the SERPs with minimal traffic impact.
• TV Reviews have a fast indexation cycle with a slower appearance (based on seasonality) in the SERPs and results in a medium level traffic impact.
• Product reviews have a  fast indexation cycle with a  fast appearance in the SERPs and a  good traffic impact
• Recipes  have a fast indexation cycle with a  fast appearance in the SERPs with a minimal impact on traffic
• Articles are a little different with a hard to track indexation cycle and they don’t always require schema
• Video currently have a fast indexation cycle and are having results appear in the SERPs very fast along with a significant impact on traffic.

Tools & Resources

• Structured Data Markup Validationg & Testing Tools
• Semantic Search Marketing Google+ Community
• NerdyData.com – The Search Engine for Source Code

It’s still very early to get in on rich snippets. If you can get in before competitors, you’re usually sitting better than they are by the time they get around to doing it too.

Use Structured data as another check point in the overall strategy. It helps compete when you can’t break through using regular SEO techniques. It helps to future proof your site from future updates that specifically deal with this area and BOTH Google and Bing want this type of data!

Lastly, remember that this is a marathon, and you have to look at the results year over year.

Jay Myers: How Best Buy Implemented and Benefited from Structured Data

Jay is going to talk about Best Buy’s Journey with structured data – Then & Now. Best Buy actually started implementing structured data as early as 2008, way ahead of the curve and even before it was really recommended to the search community. One way that they implemented structured data in the beginning was to add the markup to each individual store page. The store pages had valuable information, so using RDFa, they added the coding and this resulted in a double digit increase in traffic year over year. And remember, this was years before it was even recommended.

After seeing those types of results with the store pages, Best Buy went on to using markup on an experimental site. After marking up the site and allowing it to be crawled and indexed, they were surprised to see it outranking the main Best Buy site in Google (in 2009).

Shortly after, Best Buy then added structured data to their “shop URLs” that would serve as rich data experiences for both human and machines. Soon they found that these pages were showing in SERPs when they hadn’t before.

These initial efforts were all implemented prior to the real Schema.org push, pre-2010. When Best Buy began implementing, they focused on:

• Publishing data that has valuable meaning beyond keywords
• “clean” and “cool” URLs
• Syntax: RDFa – resource description framework in attributes
• Ontologies ( a loose set of rules to help machines understand data)
  • GoodRelations – the web vocabulary for ecommerce
  • FOAF – friend of a friend
  • GEO – basic methods for representing spatially-located things

Now, Best Buy properties all use microdata and Schema.org in order to better publish their data.  They switched from the RDFa to Schema and saw a nice uptick in their traffic. They have found that there are additional data elements that are showing in SERPs such as addresses/phone numbers on store pages is bringing in a better CTR. They are also seeing reviews for the store pages along with the store info in the SERPs and this further drives the customer engagement. The product pages have prices, reviews, availability all showing in the SERPs. This helps enhance the user experience. Best Buy is engaging with the user right from the SERP rather than the user having to come to the site and hunt for the data.

In the future Best Buy is looking to use Gmail Actions in the Inbox, which uses Schema.org to trigger the actions. This enables actions within email simply by using some basic level coding in the emails. At Best Buy, there is also a pilot being pushed to improve the visibility of product information on the web. Best Buy will also focus on enhancing their result in the Knowledge Graph by marking up data feeds things like upcoming events, recent publications, etc.

Jeff Preston: Real World Examples of Structured Data & SEO

Jeff works for Disney and has been implementing rich snippets for awhile with varied but good results.  Reviewing what others have said, rich snippets:

• Helps search engines better understand content & markup
• Provides opportunity to improve search engine listings, tweets, Facebook and other social posts
• Will NOT fix other SEO problems; fix other SEO problems first before trying Schema

Open Graph markup helps with Facebook (also G+ and Twitter) listings when people share the content. The code appears in the <head> of the page code. The code allows you to define certain data from the page that will also standardize the way information appears in a Facebook share.

For Schema.org, it’s a microformat vocabulary to describe your data. The search engines support and encourage this type of markup.  Disney uses it to markup things like movie pages to call out info like the title, actors and more.  Jeff gives a good bit of advice that people should always remember – validate your coding to make sure that the proper things are tagged.

You can use Schema on the navigation.  In a test Disney did, it resulted in the site links appearing in the SERP result in Google. Disney also used Schema on an Event Microsite to see if it would help. They added the code to the site with event markup giving details like the name, start data, name of location and address.  When they pushed it live they noticed in about 2 days a rich snippet appearing in SERP showing the date, event name and location of the particular event.

Additional applications that Disney has used schema on:

• Videos
• Executive and staff bios
• Official logos
• Local search: name, address, phone number
• Products
• Ratings

They are seeing good results whenever they implement schema, especially on content assets that previously had difficulty getting indexed.

Another thing Disney has experimented with is Twitter Cards. Twitter cards:

• Gives you control of how your content is displayed in tweets
• Links together official website to Twitter account
• Need to apply to Twitter for your cards to be approved
• Fairly easy to implement

Twitter also has a good code validator to check the code.

