Bryan Kelly

Future Proof your Website forOrganic Search Visibility(using Microformats)

HelloMy name is Bryan Kelly

SEO & Usability Advocate since 1997

Previous Clients include:

William Hill Plc The Racing Post FinSoft Microgaming Systems Sportsbook.com

Usability labs in Texas, New York & London

Current role: e-Strategy Specialist, Cytrus Technology (www.cytrus.biz)

Today, you’ll learn

What is SEO & SEM?

What are Microformats?

4 Practical Uses of Microformats

Why you should be using Microformats

Data Web Marketing - A New Channel

But first....Herding Cats

Search Optimisation & Search Marketing

Getting higher rankings on major search engines, is about finding the right balance betweenSearch Engine Optimisation (on-site), andSearch Engine Marketing (off-site) factors.

Search Engine Optimisation

Refers to the factors that you can control on your web site

The text on your web page

The number of web pages on your website

The number of keywords and related keywords on your web pages

The links on your web pages to other pages of your site

The links on your web pages to other websites

The structure of your website

The HTML code of your web pages

Search Engine Marketing

Refers to the ranking factors that are usually out of your control

The most important off-site factor are the links to your web site:

The number of backlinks that point to your website

The quality of the backlinks that point to your website

How often your website is bookmarked on social bookmark sites

How often your website is mentioned on services such as Twitter

Today we’ll focus on factors we can control

MicroFormats

What are Microformats?

For years search engine search results were limited to 3 basic pieces of information:

A Title, A Summary, and A URL

Microformats markup (fancy HTML code) allows Google and other search engines (programs) to identify and make use of structured data present in a web page.

Most widely supported are: reviews, events, businesses and organizations, people profiles,products, videos and recipes.

Microformats support is growing...

Future Proof?

Ranking on page 1 of Google isn’t all there is to SEO!

You have to entice the searcher to click.

Microformats may be just the thing to increase (clickthroughs) and conversions

Future proof your organic search visibility for increased SERPs real estate

Google Maps and Google Places will be using microformats to populate mapping apps

Microformats may not directly increase your search engine rankings, but they can still bea vital part of your (local) search strategy.

OK – How? 4 Practical applications of microformats

rel=“me” - Use the attribute to create a “social hub on the web”.

<li id="facebook"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.facebook.com/ProteaHotels" rel="me">Facebook</a></li><li id="twitter"><a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/ProteaHotels" rel="me">Twitter</a></li>

Before After

hCard - Use the markup to GeoTag address information for local SEO

After

Before

hReview - Use the markup for dealing with individual user reviews

Before

After

hCalendar - Use the markup for structured information about events

Before

After

Why you should be using Microformats

Increase click-through rates (15-31% increase in organic traffic, Yahoo!, Google)

“Give users convenient summary information about their search results at a glance“

Encourages engagement - add contact info to address book, add events to calendars, etc.

Increased search results (SERPs) real estate

More organic search traffic, higher conversion rates. Lower other marketing costs.

It is (relatively) easy to implement

Improve your rankings? More visibility, more user engagement, more authority.

Data Web Marketing – A New Channel?

Websites who tag their content with structured data are rewarded with better visibility in search results and social media streams.

The explosion of apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices has further increased interest in APIs. Publishers can extend their reach via Semantic Travel Vocabularies.

Microformats offer a similar strategic competitive advantage to early SEO, SMM, PPC adopters.

Whose data will be the authoritative source in each market out there?

Whose data will be embedded in the most exciting third-party applications?

Whose industry-specific vocabularies will become de facto standards?

Bryan Kelly

e: bryan.kelly@cytrus.bizw: www.cytrus.biz

Thank you!

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