SMX London 2012: “Social Shares – The New Link Building”? is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

Here’s my slide from the session, the presentation goes through the key points in optimising your Google Places campaign. I have also included an Appendix at the end with information I didn’t get time to go through in the session including recourses for Google Places, top citation sites and how to track Google Places in Google Analytics.

Google Places – Global Approach ISS London 2012 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

With that in mind I thought I’d try and clear the air a bit and create a beginners guide to rich snippets, schema and microdata.

What are Rich Snippets?

Way back in 2009 Google decided to add rich snippets to their search results helping users find more information on a large variety of subjects including people, food recipes, events and reviews. The goal being to help webmasters advertise their content better, and giving users as much information as possible before they made the decision to click through to a website. Check out an example of a recipe rich snippet below:

How have rich snippets evolved over time?

Over the last few years Google have added many more types of rich snippet to their armoury including products, video, music info, restaurants, business organisations, people and authors. As you can see below the snippets provide more eye-catching options than the review above.

Video example:

Music example:

Author example:

If you are yet to add the Rel=”author” tag to your website check out Ben’s excellent post; How to Implement the Rel=”Author” Tag – A Step by Step Guide

Schema.org and Microdata

Fast forward to 2011, and in a surprisingly kind act, Google agreed to work alongside Bing and Yahoo! to support a set of schemas that could be used across their search engines to help improve search results, and more importantly, offer the chance of superior visibility for the savvy SEO consultant or company. The schema alliance has since been joined by the Russian search engine Yandex, and they are apparently open to other search engines joining them in the future.

So what is Schema.org?

As they say here; “Schema.org provides a collection of shared vocabularies webmasters can use to mark up their pages in ways that can be understood by the major search engines: Google, Microsoft, Yandex and Yahoo!”

In its simplest terms schema.org is based on microdata. Each kind of data can then be described by the schema vocabulary. This means that Schema vocabulary + microdata formatting added to HTML content = Happy webmasters who can markup their pages to further improve their visibility in the search results.

There are many different types of vocabularies available via schema.org, ranging from job listings and movie information, to bakeries and liquor stores. You can find out whether your website is relevant to schema by checking out this rather long list.

An example of schema at work

There are 100s of different schemas that I could have chosen for this example but, as I am new to Verve and this is my first post, I thought I’d use the person schema. Using the excellent Schema creator tool courtesy of Raven Tools, I was able to create my personal microdata within a minute!

Microdata example:

Which produces:

Now, the second image is only a preview but as you can see in the first image above, this example is simple to understand (even if you were coding it manually!) and was quick and easy to create. Once you have added the microdata to its relevant page you can check it via Google’s rich snippet tool to find out whether it will be read by Google et all, and isn’t full of errors.

Benefits of adding microdata to a website

Beyond the person schema being a cool thing for your ego, or the ability to add a nice review to your lasagne dish, should you be looking to add microdata to your site? The benefits of doing so are below:

1 – Eye catching results – Drawing a search users attention from your competitors and to your own result.

2 – Potential CTR increase – Possibly increasing click through rates and lowering the chance of the user ‘bouncing’ as they have more information on the page before clicking through (there is also the potential to put off users if the increase in information shows something they are not looking for).

3 – Providing ‘quality’ results – Offering results that are closer to user specifications (again, however, there is a chance that the user is only reviewing information, for example – the price of a pair of football boots. Had the microdata not been there, the user may have clicked through and been convinced to make a purchase).

The future of rich snippets?

Considering the time and resources spent by the larger search engines combined with their evolution it looks like rich snippets are here to stay, so what do we think could happen in the future?

1 – More relevant search results? – The schema alliance are aiming to create a more semantic web, will this bring improved usability, happier users and better search results? We hope so!

2 – Increased rankings? – There have been a few posts discussing how rich snippets can increase CTR, the main one being via Search Engine Land. The question is; will they ever gain substantial weight within the algorithm and help increase rankings in the future? The potential is definitely there and you should expect a rush to add them if it is ever publicly announced by Google.

3 – More time spent on Google? – The counter argument to rich snippets has been that by supplying so much information, the user may never need to click through to the website offering more quality information. This is, after all, what Google really want – more of your content, more users spending longer on their site and more users spending money with them.

Gaps in the market?

With hundreds of options and rich snippets still in relative infancy (when reviewing the majority of non SEO related search results anyway), where do we feel there are gaps that could be exposed by rich snippets?

