Microsocial: How tiny bits of data can make or break your WordPress website

Seen and unseen, tiny bits of data are hard at work on every website. Search engines and social networks are using this information. But are you making them work for you? Microformats, microdata, metadata : what are they, what do they do, and how can you use them to attract visitors and improve SEO on your WordPress site.

This will be a presentation in three parts: a brief introduction to structured data, some easy actionable steps for the intermediate blogger, and some code examples for those hoping to integrate microformats or microdata into their WordPress themes and plugins.

Transcript

1. Microsocial How tiny bits of data can make or break your WordPress website Shannon Smith WordCamp Montréal 2013 All rights reserved © Café Noir Design Inc., 2013
2. Shannon Smith Web Developer Café Noir Design www.cafenoirdesign.com @cafenoirdesign
3. O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies In the small orb of one particular tear. -William Shakespeare
4. What We’ll Cover 1. Structured Data. What is it? 2. Solutions for bloggers 3. Code for developers
5. Does It Really Matter?
6. “Yes.” -Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter
7. Structured Data
8. What Is Structured Data?
9. What Is Structured Data? Data with Meaning
10. What Is Structured Data? “I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A "Semantic Web", which makes this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The "intelligent agents" people have touted for ages will finally materialize.” Tim Berners-Lee
11. What Is Structured Data? Context for Machines
12. A Brief History of Structured Data 1995 Dublin Core 2004 RDFa 2006 Microformats (μF) 2009 Microdata (part of HTML5) 2011 Schema.org (Bing, Google and Yahoo!) 2012 Open Graph protocol (Facebook) 2012 Twitter Cards
13. What Is Microdata? By adding additional tags to the HTML of your web pages— tags that say, "Hey search engine, this information describes this specific movie, or place, or person, or video"—you can help search engines and other applications better understand your content and display it in a useful, relevant way. Microdata is a set of tags, introduced with HTML5, that allows you to do this.. -Schema.org
14. What Is Microdata? If Google understands the content on your pages, we can create rich snippets—detailed information intended to help users with specific queries. -Google
15. What Does Structured Data Look Like?
16. What Does Structured Data Look Like?
17. What Does Structured Data Look Like?
18. Who Is Using Structured Data? 1.Search Engines 2.Social Networks
19. Who Is Using Structured Data? Facebook vs.
20. Who Is Using Structured Data? Twitter
21. Who Is Using Structured Data? Google Authorship
22. Who Is Using Structured Data? Google Search
23. Who Is Using Structured Data? Specialized Search
24. Who Is Using Structured Data? Everyone. LinkedIn flickr Google+ Lego Last.fm Google Maps Target BestBuy TripAdvisor Twitter Zappos Wikipedia Amazon Apple store Anthropologie Office Depot Costco Netflix Google Search Toys ‘R Us NYT
25. How Can You Leverage Up? Add structured data that is... • standards-compliant • semantic • tested •useful
26. “More Structured Data, Please.” -Bloggers
27. Yoast SEO Plugin
28. hCard Creator http://microformats.org/code/hcard/creator
29. hCalendar Creator http://microformats.org/code/hcalendar/creator
30. hReview Creator http://microformats.org/code/hreview/creator
31. rel tags http://microformats.org/code/hreview/creator <link  href="http://technorati.com"  rel="home"  /> <a  href="http://erin.example.com/"   rel="author">Erin  Smith</a> <a  href="http://twitter.com/t"  rel="me">@t</a>
32. Other Plugins
33. Is It Working? Structured Data Testing Tool
34. “More Structured Data, Please.” -Developers
35. What Can I Code?
36. Structured Data Markup Helper
37. What Does Structured Data Look Like?
38. What Does Structured Data Look Like?
39. What Does Structured Data Look Like?
40. Where Do I Add hCards to WordPress? author.php page-­‐contact.php functions.php get_template_part widget shortcode
41. What Does Structured Data Look Like?
42. What Does Structured Data Look Like?
43. Where Do I Add Reviews/Products/ Events to WordPress? single-­‐review.php single-­‐product.php taxonomy-­‐event.php functions.php custom  fields  /  meta  boxes
44. Where Do I Add Reviews/Products/ Events to WordPress?
45. Where Do I Add Reviews/Products/ Events to WordPress? http://www.techburnett.com/add-review-micro-data-to-wordpress.html
46. Is It Working? Structured Data Testing Tool
47. The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men. Havelock Ellis
48. Shannon Smith Web Developer Café Noir Design Get the slides: http://chroni.ca www.cafenoirdesign.com @cafenoirdesign