approaches to structured data for seo

APPROACHES TO STRUCTURED DATA FOR SEO… and the emergence of digital presence optimization

OR…

Aaron Bradley / @aaranged #SearchFest 2014

SAYING STUFF ABOUT THINGS… that everybody gets

Semantic SEO anyone? Structured data has been integral in shifting the focus of SEO from strings to things

#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

Identifying and interlinking entities is core semantic SEO workBut can one really call the task of connecting things outside of search – even if for search - “SEO”?


Yes …and noWhile many tasks remain discreetly in the “search,” “social” or some other camp, semantic SEO does not suggest this cross-disciplinary data optimization effort be made, it demands it.

At the end of the day that ever-growing intersection of things is the representation of a brand’s presence in the digital world as a whole.


This change in the digital landscape is exceptional, and recentSearch results like these speak to a fundamental shift in how search engines operate. How did we get here?


Flightsearch,1958Finding a flight required looking up data in a printed table – the same requirement made of Victorian train travelers


Flightsearch, 1970Early flight search was conducted by trained specialists using controlled a query language, and was conducted against a single airline’s dataset


Flight search, just as the web was taking shapeSearch interfaces improved and data for many airlines became available - but not to the general public


Flightsearch,2000Form-based web search provided everyone with the means to find flight information electronically themselves, but required the use of travel-specific search engines


From strings to things … like airports, and airlines, and datesA host of technological developments – many of them “semantic” – have finally facilitated “natural language” search


Some things remain elusiveFor air travel, search refinements must still be structured by the user …


They won’tbe elusivefor longVoice search already permits users to refine searches without explicit reference to the preceding query, and advances in this area have been rapid.

Much innovation in search has been driven by the challenges of mobile devices, where refining searches by hand is arduous, and navigating to external websites from search often proves to be a poor user experience.


From airmailto emailBut here, as with so many areas impacted by advances in structured data, search serves as a jumping point off for more complex user interactions, many of which don’t involve websites or search at all.

Gmail makes flight information available to its users by employing the same vocabulary designed to aid Google in producing richer and more relevant search results – schema.org.


A three-letter acronym and a three-letter abbreviation is now enoughGoogle can return accurate and complex results for very thin queries: Hummingbird's role in this success is obvious


Depth in theSERPsEven with one-word queries, structured data and semantic technologies allow Google to return a rich variety of search results referencing chiefly real-life things, rather than only web pages.

More and more, useful information about products, people and organizations is being presented by Google directly in the search results.


Connecting the dots with structured data Different data consumers use similar technologies to build a cohesive picture of brands in their own networks and beyond


Thinking like a contemporary data consumerThe broad benefit of structured data is that it provides precise information about things in the form of property-value pairs


Determining what things you’re working with is a critical first stepOrganizing information by resource type is crucial in determining which properties can be meaningfully described


Structured data can also refer to web representations of thingsAside from having properties of their own, web resources may also describe real-life things and their properties


Enumerate once, declare properties multiple timesBy approaching resources as types the focus is on the data and to whom it is useful, rather than on any given protocol


Methods ofdeclaring yourstuffWhat specific protocol you should employ depends (again) on the type of resource you’re describing and the potential benefit of the effort.

This approach brings to bear both protocols that aren’t specifically designed for search but may benefit from it, and older search technologies that aren’t thought of as “structured data” but perform that role.


Structured data’s little helpers (they might include you)These three sites provide SEOs with a way of directly influencing Knowledge Graph/Snapshot results


GoogleownsMetawebBut because Freebase is freely available for non-commercial and commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution License, and because it has offered an RDF service since 2008, it’s a go-to source for enterprise data consumers – including Bing.

If you’re ambitious you can use it to create your own personal Knowledge Graph:

bit.ly/mykgraph


http://bit.ly/mykgraph

http://bit.ly/mykgraph

Schema.org is a vocabulary in progressDomain specialists can help properly extend it , and anyone knowledgeable and determined can help shape its future


Providing consistent data is important for connected entitiesApproaching resources as things with properties helps to ensure consistency for all data consumers


Test your markup and other structured data across platforms One of the advantages of approaching data holistically is that one validator can catch errors that another might miss


List of testing tools:

bit.ly/structureddatatools

http://bit.ly/structureddatatools

http://bit.ly/structureddatatools

Verification precedes trust in your dataFormally verifying your corporate or personal identity is a trust-building measure for data consumers


Merging keyword and entity research covers more basesKeywords are essential for describing properties that can’t be quantified


Remember, shopping feeds are a type of structured data tooProperly encoded and managed feeds are critical for ROI on advertising, and impact other areas as well


Identify and embrace new data optimization opportunitiesAnd if you’re savvy enough to recognize these as optimization opportunities you’ll be ahead of the pack down the road


The revolution may not be evident at first blush Semantic technologies tend to fly under the radar because they, by design, rarely impact the presentation layer


But structured data is, for the web, fairly revolutionaryAnd the impact of a thoughtful structured data strategy is greater than the sum of its constituent benefits


Thanks!Drop by my blog, say hello over on my Google+ Community, Semantic Search Marketing, or follow me on Twitter:

@aaranged


www.seoskeptic.com

bit.ly/semsearch

https://twitter.com/aaranged

https://twitter.com/aaranged

http://www.seoskeptic.com/

http://bit.ly/semsearch

http://bit.ly/semsearch