Reviewing Google search results over the last year or so if I was to own websites, or work with clients within recruitment, professional services (dentists, electricians, plumbers etc) or health and beauty business markets, I would be discussing rich snippets pretty quickly!

Homework/Further reading

If that wasn’t enough goodness for you we have more information on schema via Google, Bing and Yahoo! below:

Google: Introducing schema.org: Search engines come together for a richer web
Microsoft Bing: Introducing Schema.org: Bing, Google and Yahoo Unite to Build the Web of Objects
Yahoo: Introducing schema.org: A Collaboration on Structured Data
Schema blog

A Guide To Rich Snippets, Schema & Microdata is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

We are very excited to welcome Sean Revell to the Verve Search team as our new Head of SEO! Sean has been working in SEO for the past 4 years and is a self confessed “algoholic”. For those of you in the SEO industry you might know of him from twitter @s_rvll (previously @011100110110010) or his blog http://01100111011001010110010101101011.co.uk/ (which by the way means geek in binary, brilliant!)

When I interviewed Sean I knew within the first 10 min that he would be a perfect fit for the Verve Search team (that and I had researched sites he had done SEO for).  Sean has that rare “je ne sais quoi” that makes a great SEO: analytical minded, fairly technical but most of all creative. We believe “the force” is strong with Sean.

Sean is starting of his first week at Verve Search attending and covering SMX London on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, so if  you see him make sure to say hello. And if not make sure you follow him on twitter.

Also look out for his first blogpost here on the Verve Search blog that will be posted within the next hour: “A Guide To Rich Snippets, Schema & Microdata”

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Welcome to the team Sean Revell is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

What is Rel=”Author” and Why Should I Use it?

If you are a frequent blogger or writer, you can claim your hard work as your own and build a reputation for being an expert on your subject. Basically, by adding more information, Google can provide users with trusted authors. In turn, these authors will benefit from greater exposure and returning readership. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want their name and a cool little picture of themselves next to their work?!

Notice how much the result stands out from the rest (not just because of the two giant arrows). Which result would your eyes be drawn to first?

How Will it (Really) Help?

If somebody answered your question well once, would you go back to them when you had another related question? Probably! Google authorship markup makes it easier for users to find the authors they are looking for. By putting a name and face to online content, Google hopes that standards will get better and quality will be rewarded. To put it simply; If Google says this will help promote quality authors, and you consider yourself to be a quality author, then you NEED to utilise this feature. Here’s how!

1. Adding Rel=”Author” and Rel=”Me” – The Manual Way

Step 1.

Assuming you own a site with multipile authors, the first thing you will need to do is make sure that each author has an “Author/Bio” page.

Step 2.

Once you have author pages for each author, you must link from each blog post to the author page using rel=”author” in the header – This can be done through CSS where the name of the author links through to the author page and the “rel=author” attribute is included. Sites like Search Engine Land have implemented the rel=’author’ tag within the “by NAME OF AUTHOR” after their blogpost title, like this:

Step 3.

Each author page is then linked to a Google profile/+ page using rel=”me”.

Obviously, any Tom, Dick or Harry could write rubbish on the internet and say that you had written it, so you also have to verify the link by pointing your Google+ profile page back to your author page. This is actually much more simple to do than it sounds and can be done by editing your Google profile and adding a link to the “Contributors” section.  

How to Link Your Google+ Profile With Rel=”Author”

2. A Simple Way to Add Rel=”Author” for One-off Guest Posts

The whole point of Google Authorship mark up is that you can put your name and face to the work you have spread across the internet. This shouldn’t apply only to blogs and sites that you contribute to on a regular basis, what about all the sites you write for on a one-off basis? They aren’t going to set you up with a full author page, and go to all the effort of connecting blogs to author pages and Google accounts. Surely there is an easier way?

To get the benefits of Google Authorship markup,without getting too wrapped up in HTML, simply add the anchor text to your name, somewhere within the blog post. This is a great way to claim single blog posts on sites that you have contributed to.

Step 1.

At the bottom of your blog post, write your name (Some people say you have to add a ‘+’ after your name, but you don’t) and add your Google+ profile URL with the rel=author code like so….

<a href=”https://plus.google.com/108291207599192163541?rel=author”>Ben Holbrook</a> which will then look like this…Ben Holbrook - Note the rel=author tag at the end of the Google profile URL

Obviously, you would replace the code with your personal Google+ URL which you can get from your Google+ profile as shown below.

Step 2. 