Some of the things that Disney has done and have seen results in is the Knowledge Graph. Jeff has noticed that Google is pulling some data from Freebase.com, the Schema.org markup, Wikipedia.org as well as other databases that Google might be able to pull entity data like IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes. Do what you can to optimize and influence this information when it relates to your site in order to have a great Knowledge Graph appearing for searches.

Structured Data Resources

Open Graph: developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph

Schema.org: schema.org/docs/schemas.html

Twitter Cards: dev.twitter.com/cards

Overall Takeaway

Structured data is still very new even though it’s been around a couple of years and having it implemented on your site definitely helps improve your SERP results, CTR and user experience.

The post SMX Liveblog: Enhancing Search Results with Structured Data & Markup appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

• What is schema markup?
• Why is schema markup important for SEOs?
• Implementing schema markup
• Commonly used schema types
• Testing and validation
• FAQ: How can I harness schema markup to revolutionize my online presence? 

What is Schema Markup?

Schema markup gives search engines information about your content and has changed the world of website optimization.

Schema markup includes several types of language implementations, including JSON-LD, RDFa, and special HTML markup, depending on the Schema type. JSON-LD is actually based on JavaScript and resides in the header of your page. RDFa is a standard for XHTML markup developed by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). Depending on the data type of your Schema, you may use strategically placed HTML tags to mark up certain types of data on your webpage.

By using structured data language derived from Schema.org, the industry standard recognized by Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, you can provide detailed information and additional context to search engines so they can understand exactly what your data is saying.

Why Is Schema Markup Important for SEOs?

Schema markup remains an underutilized gem in the realm of SEO, offering numerous advantages for businesses aiming to expand their online presence. Let’s explore the key reasons why you should start leveraging structured data:

Improved Interpretation: Schema markup helps search engines interpret your website’s data in a well-organized and structured manner. This results in enhanced accuracy when indexing your content and generating search results.

Rich Snippets: Incorporating schema markup enables your website to display rich snippets, which are visually appealing and provide extra information. Studies indicate that rich snippets can increase click-through rates by 15 to 50 percent, attracting more visitors to your site.

Higher Search Rankings: Websites utilizing schema markup tend to rank higher in search results. By providing search engines with the structured information they need, you improve your chances of appearing prominently in organic search listings.

Amplified Visibility: Only 1% of websites currently implement schema markup, so leveraging it gives you a competitive advantage.

Implementing Schema Markup

Now that we understand the importance of schema markup, let’s explore how you can implement it effectively. There are two approaches depending on your familiarity with HTML:

Using Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper: If you’re new to HTML, Google’s tool can assist you in identifying elements on your website that require schema markup. Simply tag the elements with the appropriate semantic vocabulary, improving your website’s visibility without extensive coding knowledge.

Manual HTML Implementation: For those comfortable with HTML, incorporating schema markup involves three key elements: itemscope, itemtype, and itemprop. These attributes enable you to define an item, specify its type, and label associated properties. By following the proper syntax, you can provide search engines with the necessary information to create richer search results.

Commonly Used Schema Types

Schema.org offers a wide range of schema types to accommodate various content types. While the options are extensive, it’s best to start with broad item types before narrowing down to more specific ones. Some commonly used schema types include Thing, Person, articles, blogs, product, review, movie, and event. Select the types that align closely with your website’s content to maximize the benefits of schema markup.

It’s also important to use a testing tool like Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool to validate your Schema. As if following Schema.org data types weren’t enough, Google also has its own guidelines and specific parameters for allowed Schema that you need to observe if you wish to appear in the rich snippet results.

Testing and Validation

Utilize structured data testing tools to ensure your schema markup is correctly interpreted by search engines. Tools let you see how your content will look in search results so you can tweak it accordingly.

By incorporating schema markup into your website, you’ll quickly notice the SEO benefits, like ranking higher in search results.

Start implementing schema markup today and witness the transformation it brings to your online presence.

Transform your SEO strategy now – harness the power of schema markup to skyrocket your online visibility and rankings with our expert guidance. Contact us. 

FAQ: How can I harness Schema Markup to revolutionize my online presence?

Schema Markup stands out as a powerful tool to elevate your digital footprint. As an expert in the field, I understand the pivotal role Schema Markup plays in enhancing search engine understanding and, consequently, your website’s performance. Let’s delve into the intricacies of this transformative strategy and explore how you can leverage it to revolutionize your online presence.

1. Unraveling the Essence of Schema Markup

At its core, Schema Markup is a semantic vocabulary of tags you can add to your website’s HTML. These tags help search engines grasp the context of your content, providing richer results for users. By using Schema Markup, you communicate not just the content but also its meaning, enabling search engines to deliver more accurate and informative results.

2. Amplifying Rich Snippets for Enhanced Visibility

One of the key benefits of Schema Markup is its ability to generate rich snippets—those additional pieces of information displayed in search results. Whether it’s star ratings for a product, event details, or FAQ sections, these snippets offer users a quick preview, making your content more enticing and trustworthy.

