Micro data in simple webmaster questions:

This article is a follow-up to Introductions to Microformats.

John Mueller, Google spokesperson

We had seen that the use of micro formats, micro data, hcard, Vcard, etc… enrich the display of your site in the results page on Google or Bing. This article includes excerpts from a John Mueller hangout on the subject in the form of a question and answer.

Question:

For an SME site…

If the website is not a huge directory – like a Trip Advisor or e-shop, but a site of SMEs that are only trying to stand out in the SERP. What do I need to do to add reviews?

Answer:

A review script with its well-filled markup, plus a way for users to leave reviews should suffice, all CMSs have easy-to-configure “user reviews” or “stars” extensions.

One can also use a simple form where users will write a text and give a rating that will be displayed seamlessly on their site.

Depending on the activity of the site, it will also be able to implement micro image formats.

Question

How does Google interpret JavaScript-coded reviews?

Answer: It’s more tricky, you have to make sure that Google accesses this code via the resources necessary to read it and that it renders the page by including these elements, you also have to make sure that users have access to the reviews when the page loads. As long as Googlebot can achieve this markup, and at the same time users see the corresponding content, it should work.

Cultural opinions or opinions:

In the case of a site that is dedicated to music, does Google take into account reviews that are not as brief as a rating out of 5 or a click on stars? We frequently have opinions expressed in the 600-800 word range about a concert or event.

Answer: In general, this is not a problem since these different sub-headings exist for music events. It is even recommended to do so, because in addition to the review as raw data, the written content adds a lot of added value to the page.

Question

Geolocated coordinates:

How important are the properties of geo-referenced coordinates for companies in the context of local search? Is it imperative to update these coordinates, or can a shift in the coordinates affect the ranking?

Answer:

From a strictly SEO point of view, this data is not really necessary, but like all other HTML signals, (and they are not micro formats) these additional signals can be useful for various purposes, it will give Googlebot the exact location.

The geolocated coordinates are not micro data, we use them for the search for local companies, but not for the referencing of the site.

Question

Price Range Format:

Regarding the micro format “price range” for our products, is it correct to use characters like $$$. We have a doubt, because it appears to be an error in the verification of our markings.

Answer:

According to John Mueller, it should work with this “dollars” character, is similar to what is used for restaurants. It is therefore necessary to check the taxonomy of the error.

Question

“Same as” property

Should the ” same as ” property be used to link all citations (i.e. brand citation on the web), we have a few possible profiles and use the “same as” property to Google+ our main social profile. We could also point to Yelp, Yellow Pages. Does pointing to the Google plus profile represent advantages in the local ranking?

Answer :

For Google, this is an interesting signal that helps boots discover the interconnections of your web presence. How things interact with each other, and provide references to different sources. In this sense, this practice is useful, but not especially necessary.

Then John Muler confesses his ignorance about this issue, because local SEO is not part of his skills – it’s a driving force in its own right.

However, he thinks that it is common sense to structure your presence on different websites, it’s a question of notoriety.

On the other hand, we should not expect a skyrocketing rise in ranking, but associated with a good semantic structure of the content of the pages, it can only be positive.

Question

A profitable job for SEO?

Many believe that there is no reason to add markup to sites beyond Rich Snippets and Rich Maps, it is extremely difficult to convince customers that it is useful to go beyond Rich Snippets, can you tell us the merits of this markup zeal.

Answer:

It’s a little hard to explain, so beyond the stable things that you can clearly see in Rich Snippets or Rich Cards, you might not immediately distinguish benefits, it’s more about trying things out and planning for future technologies and finding yourself in a good position if something is taken care of, But for the time being, we will not associate this with tangible benefits from this point of view.

If you feel that there will be interesting use cases for the particular types of services you offer, it is always interesting to experiment with things and it is only in practice that you can see the tangible benefits.