As shown above, you then need to point your Google+ profile to the site that you are contributing to. When I have contributed a ‘one-off’ post, I normally point my Google+ profile to the individual blog post’s URL as opposed to home page URL but I have done both and it both works.

3. The Easiest Way to Add Rel=”Author” -  Using a Rel=”Author” WordPress Plugin

Let’s face it, we’re all busy enough without having to spend hours trying to implement rel=”author”. Luckily for you, I’ve wasted away countless hours researching rel=”author”, so that you don’t have to (although that wasn’t my original intention).

After reading hundreds of blogs and trying different variations, I wondered if there was an automated way to implement rel=”author” on WordPress sites. Five minutes later I had found, installed and implemented rel=”author”.

There are always new rel=’author’ plugins being created but they all do pretty much the same thing. Once installed it will add a section to the user profiles, that allows each user to simply paste in their Google+ profile URL. This means that WordPress knows which user is linked with each Google+ profile, and can display the relevant information in the SERPs.

As with the other two options, once you’ve installed a rel=’author’ plugin, you will still need to go to your Google+ profile and verify it with the site.

Which are the Best Rel=’Author’ WordPress Plugins?

On the Verve Search site we use the ‘Google authorship for multiple authors’ plugin, which does pretty much exactly what it says it does. It’s easy to use and so far we’ve had no problems. I think its real charm is how easy it is to install. However, we tried the same plugin on the SEO Chicks site and it didn’t work. It seemed to affect the CSS and knocked the formatting out of whack. For this reason, you may want to try a few different plugins, to see which works best with your theme.

Other Rel=Author Plugins

Dempsey Marketing Rel=Author Plugin

The rel=”author” plugin from Dempsey Marketing offers some nice little extras. It’s equally as easy to install and will add an author box to every blog post that the author has written. This author box features the name of the author and a little blurb, which links to their Google+ profile. However, it may not be so great for sites that already have a ‘author-bio-box’ as part of their WordPress theme. For that reason, you may not want to use the Dempsey Marketing rel=author plugin.

Authorsure Rel=Author Plugin

The Authorsure rel=author wordpress plugin is another nice little free plugin, which is easy to install and makes life easier. It also adds rel=publisher on the home page which means your company logo is promoted in the SERPs. There is also a very helpful site which has been set-up to help people install the plugin.

Allow Rel=Author and HTML WordPress Plugin

This is one of the original rel=author plugins and it offers the most basic of installations (less to go wrong). The author expresses that the plugin “Can be used for evil” and reminds us that we should trust the authors we allow access to it. If you’ve tried a number of different plugins and have had no luck, give this one a try!

How to Implement the Rel=”Author” Tag – A Step by Step Guide is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

I’m Speaking at SMX
Personally I’m looking forward to be speaking on the “Social Share the new Link building”, I have always been of the opinion that Social and SEO is closely linked, in fact my very first big speaking gig was speaking on Social Media at SMX London back in 2007. This was before Twitter and Facebook btw, we were mainly talking facebook and digg So if  you are intersted in learning about how to use social property for your link dev, and you fancy getting up super early (my session is at 8a) come and see me speak on Wednesday 16th May, I will make it worth the early start!

Get 15% OFF a ticket to SMX

But that’s not all, Verve Search is also going to be a blogpartner at SMX again this year and we will be covering the event on this blog. In addition we and can offer you a 15% discount on a ticket (that’s £133.5 to be exact), just quote the discount code: VERVESEARCH012 Go here to register for a ticket

SMX London – Blog Partner & Speaking is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

This weekend I am going to Brighton. Nothing interesting, you may argue. If it was not for what it led me to discover. Yesterday I typed [Brighton] into Google.co.uk just to check what would come up. I was accidentally using Google Incognito and suddenly realised that the SERP looked different.

Trying on other computers, even on the same network, I did not get this appearance, so I thought I would share my findings, hoping that somebody has already encountered something similar. This is what I saw today as well.

The right side of the screen showed a panel with additional information. Following my astonishment, I opened the normal version of Google.co.uk and typed the same query but noticed that now the panel did not show up. Neither did it show up in Google Incognito mode, when the query was typed in Google.com instead.

I went back to Google.co.uk on Google Incognito and started doing some experiments. I found that the location set did not matter as I typed in the same query for tens of different UK locations. I could still view the panel, no matter if I was set to be in Brighton, London or Edinburgh.

What is it?

I started looking at the panel more closely. I actually hate the word panel, so from now on I will call it “Google Info”.

As you can see in the green circle, I was given the possibility to report a problem.