3. Tailoring Schema Markup to Buyer Intent

Understanding buyer intent is crucial for an effective online presence. Incorporate a Schema Markup that aligns with the search terms your potential customers are likely to use. This strategic implementation enhances your chances of appearing in search results that directly cater to the needs and queries of your target audience.

4. The Impact on Local SEO

Schema Markup plays a vital role in local SEO for businesses with a physical presence. Including location-specific tags helps search engines connect your business with relevant local queries. This boosts your visibility and increases the likelihood of attracting nearby customers actively seeking your products or services.

5. Harnessing Experiential Insights for Optimal Results

Drawing from my experience, consider Schema Markup as a dynamic tool. Regularly update and refine your markup to align with evolving search engine algorithms. Monitor the performance metrics and adapt your strategy based on user interactions, ensuring your online presence remains visible and engaging.

Embracing Schema Markup is akin to giving your online presence a turbo boost. The meticulous use of structured data enhances your visibility and effectively communicates your content’s essence. As you navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape, Schema Markup becomes your trusted ally in delivering a more enriching and personalized user experience.

Harness the power of Schema Markup not just to be seen online, but to be seen meaningfully.

Step-by-Step Guide: Revolutionize Your Online Presence with Schema Markup

1. Understanding Schema Markup: Discover what Schema markup is and its impact on SEO.
2. Identify Relevant Schema Types: Determine the types that align with your content and cater to your target audience’s search intent.
3. Incorporate Local Business Markup: Include location-specific Schema Markup to enhance your local SEO if applicable.
4. Optimize for Rich Snippets: Strategically implement Schema Markup to generate rich snippets that captivate user attention in search results.
5. Monitor and Adapt: Regularly review performance metrics, update your Schema Markup accordingly, and adapt to evolving search engine algorithms.

By following these steps, you’ll harness the potential of Schema Markup and revolutionize your online presence, making your content more visible, relevant, and engaging for your audience.

This article was updated on December 15, 2023.  

The post The Power of Schema Markup: Boost Your SEO and Website Visibility appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

SEO Checklist: 5 Factors You Can Expect to Change

With Google’s search algorithms changing on a daily basis, content strategist Kristi Kellogg advises Internet marketers to adopt a proactive rather than reactive approach to SEO by anticipating changes and being prepared for any potential threats to your website optimization. Kellogg addresses five fast-moving battlefronts that are worth reviewing on a quarterly basis:

• Local optimization: Local results are a hotbed of activity, especially with search shifting from desktop to mobile. As an example, Kellogg discusses the recent change in the way reviews appear in search results.
• Search platforms: As new devices become available, count on search patterns to evolve as people explore new ways of embracing mobile technology.
• Keyword targets: As search patterns evolve, so too will the words people use to find your website.
• Schema markup: Confirmed as a ranking factor by at least one major search engine, schema is an area of fast development that offers websites a chance to stand out in the search results pages.
• Link building: Backlinks may not be as important to ranking as they once were, and the question of building links needs to continue.

Survival SEO: How to Do the Search Marketing of Tomorrow, Today

To prepare your website for Google’s next big algorithmic change, Bruce Clay, Inc.’s SEO Manager Mindy Weinstein shares three key search marketing survival tips. Those tips include:

• Understanding how user intent affects the SERP
• Recognizing the impact of social signals on ranking
• Creating content that truly speaks to your audience’s needs and desires

SEO News and Upcoming Training Events

The Hot Topic this month covers highlights from Facebook’s first f8 developer conference in three years, including anonymous logins, extended ad networks beyond Facebook, and more. In Education Matters, learn how to create an SEO culture throughout your organization. Whether you prefer on-site or off-site training for your organization, Bruce Clay, Inc. offers SEO training in the U.S. and even Europe. Coming up: European marketers can join Bruce Clay on July 2–3 for the next SEO Training event happening in Milan, Italy!

With a commitment to excellence, Bruce Clay, Inc. aims to serve its readers with meaningful, educational and informative content that propels businesses forward in a digital age. For monthly Internet marketing news and upcoming SEO training information that will put you ahead of the competition, sign up for the SEO Newsletter here.

The post SEO Newsletter: The Survival Guide to SEO Edition appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Like the sizable number of factors that contribute to whether an athlete is able to snag the gold for her home country, there’s a corresponding list of ranking factors that contribute to whether a web page is able to beat out the competition and seize the golden first SERP spot.

At the top of both those lists not to be overlooked is qualifying to compete. For athletes this means training and paperwork; for optimizers this means technical SEO. In both cases, you can’t just show up before a series of met requirements deem you eligible to stand at the starting line.

In other words, just like a swimmer can’t possibly win a race if they never qualify to compete, a web page can’t possibly beat out the competition and win a number one SERP position if crawl, server or indexing errors prevents it from being discovered, cached or recalled.

Technical SEO is all about making sure your website is eligible to take that first step off the starting line.

