SEO Grows Up: Google Launches New Structured Data Markup Tool

This post is perfect for everyone who considers SEO & search to be dead. It’s not, in fact it’s just growing out of it’s awkward teenager years and it ready to show off it’s new mature side.

Google has finally introduced it’s new Structured Data Markup Tool. Huh? You may have heard it called other things such as semantic web markup, rich snippets, structured data, using the rel=tag, or schema.org – all of things are designed to make searching for things easier and making things easier to find by applying greater meaning to the words being used within a web page.

This will speed up the discovery process and make search engines even more powerful. Going forward, your websites won’t have to rely solely on the optimization efforts made to the site. Adding this new layer of markup to your websites can help drive your search ROI simply because of how effective these rich snippets are for improving click through rates.

In order to get started, your site needs to be verified within Google’s Webmaster Tools

1. Once your site has been selected, click on Optimization.

2. Select Data Highlighter

3. Enter the URL of your vehicle detail page

4. Tag the key areas and fields

Google estimates this should take you about five minutes per page. Once completed, verify the work completed via Google’s process. you can then publish this new data to Google once it has been verified. Then, it’s simply a matter of time before your site is crawled by Google and your new enhanced rich snippets will be displayed. New product features such as prices, ratings and reviews  will be displayed within the search results – helping online shoppers find even more relevant information faster.

Simple checklist: 

1. Get your Webmaster Tools account verified

2. Make sure your merchandising efforts are in top form

3. Make sure your page structure and on-page elements are in place for all of your pages.

Expect to see more news and developments on structured and the semantic web – a lot more information. SEO certainly isn’t dead, it’s simply growing up. Watch this blog for more tips tricks and secrets about learning more about the semantic web to improve your search marketing efforts.

I’m betting big on this movement just as I have in the past with the early stages of search, social location based services and mobile – this new segment will prove to be just as large and powerful.

Search is going to get exciting again.