Curious as I am, I gave it a try. Clicking on “Report a problem”, Google Info aspect changed allowing me to report any issues with single entries.

I am picky and thought the population data was quite outdated so I clicked on “Report” in the population section. I then got the following screenshot.

If I wanted to report other sections, I could click on “Report another problem” and Google Info would give me the chance to report the other sections.

Only information, please

Now I wanted to see which other queries would trigger Google Info. After several attempts, I can almost safely assume that only informational queries trigger Google Info.

One of my queries was [Pacific Ocean]. Let’s have a look at it.

Google Info’s image is extracted from geography.about.com and it is the same as the image appearing in Google Images. The top of the data is populated from Wikipedia. The rest is yet to be understood. It should be noted that clicking on the image has the same effect as clicking on the entry in Google Images.

What else?

Searching for [Obama], we can see other details such as the books he wrote.

In order to understand where the data is taken from, I typed [inauthor:"Obama"] and [Obama] in Google Books but in both cases the Google Info entries did not match the first five results in Google Books.

The Women of Berlusconi

Since I am Italian, I went back to Search and typed [Berlusconi]. This is what appeared. I’ve highlighted four points that I think you may find interesting.

Highlighted in blue, you can see that according to Google Info, Mr Berlusconi is still married to his late wife. As the information is not correct, I went to check Wikipedia and noticed that their data is correct. Thus, I can assume that this section was not populated by Wikipedia. I went back to check [Pacific Ocean] and, also in this case, the data outside the top section differs from Wikipedia’s entry.

Highlighted in red, you can find another mistake. Mr Berlusconi never had a wife named Carla Dall. This is likely to be a truncated repetition of Carla Dall’Oglio, his previous wife. Maybe Google Info only extracts a certain amount of characters per section.

Highlighted in green, is an extra feature, “Movies”, which reports five movies in which he is cited. I checked on the website IMBD, the names do not match.

Highlighted in purple, you can see an associated search. You probably recognize him under the nickname Pato. He probably appears as associated search here as he plays for AC Milan, the team that Mr Berlusconi is president of. As in any other associated search in Google Info, clicking on his image or on his description has the same effect as leading to another Google.co.uk page where the query has been typed in, in this case [Pato].

Goal!

Pato’s example is interesting because his Google Info image is not taken from Wikipedia nor from Google Images. It actually does not appear in the first few pages of Google Images. This may answer my question regarding the origin of those images. Goal!

This morning I wanted to see what the web was like about yesterday’s FC Barcelona defeat in Champions League so I typed in [fc Barcelona] on Google.co.uk in Incognito and this is what it was shown.

Highlighted in red, you can see a Google+ section, where the latest post is shown, along with the post picture and the number of +1 and comments. There are also links to FC Barcelona’s Google+ Page and to this specific post.

I am now running other experiments in order to see which other features Google Info has, and when it is triggered. I will keep you updated.

In the meantime, what do you think about this new feature for informational queries? Has anybody else encountered something similar? After spending a good couple of hours with “Google Info”, I can confirm results were accurate and pictures on target. Wikipedia’s entries also acquire more exposure than ever, as they now appear twice in the SERPs.

My opinion? We may be incredibly close to another Google update.

Google is Testing Incognito New Features for SERPs is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

When triggered, Google Places results achieve both great relevance and exposure. Trust me, if you type in “restaurants” you cannot avoid looking at them. If you were Pizza Hut, let’s say, you would want to have a listing on Google Places for any branch. And that’s exactly what they do.

The ranking on Google Places is affected by three factors: location, relevance, and prominence. Whereas there is little we can do about the location, SEO can help improve relevance and prominence. I am sure you all know everything already about relevance; therefore I will focus on prominence. Google reviews have proved very important, but how many of you have been asked/invited/begged to write a review by your favourite sandwich shop? Not many, I guess. You see, the problem is that an increasing amount of businesses use Google Places but very few of them let their customers know about it.

I have to admit; SOMETIMES I found one of these two window decals.

From a marketing point of view, the first one is disheartening, I cannot think of any customers eager to go online and rate this place after looking briefly at it.

The second one is a bit better, at least is interactive, I can scan the QR code and be redirected to the Google Places listing, but, as many things in SEO, the context is paramount. Think of yourself; would you stop in the cold to scan the QR code after you had a great dinner and cannot wait to get tucked up into bed? I doubt it.

QR codes are probably doomed to disappear in the next few years to make room for more engaging technologies, but at the moment, they still fit the purpose.

