Rich Snippets & Schema Markup for Wordpress

1. RICH SNIPPETS & SCHEMA
MARKUP FOR WORDPRESS
WordPress Meetup 2017, August • IgniteHQ
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Digital Advertising | Social Media | Search Engine Marketing
ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 1

2. About Jake Aull
• Jake Aull, Principal of Zen Fires Digital Marketing since 2010, has 22 years
marketing, branding and digital experience. He takes a strategic digital marketing
and usability approach to web analysis and search marketing. He has a Masters
of Science degree in Marketing from Georgia State University where he did a
thesis research project on social media marketing.
•
Jake has written WordPress SEO Success for Pearson Prentice-Hall - their first
book of its kind (http://bit.ly/1fxIQzu). He has also been GSU’s first Social Media
Marketing and SEO course writer and instructor since 2010, directing students to
create new social channels driving measurable traffic to major brands. He was a
reviewer of, and wrote the instructor’s manual for, Pearson-Prentice Hall’s first
social media marketing text book.
•
• He has been Chairs of the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association Social Media
special interest group and Search Marketing SIG, directing educational sell-out
events. And co-founder of The Change Challenge, monthly digital marketing
workshops for non-profits. Jake also holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design
from Savannah College of Art and Design and is currently the president of the
Atlanta Alumni Chapter where he builds and promotes educational and
networking events.
•
• He was a speaker at the 2014 WordCamp Atlanta, 2015 Digital Marketing for
Business Conference Raleigh, among other search marketing and social media
speaking engagements.
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 2

3. Topic Description Overview
• What are rich snippets?
• SERP growth beyond past simple text listings & ancient
‘GooglePlaces’ (GoogleMaps) results
• Rich Content Traditional Factors
• What’s the Value of Rich Snippets?
• Where to see this on the SERP
• What does schema.org have to do with it?
• Guidelines & instructions on markup
• How/where to do schematic markup in code
• Rich snippets plugins
• MY FOREWARNINGS
• MY TESTS & FAVES
• WPSUPERSTARS.NET’s “6 BEST RICH SNIPPETS SCHEMA PLUGINS FOR WORDPRESS”
• Choose your category (schema.org has good reference for categories)
• After your schematic markup (with code, plugin - whichever), Google has a testing
tool: Google “Structured Data Testing Tool.”
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 3

4. What are rich snippets?
• SERP growth beyond past simple text listings & ancient
‘GooglePlaces’ (GoogleMaps) results
• synonyms:
• schema.org
• schema markup
• rich content
• microdata
• structured data
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 4

5. Rich Content Traditional Elements:
• GoogleMyBusiness/GoogleMaps/GoogleReviews
• Sitelinks
• YouTube videos
• Effects on sitelinks
• Effects on ratings & reviews in SERP
• Images
• The transformation from the old text listings in Google to
the richer display of varied content seen in the SERP
today
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 5

6. •
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 6Source:https://www.tnooz.com/article/google-brand-name-hotel-searches/

7. What’s the Value of Rich Snippets?
• Modern approach to SEO gets away from keyword
ranking results,
• & into coverage, qualitative results, social media results
such as “Follows” or “Likes” or “Shares.”
• & growth in (quality) traffic.
• Emphasizing more real estate on the SERP;
• Heatmaps show eyes gravitate toward ‘dazzle/pizzaz’ on
the SERP (not just 3-pack or text listings)
• This is what rich snippets give you; & can achieve a 30%
increase in CTR!
• (source: http://searchengineland.com/how-to-get-a-30-increase-in-
ctr-with-structured-markup-105830)
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 7

8. •
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 8
The desktop SERP has been said to
have migrated from the “golden
triangle,” to the “F” – & these days
heatmaps are all over the place – a
problem for search predictability. Isn’t
this because rich content listings,
wherever their place on the SERP,
are grabbing attention? What’s more:
Isn’t Google’s design to keep you
interested in the entire SERP?
(Including the ads at bottom?)
Source: Machdigital.com

9. Where to see this on the SERP:
• Google KnowledgeGraph (sidebar)
• Google Answer Box
• Third-party or non-Google site listings don’t count
(e.g., ratings on Yelp or Facebook or Wikipedia results)
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 9