Because I know your ranking reports deserve to be filled with high-quality content decorated with bushels of number one SERP rankings (metaphorical gold medals), I’ve compiled this 11-point technical SEO guide to help you make sure you content gets to the game on time.

Please use this guide as a technical SEO primer, and then feel free to join me for a discussion of the topic on Google+, or – if you’re ready to make a big step toward being a SERP gold medalist – consider joining Bruce Clay in March 2014 for SEOToolSet Training or an SMX SEO Workshop. Both are comprehensive ramp-up training sessions with ample one-on-one time.

11 Technical SEO Elements That Help Your Site Rank

1. Create an HTML Sitemap

An HTML sitemap is a regular page on your website that contains a collection of links intended to help both humans and search spiders navigate your site. Since web crawlers use links to navigate from one page to another, having an HTML sitemap in the footer of every page of your website allows the search spider to enter your site at any page and then, from that page, systematically discover a significant portion of your other pages quickly via the sitemap. Human users also reference the HTML sitemap and use it to navigate your site, so human-friendly presentation and organization is recommended.

Learn what Matt Cutts has to say about the value of HTML sitemaps.

2. Create an XML Sitemap

An XML Sitemap lists all of the pages on your website that you want a search spider to crawl and index. The XML Sitemap is only for search spiders, so it doesn’t have to be pretty; it can literally just be a one URL per line list of links saved as a text file. To help ensure that all the important pages on your site get crawled and indexed, it’s important that you keep your XML Sitemap up to date. While an XML Sitemap doesn’t guarantee that all yours pages will be crawled or indexed, it definitely can help.

Learn how to build and submit an XML Sitemap.

3. Keep Code Clean and Make JavaScript and CSS External

Search spiders only spend a limited amount of time crawling your web pages, so you don’t want to waste that time having the spider crawl hundreds of lines of useless clutter code. To make your website’s underlying code more spider-friendly consider minimizing inline markup, putting JavaScript code in an external .js file, and externalizing design-oriented CSS.

4. Make Your Site Speedy

Since Spring 2010, Google has been using website site speed as a known ranking factor. Google loves speed; Google Senior Vice President Amit Singhal has said it himself many times. One way to make your website faster is to clean up your code, since less code means smaller file sizes and faster load times.

Learn more about how to optimize your website’s speed  or analyze your site’s speed with the Google PageSpeed Insights tool.

5. Include a Robots.txt File

A Robots.txt file is a publicly accessible text file that guides search spider crawling directives. It is placed at the root of a website host, and is commonly used to stop search spiders from indexing specific directories and designated files. It’s important this file exists, even if it’s empty. Approach your Robots.txt file with caution and make sure you don’t accidentally exclude any important files!

Learn more about the Robots.txt file and how to use it.

6. Be Thoughtful About Your Internal Linking Structure

Implementing a website siloing strategy can help search spiders more easily understand the theme of your content and its perceived relevance in relation to keyword phrases.

Learn more about website siloing for SEO and the importance of site structure in the absence of keyword data.

7. Check Your Server Configuration for Errors

Search engines may reduce the rankings of a website if search spiders encounter web server errors. In severe cases server errors can cause web pages to be dropped from the index all together. In less severe cases they can negatively affect PageRank as spiders are always looking for the “least imperfect” option and are likely to rank a cleaner, error-free site above a site laden with server errors. To aid your content’s rankability, make sure to regularly check your server for errors that need to be resolved.

Learn how to detect and resolve server issues or check your server’s response with the free Bruce Clay, Inc. Check Server tool.

8. Avoid Flash and Text Contained in Images

An old lesson that still remains valuable: Search spiders can’t “see” Flash content or text contained in images, so don’t use them to convey important information! Instead, use HTML and Alt tags to make your content crawlable.

9. Use the Canonical Tag to Make Sure Dynamic URLs Aren’t Creating Duplicate Content

Google can see and index dynamic URLs, like those that contain sessions IDs, but there is a chance the search engine will crawl and attempt to index each of your dynamic URLs as unique pages – which, if not prevented, could trigger a Panda penalty for duplicate content. To prevent this, make sure you use the canonical tag and Webmaster Tools to indicate the primary page you want Google to return in search results, and to tell Google to ignore the other dynamic versions of your page URL. Google calls this “setting your preferred domain.”

Read what Google has to say about canonical URL optimization.

10. Make Sure Your Site is Optimized for Mobile

User experience is the number one priority of Google, and the search engine has been very open about their preference for responsive websites that seamlessly adapt or respond to multiple devices.

That said, since Google sees not having a mobile optimized website as a major user experience flaw – and they are always looking to rank the “least imperfect” websites in top SERP positions – it can be deduced that having a website optimized for mobile is essential to see improved rankings.

Google has several resources to help you improve your mobile optimization including this YouTube video explaining how to improve mobile pages, a Webmaster Tools checklist for mobile website improvement and recommendations for building smartphone-optimized websites.