We want customers to write reviews on how epic their sandwich was, so why do we not make life easier for them? Here are some creative examples for Foodie, our favourite lunch stop here at Verve Search.

QR codes also have up to 30% error correction level, so you can play with them and make them more human-friendly by embedding a business logo.

There are just a few other rules that you need to remember:

1.  Use a URL shortener. The shorter the URL, the higher the error correction rate.

2.  If you are embedding a logo or an image (and please do it!), remember not to edit the highlighted patterns or your QR Codes readers will not be able to detect the code.

3.  QR Codes in colour are not a problem, as the darker dots are the ones that are read. There should always be a contrast of 55% or above between background and foreground.

4.  You should leave a quiet zone of four modules (or dots) around the QR Code, so that it can be read effectively.

Let’s spread the QR Codes love!

How to use QR Codes for Google Places is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

How to use Pintrest – The power of Pintrest is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

At number 26 on Google’s latest list of 40 updates is the topic that we’re all talking about; “The Venice Update”. But what’s it all about?

To put it simply, the Venice update has been initiated to make improvements to search results by making them more “location” specific. The idea is that by utilising information from the “normal” SERPS Google can trigger more relevant Local results. We’re not talking about location specific searches here (e.g. London shoe shops), the Venice update alters the organic listings for generic search terms (e.g. shoe shops) based on the user’s location.

This means that results which were typically dominated by the BIG brands will now also include “promoted” organic listings for local businesses, depending on where you are searching from. This is great for smaller, local companies who have “town/city specific” websites, but makes it difficult for national sites to compete unless they focus heavily on developing their “city/town” specific pages.

Generic Search Term = “Italian Lesson” – Location = “Swansea” (This is the Venice update after all)

Same Generic Search Term “Italian Lessons” – Location – “Manchester”

Impacts of the Google Venice Update 

In a way, this update takes us back to the beginning of the internet days, when all businesses were equal and had the same opportunity to rank highly. They say the Venice update has “levelled” the playing field; but has it? You could argue that the update is more beneficial for the small, local company. Some even suggest that the strategy has been designed to push national companies to spend more on their paid listings, creating even more revenue for Google. But would Google really be this deviant?

The idea of local results being “promoted” makes sense on a superficial level, but when we think about it harder, we see that it’s just not that simple. It’s all very well Google promoting your nearest pizza delivery company, but what about service based businesses that are not dependant on location? If you are looking for an SEO agency, are you looking for the nearest SEO agency or the best SEO agency? Surely results should reflect their quality, not simply their proximity. If Google starts “bumping up” local businesses, we may find ourselves spending even more time refining our searches in an effort to find what we want and surely that’s a step backwards?

How to Respond to the Google Venice Update

The Little Guy – Local Suppliers

For town and city specific websites which serve their local area, little will change. Of course it’s vital to maintain a fit and healthy website and continue to build local citations and generate quality links from other local companies, but on the whole the Venice update will do nothing but good things for your rankings. In fact, now is the time to start optimising for more broad term keywords as Google will assist you in your local area.Sit back and make sure you are ready to deal with the increased traffic and business leads.

 The Big Boys – National Providers

The Venice update makes it even more important to build and develop pages which offer city and town specific information. It’s no longer enough to offer information on a regional or county level, we need to offer more detail. Don’t let this scare you – just repeat the old mantra; “think of the user”. What do they want to see? Your location specific pages should act as micro sites. Users should be able to find out everything they need to know, without having to consult the “main” section of your site. Examples include;

- Opening times (be specific and keep updated, include holiday periods)

- Address (Include directions and Google maps. Make sure this is identical to what you have for the local Google places listing)

- Phone numbers (Include an area code specific contact number. Must also be exactly the same as the Google places listing)

- Contacts (Who do your users need to talk to at your Newcastle branch? What about your Manchester office?

- Services and products (Be very specific about what your “Bristol shoe shop” stocks. The user should know everything about your Bristol branch from this page/pages.

Local Citations and Link Development

Your link building strategy should support your local business pages. We have to be even more specific about where we obtain our links. It’s great if you have a link from a “shoe shop site” in Wales pointing at your “Bristol shoe shop” page, but we need to be obtaining links from “Bristol sites” to our “Bristol” pages and listings and “Swindon sites” pointing to our “Swindon” pages.  This includes using local directories and websites which focus on the location in question. Don’t just think of the user, think of the “local user”.

Ben Holbrook

The Google “Venice” Update – Power to the (Local) People is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency