Schema.org and Microdata. If someone told you that there was a quick and easy way that many of you...

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.

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Since Google (and Bing!) officially introduced schema.org in June 2011, it’s 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 haven’t paid attention to.


http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-schemaorg-search-engines.html


What are Microdata, Rich Snippets, and schema.org?


•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.


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.


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)


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 SERP’s. The result: More click throughs to sites with rich snippets.


Providing instant information as related to their query.

Many companies see a 20 - 30 % 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.


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.


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)


How Do I implement them?


•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.


http://www.schema.org/

<div> My name is Bob Smith but people call me Smithy. Here is my home page: <a href="http://www.example.com">www.example.com</a> I live in Albuquerque, NM and work as an engineer at ACME Corp.</div>

Micro Data Example


http://www.example.com/


Here is the same HTML marked up with microdata.

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"> My name is <span itemprop="name">Bob Smith</span> but people call me <span itemprop="nickname">Smithy</span>. Here is my home page: <a href="http://www.example.com" itemprop="url">www.example.com</a> I live in Albuquerque, NM and work as an <span itemprop="title">engineer</span> at <span itemprop="affiliation">ACME Corp</span>.</div>

Micro Data Example


http://data-vocabulary.org/Person



<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"> My name is <span itemprop="name">Bob Smith</span>, but people call me <span itemprop="nickname">Smithy</span>. Here is my homepage: <a href="http://www.example.com" itemprop="url">www.example.com</a>. I live in <span itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Address"> <span itemprop="locality">Albuquerque</span>, <span itemprop="region">NM</span> </span> and work as an <span itemprop="title">engineer</span> at <span itemprop="affiliation">ACME Corp</span> </div>

(Nested) Micro Data Example


http://data-vocabulary.org/Person



http://data-vocabulary.org/Address

How Do I implement them in Wordpress?


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”


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 <div>‘s to <span>‘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


Test... Test... Test...The Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool is at

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

Webmaster Tools Provides visibility to your markup as well.

After going live, Bing has a microformats validation tool that you can use.


http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

ResourcesFrom seomoz.org 3/13/12

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-visual-guide-to-rich-snippets

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=176035

From seomoz.org 11/13/2011http://www.seomoz.org/blog/schema-examples

http://html5doctor.com/microdata/

The official introduction June, 2011http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-schemaorg-search-engines.html

From SeoMoz.org 9/26/12http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/getting-the-most-out-of-schemaorg-

microformats


http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-visual-guide-to-rich-snippets



http://www.seomoz.org/blog/schema-examples

http://html5doctor.com/microdata/



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