11. Consider Using Schema Markup

Disclaimer: This recommendation is based on predictive intuition, not actual ranking-factor facts. Last year Matt Cutts publically stated flat out  that Schema markup is not currently a ranking factor. In other words, Schema markup makes SERP listing more prominent – which can undoubtedly increase CTR – but the addition of Schema markup does not send any signals to Google that help a web page rank any higher.

That said, this is the reason why I am going out on a limb to suggest you might consider making Schema one of your technical optimization priorities for 2014:

We are in the era of the semantic web where Google is hungry for context and the ability to deliver page one results that answer queries, rather than repeating them back to searchers. Schema markup gives Google additional, crawlable information about the contents of web pages, as well as advanced information about a page’s theme and contextual purpose (for instance, consider product/offer schema markup). So, in my speculative opinion, I think it’s safe to say schema markup may be able to help Google further determine a web page’s relevance in relation to a search query – which could also help Google see your content as “less imperfect” than another competitor website. Why wouldn’t Google take into consideration all the available crawlable clues? If they aren’t already using Schema as a secret ranking factor, I see a good chance they will be in the future. (And if they don’t, I consider implementing Schema markup to be a no-lose SEO strategy since Schema is indisputably an incredible click-through driver.)

Learn more about Schema or watch Matt Cutts’s Google Webmaster Help video that discusses Schema as a theoretical ranking algorithm.

Technical SEO is Hard…

Like winning a gold medal, earning a top spot in the SERPs is hard – and so is technical SEO. If you’re new to the left-brain side of optimization and feel lost in the abyss of robots, siloing, canonicals, and Sitemaps don’t feel discouraged; even Michael Phelps had to start somewhere!

Please use this guide as a technical SEO primer, and then feel free to join me for a discussion of the topic on Google+, or – if you’re ready to make a big step toward being a SERP gold medalist – consider joining Bruce Clay in March 2014 for SEO ToolSet Training or an SMX SEO Workshop. Both are comprehensive ramp-up training sessions with ample one-on-one time.

The post 11 Technical SEO Elements to Help Your Site Win a SERP Rank Gold Medal appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) — the session moderator — starts the session by saying how he hates the word “entity” nearly as much as he hates the word “semantic.” They’re two words that mean so much but express so little, he says.

He goes on to say, despite hating the word “entity” as a vague umbrella word, the actual concept of “Entity Search” is really opening up a whole world of possibility – a world where search engines don’t just match words with words, but actually begin to understand ideas.

__________

An Introduction to Entities

David Amerland (Author, Speaker, Analyst, @DavidAmerland) starts the session with an introduction to entities. David is going to talk about entities, how they apply, and what you can do to take advantage of them.

He asks how many people know what an entity is (by show of hands). I think more people know what it is than raise their hands (we’re all scared of David’s intelligence). He asks us next (by show of hands) how many people know what a tree is. Again… more people should have raised their hands (who doesn’t know what a tree is??). He coerces us to raise our hands (we all know what trees are!) and then he asks us to close our fists and close our eyes.

I am explaining all of this because it’s a great demo.

With our eyes closed he says “tree” and notes that we all have an image in our heads right now. Without prompting, we all see different tress based on our understanding of what a “tree” is. If we know more than one language, when we hear tree in German we see a tree. If we don’t know German, we don’t see a tree because we don’t know that Baum means tree.

Everything you know about a tree is your own personal knowledge graph. You have your own personal contexts associated with that word.

Someone who has grown up in the forest sees a different tree than someone who grew up in California

Trees are entities. Entities are concepts. We (and Google) understand entities (Concepts) based on context, experience, influence, social factors, societal factors, etc.

David jokes that as SEO Professionals we used to know how the web works. “We used to understand the Matrix” he jokes.

SEO in the past was a case of probabilities; search was a statistical analysis tool. Search returned keyword-rich results.

As SEOs we’re responsible for understanding the mechanics and delivering the results. As semantic web statistics begin to fade away, search itself is changing.

A good example of this is Google Now. Google Now is actually learning what you need, and it’s trying to predict what you might need. For instance, if you look up directions to a place, the next time you use your phone it might let you know that the place you looked for (IE: The convention center you visited yesterday) is nine miles away and traffic is bad.

The challenge for us is to understand the new landscape and what we can do within it. Information itself is growing at an exponential rate and search is changing with it.

Vectors of Big Data

Volume – how much you create
Velocity – how quickly it accelerates across the web
Variety – are you creating a good mix?
Veracity – make sure what you’re creating has a large element of trusted authority (directly related to Authorship)

Connection
Social Discovery
Social Buzz
Authorship + Author Rank

Entities are produced in a variety of ways

Imported from trusted sources
Extracted rom web pages
Data mined in the social web

There is a massive amount of the web that is unstructured data. Google’s job is to take this unstructured data and put it into a structured format.

A tree (re: the entity) is a defined concept that is defined by everything it is associated with.

Entities are a challenge because they provide answers at the search box rather than suggestions.

“Optimization” seems to have been reduced to this single problem: Find a way to answer a single search query.

Entity Search, and Google’s emphasis on it isn’t all bad! It’s created a lot of opportunity, actually. We need to ask ourselves:

• How can we learn to adapt to optimization for continuing search interfaces (touchscreens, etc.)
• How can we be less reliant on keywords
• How can we optimize in a world of deprecating on-site SEO

Reverse engineer entity as a driver by thinking about your content as needing:

• Authority
• Trust
• Reputation
• Influence

Web used to be faceless, impersonal, able to be gamed. Web is now personalized; everything you do is associated with and accrued to who you are and what you do.

__________

Jonathan Goodman, President, Halyard Consulting (@halyardconsult) is up next.

What is Freebase?

Metaweb ten acquired by Google; over 40 million topics; over 2k relational tables; had a metadata query language; you (can) use it to build applications.

Woah.

Here are some slides that explain what Freebase is better than I can:

Freebase query editor

Freebase.com/appeditor

Yatedo.com
Richseam.com

The future of search = Semantic + implied intent. Your personal historical previous searches, purchases, and sphere of influence all directly affect SERP results.

It’s going to get a lot harder. We all need to try to build a sphere of influence, and we need to start marking up our pages/content with Semantic Data.

Jon predicts “in 2015 backlinks will mean nothing.” He’s not sure if it will happen, but he’s hopeful.

________________

Reva McEachern, Principal Technologist, REVA Digital Media LLC (@revadigital) is up last (but not least!).

She is going to talk conceptually about how people become things, or – in other words – how the Knowledge Graph becomes the Social Graph.

She opens up with a few quotes. One from SE Land and this one from Matt Cutts: “All these people doing [… ] over optimization – versus those making great content and great sites. We are trying to make GoogleBot Smarter, make our relevance better…”

She notes how this “over optimization” technique represents the old, traditional world of SEO and SEO techniques, and the latter half reflects where search is going (IE: toward entity search).

SEO and SERPs today are all about more data, not less. We’ve evolved from text and links and files to things. We’re able to (and consistently try to) make our communication more comprehensive.

Google is relying on the social graph, the knowledge graph, and links.

Google determines your preferences (and your personal search results) based on your interactions with others on the web and how they interact with you.

Social Graph

SERPs are showing more content endorsed by your friends. How do you show up here? Presence on G+, Authorship and engaging in these spaces

Rich Snippets make flat pieces of text become things. How a person becomes a thing is through G+ verification.

She emphasizes the importance of AuthorRank. She thinks of it like PageRank. It’s really about making connections, being authentic and participating in the community. (IE: Being a player in your “sphere of influence” as Jon put it).

She says SEOs and Social Media Marketers really need to work together and reiterates that one key takeaway should be to markup your website with as many (relevant) schemas as possible.

The post The Coming “Entity Search” Revolution (#smx #24C) appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

I love structured data. Seriously. It might be my favorite SEM topic and I am beyond excited to be in a room full of Schema superstars.

The session is moderated by Elisabeth Osmeloski (@elisabethos, Director of Audience Development, Third Door Media, Inc.) and  there are three panelists who will be presenting.

The agenda promises examples of how each has “effectively used structured data to improve search visibility for articles, movies, products, local business information, and more.”

Ok – introductions aside, let’s get to it.

Evan Sandhaus, Lead Architect, Semantic Platforms, NY Times (@kansandhaus) is up first to talk about Embedded Data and rNews, a form of sematic markup he created for the News Industry. He is the Lead Architect for Semantic Platforms (NY Times Company; part of the research and development team). Woah. Now that is a title…

A Semantic Markup background story from Evan:

It all started with a problem: People weren’t calling the same things the same things, and without consensus on what to call things languages aren’t all that useful. SO his company started looking at a way to formalize a language database – his markup language was called rNews. At the same Google was launching Schema.org; today Schema.org and rNews work together.

Even will cover today:
Why we need Semantic and what Semantic is
The Structured Data standard
Benefits of the SD standard

Why is it important to embed structured HTML into documents

The answer, as with all important things, starts with Justin Bieber.

Evan shows us a news article about Justin Bieber and points out what makes sense to human viewers (image with caption, body text, headline, etc.) and how we, humans, are able to parse meaning because we are – well, human. Then he shows up how spiders/technology see the page and how they are not able to parse meaning/implication just from intuitively reading/scanning the page:

HTML is a standard for expressing the ways things should look; not necessarily what things mean. One underlying result of this is that your SERP results don’t look “as pretty” as those with markup that allow SEs to draw conclusions about meaning and implication.

4 Semantic Markup Standard Types

These are just tools that let you say “there is a thing in this thing called this.” IE: This is a headline. It doesn’t explain What a headline is; what the implication of a headline is – what “headline” means; why it matters.

What is rNews??

rNews is a data model. Developed for machine-readable publishing metadata into web documents (IE: headline, byline, tags, creator).

It’s a set of suggested implementations.

rNEWS expresses the syntactic features of a news document, but also expresses the underlying details of a news article. Like all semantic markup, it helps Search Engines and social networks better understand the meaning of content.

rNews scope: It was first proposed in 2010, then implemented on nytimes.com in September 2011.

Why Semantic Markup?

1) Superior algorithmically – helps SEs and social networks understand your content to make assumptions about your content and then generated links that look pretty in SERPs and social feeds.

2) Superior Tool Support (vertical search, commenting, platforms, rights management—they can all make use of this semantic data)

3) Better Analytics – here are all the page views you got on Semantic markup embedded in a page allows your search team to look at all pages on your site holistically.

Schema.Org and rNews are Friends
Schema was introduced about the same time as rNews – rather than trying to compete with Schema, rNews works with and collaborated with rNews.

_____________________

Warren Lee, SEO Manager, Adobe (@seocubed) is up next to talk about Schema at Adobe and strategic consideration in regards to which schema you should go after/work on.

About Warren: Joined Adobe as an in-house SEO; helped take Adobe from all external to all-internal SEO team. 11 years in search and 15 years in Digital.. Adobe approaches Schema with a “How do we make, manage, optimize and monetize our product with Schema” mindset.

Warren is going to offer three case study examples of how they (Adobe) use Schema (but he also reiterates that which Schema you go with will depend 100% on your business, your goals, and what you want to accomplish).

Semantic Markup Tools

Structured Data Markup Helper and Google Webmaster Tools Data Highlighter Tool

Three Structured Data Types and What To Use Them For

Events Markup

• Snippets v site links
• Not meant for advertising
• Can include event title event date and venue
• Increase CTR

Reviews Markup

• With reviews, the voice of the customer is a great way to move customers through the buying cycle funnel
• Test including actual reviews in meta description v. using a controlled meta description
• Consider regional impact (EG: Reviews in Japan can be used more as a complaint platform than a praise platform)
• Consider impact by Industry
• Use the Structured Data testing tool (always TEST!!)

Authorship Markup

• Hcard is nice to have but…. Authorship is more important than you may think (it has value beyond CTR)
• If you’re not paying for the product then “you are the product”
• Author rank is a ranking factor

Warren definitely encourages you to use re=author (don’t fluff past this opportunity!)

How are they going to improve the relevancy of their current ranking algorithms – Warren thinks of G+ as an engine that helps Google evaluate your author authority. He thinks there is a very good chance it is going to become more of a ranking factor down the line.

___________

Chris Silver Smith, President, Argent Media (@si1very) kicks off his presentation with three reasons why you should use Structured Data:

Three Reasons to Use Structured Data?

If you need to make a case to your CEO, this is your section!

1) Enables search engines to more accurately interpret site content. Makes the message/meaning you are trying to convey crystal clear.

2) Can enhance your SERP listings, make them more attractive, and make them take up more real estate. CTR may improve 15-50% with Rich Snippets.

3) Can increase the number of links per SERP. Logically having more links per SERP = increased odds of clicks. Google actually calls this Schema implementation a “Bonus” for you; if they call is a “bonus” you should probably capitalize on it.

What Spiders are Looking For
1) Schema.org Markup
2) OpenGraph Markup
3) Title and Meta Description
4) If Google doesn’t find any Semantic Markup it will just crawl your page and try to deduce its own description… which is not ideal.

Use both OpenGraph and Schema.org markup simultaneously!

Real World Example: Local Organization Combined with Review Schema:

Always use the structured data testing tool! Check your assumptions. It will show you if you have your author markup implemented correctly, and it will check for any other schema markup you may have, too.

Biggest Tip of the Year for SEO: The Author Tag!

To implement you need to have a G+ page associated with your website and then you need to use the rel=author author tag:

Tables or lists can get Schema, too.

Great example of a page with a comparison chart on it, and how that chart can show up in SERPs with Schemac

Twitter’s Semantic Markup

Twitter Cards – dev.Twitter.com/cards

Add Twitter Card Meta Data to pages >> validate your cards >> then it will show up within a day or two (pretty fast)

Final thoughts on tools from the panel:

If you can’t do the programming use the Data Highlighter tool. If you CAN do the markup – do the markup! The highlighter tool is brittle and

Google Webmaster Tools Structured Data Reports

(This is in bold because it was mentioned with emphasis by all panelists)

The post The Why and How of Structured Data Markup Superstars (#smx #22C) appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Stephan Spencer (@sspencer) of Koshkonong LLC kicked off this after-lunch session.

Stephan starts by giving away books for those who answer his geeky semantic markup questions! (I lucked out by getting a signed copy prior to the session! Thank you, Stephan!)

Rich Snippets

Known to boost CTR in organic listings. Perhaps, they might be known to enhance rankings.

• More compelling search snippets: increased clickthroughs
• Bonus search results: More clicks to more pages on your site. If they spent 2.5 minutes or more looking at your article and then click the back button. They get more of your articles you’ve written.

He now admits he has 58 slides in 15 minutes … oh, no …

Google Authorship

Stephan provides steps for creating Google Authorship.

One way is what I did here for liveblogging for Bruce Clay:

Link back from site to Google+ profile. Also link from profile to the site.

