Product Microdata and "rich snippets"
2 June 2013
As an online retailer you want to give your products the best chance they have. That includes the normal SEO techniques, including:
- search engine friendly URLs;
- verbose keyword-rich TITLEs;
- captivating META Description text;
- optimisation for usability, accessibility and speed; and
- clean mark-up and well structured content.
We include most of these by default now on our clients' websites, but there are also some new technologies that can really make you stand out.
In the screenshot to the right you can see an example of a search engine results page (SERP) listing for Sequins & Sand Resort Wear.
As well as the usual TITLE and META Description text, you can see that each listing is also accompanied by a breadcrumb list, providing deep links into the website, followed by an extra line displaying the product price and availability.
Other details such as photos, related items and reviews can also be marked in the HTML code allowing your products to be displayed automatically in online shopping and price comparison websites.
This is made possible by embedding special tags into the HTML code for Product pages that help the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bind and Yandex) find and extract pertinent data.
In our earlier article on microdata and rich snippets you can see similar results for Events Calendars and directories of Places.
Unlike many 'off the shelf' website packages, we have complete control over the data and HTML that make up your website so can insert and customise Microdata without a lot of messing about.