Coverage of SMX New York 2011 is provided by our guest author Jackie Hole.
The second technical SEO session of the day in the Advanced Track was hosted by:
- Janet Driscoll Miller -Search Mojo
- Topher Kohan – CNN
- Jack Menzel – Google
Speaker #1 Topher Kohan -Semantic Markup And You!
Coming from a web development angle as opposed to a marketing angle on SEO, Topher covers Semantic Markup, Microformats and Rich Snippets with real world examples and results.
Semantic code essentially gives structure to the data on your web pages, taking data from ‘just bein, something that users can read’ and gives the data meaning in other implementations. CNN used Semantic data extensively for the first time with rel=author with spectacular results.
For example, using microdata with video saw a 35% increase in video search, 22% for target keywords, and using Semantic data on the CNN website ‘Eatocracy’ using the hrecipe tag resulted in 47% increase of recipes showing in Google within 24 hours and a 22% increase in search traffic to recipe pages.
For more information on the hrecipe tag visit: http://microformats.org/wiki/hrecipe
Takeways
- Use rel=author – this highlights creator of the content and allows the author to be indexed. Google likes you to point to the authors profile page
- Getting content into engines is easy – letting engines know what the content is about in order to show it against a set of searches is often missed
- Wrap video in Yahoo Search Monkey tags.
- If snippets are too big it adversely affects the page load time
- Everyone should go to http://schema.org/
- Best time to implement Microformats is when you are launching anything new or changing something significantly
Quote of the session: “I once said at an event that if you’re an SEO and you’re not using Semantic markup right now then you are going to be left behind in 6 months… here’s where I was wrong. If you’re an SEO and you’re not using Semantic markup then you’re going to be left behind, when it will happen I don’t know but you will be left behind”
View Full Summary and PDF presentation: [for SMX visitors needs login] http://searchmarketingexpo.com/preso/east11/KohanTopher-Schema.pdf
For more presentations from Topher Kohan on Slide share http://www.slideshare.net/Topheratl
Speaker #2 Janet Driscoll Miller – What is structured data?
Overview of rich snippets, and structured data for SEO and how it affects your listing in organic rankings. Rich snippets include: reviews, people, products, businesses, recipes, events, and now also music.
Takeaways
- People rich snippets use microformats – Schema.org uses microdata – You can’t combine two types in the same page
- It is likely that best to use currently is microdata
- rel=author doesn’t support multiple author blogs, and only works on the same or self hosted sites and NOT for syndicated content
- Test your markup – it is not always right
View Full Summary and PDF presentation: [needs login] http://searchmarketingexpo.com/preso/east11/JanetDriscollMiller-Schema.pdf
For more presentations from Janet Miller on Slide share http://www.slideshare.net/janetdmiller
Speaker #3 Jack Menzel – Q&A session
Mainly centered around microdata covering the previous sessions, so I will leave you with this thought
Microdata is relatively new. Not all microdata does anything right and may not work for you now as the vocabulary is still being defined.
Watch this space I think is the message!
More posts about SMX East 2011
%%wpcs-568%%-date%%id%%
Be sure to also look at our overview page of SMX East 2011
The coverage of SMX East on State of Search in part made possible by a sponsoring from Majestic SEO who have the largest Link Intelligence database in Search. To get your free trial, give a card to this blogger in person at the conference or drop us an e-mail.