Authorship Misfires…

The mention of Eric Enge overroad Stephan’s bio image for posts mentioning their book, “The Art of SEO.” He had to remove Eric’s name to stop Eric’s Google Authorship image from showing.

Video Thumbnail Markup

• Schema.org video option
• Facebook Share format for videos
• Yahoo! SearchMonkey RDFA search format

Test by:

• Using Google’s Rich Snippets Testing tool.
• Going into Google Webmaster Tools to make sure it’s working.

Video Thumbnail Misfires …

Yes, they have them, too!

• Why don’t all videos get the markup? For Zappos example, he has no idea why. (Neither do we!)

Reviews:

Clever use of microformats is using aggregate reviews by putting them on one category page.

Product / Offer:

Add product information, and in the Offer add some pricing information and availability and if it’s in stock.

Price and availability is displayed in the SERPs. (Side effect is putting the comparison shopping engines out of business.)

Breadcrumbs:

Use them! (Period.)

Location Data:

You get hours of operation and display hours for the day you are searching. Google pulls this from semantic data.

He then shows examples of rich snippets for events and attractions.

Tools:

Data Highlighter

Bring up the page in Google Webmaster Tools and highlight sections of the page.

Downsides:

• Page by page basis
• It doesn’t provide the markup in the backend of the HTML or to Bing. It only sends it to Google.

Good for non-techies. (You have to have technical people maintaining your website!)

Google Structured Mark-up Helper

Outputs HTML but is only on a page-by-page basis.

Facebook Open Graph Markup

You’ll have to download the deck for this info on OG.

What do I do?

• RDFA
• RDFA Light
• Microdata
• Microformats
• Schema.org

Answer: RDFA Light mirrors schema.org’s microdata in 96%. It’s not as complex. Schema.org is the other option. (He leans toward RDFA, because it’s cleaner.)

What’s Next?

• More and more data types
• More integration of semantic data
• Search engines displaying more data directly to SERPs
• Ask yourself how you can add extra value?

At least implement one of the formats.

Contact stephan@stephanspencer.com, and his assistant will email you resources.

Next …

Marcus Tober (@marcustober) of Searchmetrics Inc.

What’s Going On In The Real World

Google is using ratings from sites. What about Amazon?

Amazon is not using Schema, but Google shows rich snippets in the SERPs for Amazon products. They are essentially using “schema light.” (Google figures it out.)

Marcus showed some fun pictures that I laughed so much that I missed some.

Examples shown of eye-catching rich snippets: reviews, ratings, recipes, authorship.

Searchmetrics Study: 450,000 domains, 60,000 keywords

Structured data snippet were evaluated for these sites.

• Keywords with at least on structured snippet had 60.70% increase.
• Domains without schema integration was 99.73%.

Most small to medium-sized businesses are not using Schema.

Stats of SEO Visibility

If you rank for more keywords, then you get more visibility and more traffic. If you take average SEO Visibility and then compare with domains not using Schema, there is much lower SEO Visibility.

Most popular types of Schema:

Movies and Offers has the highest penetration.

Distribution of different elements in site:

You can use 100s of different elements on your page, but if you take a look at the SERPs, then more than 60% of the elements.

If you implement too many elements, Google cannot display in the SERPs. They are not fully ready for it!

The sites that are implementing Schema are having higher rankings.

Searchmetrics Findings:

• Only 0.27% of domains are using Schema.
• 47% higher rankings on average for those sites that are using Schema markup.

Next…

Julia Gause of Scripps Network

Integration of Rich Snippets on Network of Sites

She opens with a definition of a Rich Snippet – bottom line that is “might” show on a page.

Back in Time…Google contacted them to be an early adopter of the hRecipe markup. (Her company deals with food networks and chefs who cook up yummy stuff like the Cooking Channel and Food.com.)

So why would Google want to implement rich snippets? Food Porn!

What exactly are rich snippets for recipes?

On the surface they look the same, but in one recipe, calorie count is missing. (Heck, people may not make that recipe if they knew how many calories it may have!)

Food.com Results

• Implemented hRecipe markup in October 2010.
• 42% increase in entries to the recipe pages in October over September 2010
• Year-over-year CTR was 50%. They were already ranking well, but adding the recipe reviews and pretty pictures affected the CTR significantly!

Switch from hRecipe to Schema.org in early 2013.

• No big change of how it looked in Google.
• Bing showed rich snippets but no picture.
• Yahoo! didn’t show anything.

When you search for recipes and get a horizontal top module, it’s running on Schema.org.

Julia explained her network has implemented the following objects:

• Recipes
• Ratings
• Reviews
• Video (length and description)
• Person (for show hosts) – NOTE: This is different than Google Authorship. It’s “About” not link to the profile as in rel=author.

Take-aways:

• There appears to be modes grown due to the image object.
• Person schema increased rankings of the show host pages.

Elisabeth Osmeloski once again kicked it as the moderator by asking the panel questions that generated further discussion.

In the end, Schema means you can give the search engines structured information about the elements of your site with richer snippets in the SERPs.

The post SMX Advanced 2013: Microdata, Schema, Rich Snippets appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..