10. Answer Box
•
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 10

11. • LACK OF RICH SNIPPETS IN BRANDNAME RESULTS FOR WEBSITE:
• Brand name Google search
• GoogleMyBusiness results in KnowledgeGraph
• Yelp results with ratings rich snippets
• Website brand name results don’t show rich snippets
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 11

12. Where to see this on the SERP:
• What does schema.org have to do with it?
• Guidelines & instructions on markup
• Category assignments
• How/where to do schematic markup in code
• Doing the hand coding in the WP should work better than the
plugins
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 12

13. Rich snippets plugins:
• MY FOREWARNINGS:
• Note the free versions don’t deliver much
• Many of the plugins only offer a couple of the categories (or only
achieve results for a couple of the categories)
• Beware of plugins that want to “show themselves” (&/or ads) on
your web pages
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 13

14. Rich snippets plugins:
• MY TESTS & FAVES:
• All in One schema.org/rich snippets plugin (no it’s not All in One
SEO; limited categories; doesn’t work well)
• All in One SEO’s rich snippets settings (didn’t see solid results)
• Yoast Premium (limited categories; don’t work well)
• WP Rich Snippets worked best for us
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 14

15. Rich snippets plugins:
• WPSUPERSTARS.NET’s “6 BEST RICH SNIPPETS
SCHEMA PLUGINS FOR WORDPRESS:”
1. WP Review Pro
2. WP Product Review
3. All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets
4. Rich Snippets Wordpress Plugin
5. Rich Reviews
6. Schema App Structured Data
7. (source: http://www.wpsuperstars.net/rich-snippets-schema-
plugins-for-wordpress/)
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16. Choose your category
(schema.org has good reference for categories)
• The death of rel = author & GoogleAuthor & Google+
• Product – Information about a product, including price, availability,
and review ratings.
• Recipe – Recipes that can be displayed in web searches and Recipe
View.
• Review – A review of an item such as a restaurant, movie, or store.
• Event – An organized event, such as musical concerts or art festivals,
that people may attend at a particular time and place.
• SoftwareApplication – Information about a software app, including its
URL, review ratings, and price.
• Video – An online video, including a description and thumbnail.
• News article – A news article, including headline, images, and
publisher info (note ties to old “GoogleAuthor” strategies & coding).
• Science datasets
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 16

17. “News”
category
rich snippets
results
•
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 17

18. Test after publishing
• After your schematic markup (with code, plugin -
whichever), Google has a testing tool: Google “Structured
Data Testing Tool.”
• https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool
• Be aware of rich results you would have gotten anyway; i.e.,
sitelinks, GoogleMyBusiness/GoogleMaps/GoogleReviews (in
other words watch for results in the category you tried for).
• & of course you can search Google Incognito for the brand name
(3rd-party & non-Google listings don’t count).
• Don’t do anything black-hat (attempt to do schematic markup of
invisible content, or pick categories irrelevant to the page); you can
be penalized by Google.
• Example: WooCommerce platform for a product catalog site with
everything except prices = “no sale.”
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 18

19. • LACK OF RICH SNIPPETS IN BRANDNAME RESULTS FOR WEBSITE:
• Brand name Google search
• GoogleMyBusiness results in KnowledgeGraph
• Yelp results with ratings rich snippets
• Website brand name results don’t show rich snippets
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 19

20. •
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 20
Source:SearchEngineWatch.com

21. Topic Description Overview
• What are rich snippets?
• SERP growth beyond past simple text listings & ancient
‘GooglePlaces’ (GoogleMaps) results
• Rich Content Traditional Factors
• What’s the Value of Rich Snippets?
• Where to see this on the SERP
• What does schema.org have to do with it?
• Guidelines & instructions on markup
• How/where to do schematic markup in code
• Rich snippets plugins
• MY FOREWARNINGS
• MY TESTS & FAVES
• WPSUPERSTARS.NET’s “6 BEST RICH SNIPPETS SCHEMA PLUGINS FOR WORDPRESS”
• Choose your category (schema.org has good reference for categories)
• After your schematic markup (with code, plugin - whichever), Google has a testing
tool: Google “Structured Data Testing Tool.”
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 21

22. RICH SNIPPETS & SCHEMA
MARKUP FOR WORDPRESS
WordPress Meetup 2017, August • IgniteHQ
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Digital Advertising | Social Media | Search Engine Marketing
ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull
WordPress Meetup | Rich Snippets & Schema | Jake Aull, ZenFires Digital Marketing 22