1. APPROACHES TO
STRUCTURED DATA FOR SEO
… and the emergence of digital presence optimization
OR…
Aaron Bradley / @aaranged #SearchFest 2014

2. SAYING STUFF ABOUT THINGS
… that everybody gets

3. Semantic SEO anyone?
StructureddatahasbeenintegralinshiftingthefocusofSEOfromstringstothings
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

4. Identifying and interlinking entities is core semantic SEO work
Butcanonereallycallthetaskofconnectingthingsoutsideofsearch–evenifforsearch-“SEO”?
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

5. Yes …
and no
While 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.
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

6. This change in the digital landscape is exceptional, and recent
Searchresultslikethesespeaktoafundamentalshiftinhowsearchenginesoperate. Howdidwegethere?
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

7. Flight
search,
1958
Finding a flight required
looking up data in a
printed table – the same
requirement made of
Victorian train travelers
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

8. Flight
search,
1970
Early flight search was
conducted by trained
specialists using
controlled a query
language, and was
conducted against a
single airline’s dataset
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

9. Flight search, just as the web was taking shape
Search interfaces improved and data for many airlines became available - but not to the general public
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

10. Flight
search,
2000
Form-based web search
provided everyone with
the means to find flight
information electronically
themselves, but required
the use of travel-specific
search engines
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

11. From strings to things … like airports, and airlines, and dates
Ahostoftechnologicaldevelopments–manyofthem“semantic”–havefinallyfacilitated“naturallanguage”search
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

12. Some things remain elusive
Forairtravel,searchrefinementsmuststillbestructuredbytheuser…
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

13. They won’t
be elusive
for long
Voice 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.
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

14. From airmail
to email
But 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.
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

15. Athree-letter acronym and a three-letter abbreviation is now enough
Googlecanreturnaccurateandcomplexresultsforverythinqueries: Hummingbird'sroleinthissuccessisobvious
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

16. Depth in the
SERPs
Even 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.
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

17. Connecting the dots with structured data
Differentdataconsumersusesimilartechnologiestobuildacohesivepictureofbrandsintheirownnetworksandbeyond
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

18. Thinking like a contemporary data consumer
Thebroadbenefitofstructureddataisthatitprovidespreciseinformationaboutthingsintheformofproperty-valuepairs
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

19. Determining what things you’re working with is a critical first step
Organizinginformationbyresourcetypeiscrucialindeterminingwhichpropertiescanbemeaningfullydescribed
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

20. Structured data can also refer to web representations of things
Asidefromhavingpropertiesoftheirown,webresourcesmayalsodescribereal-lifethingsandtheirproperties
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

21. Enumerate once, declare properties multiple times
Byapproachingresourcesastypesthefocusisonthedataandtowhomitisuseful,ratherthanonanygivenprotocol
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

22. Methods of
declaring your
stuff
What 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.
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

23. Structured data’s little helpers (they might include you)
These three sites provide SEOs with a way of directly influencing Knowledge Graph/Snapshot results
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

24. Google
owns
Metaweb
But 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
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

25. Schema.org is a vocabulary in progress
Domainspecialistscanhelpproperlyextendit,andanyoneknowledgeableanddeterminedcanhelpshapeitsfuture
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

26. Providing consistent data is important for connected entities
Approachingresourcesasthingswithpropertieshelpstoensureconsistencyforalldataconsumers
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

27. Test your markup and other structured data across platforms
Oneoftheadvantagesofapproachingdataholisticallyisthatonevalidatorcancatcherrorsthatanothermightmiss
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged
List of testing tools:
bit.ly/structureddatatools

28. Verification precedes trust in your data
Formallyverifyingyourcorporateorpersonalidentityisatrust-buildingmeasurefordataconsumers
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

29. Merging keyword and entity research covers more bases
Keywordsareessentialfordescribingpropertiesthatcan’tbequantified
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

30. Remember, shopping feeds are a type of structured data too
ProperlyencodedandmanagedfeedsarecriticalforROIonadvertising,andimpactotherareasaswell
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

31. Identify and embrace new data optimization opportunities
Andifyou’resavvyenoughtorecognizetheseasoptimizationopportunitiesyou’llbeaheadofthepackdowntheroad
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

32. The revolution may not be evident at first blush
Semantictechnologiestendtoflyundertheradarbecausethey,bydesign,rarelyimpactthepresentationlayer
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

33. But structured data is, for the web, fairly revolutionary
Andtheimpactofathoughtfulstructureddatastrategyisgreaterthanthesumofitsconstituentbenefits
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged

34. Thanks!
Drop by my blog, say
hello over on my
Google+ Community,
Semantic Search
Marketing, or follow me
on Twitter:
@aaranged
#SearchFest Aaron Bradley - @aaranged
www.seoskeptic.com
bit.ly/semsearch