Microformats, Google, and Traffic

The Yoast article on Google & Microformats caught my attention. I have been working on the address links for my company’s website (you can check it out for great car, home, or renters insurance) and, from what I was reading, realized that I should use the microformat with each office’s address.

However, the use of microformats, a set of agreed upon HTML conventions used to describe content, can give you more control of the snippets displayed in Google SERPs. Once your site is properly using rich snippets, you will see them also appear in your Google custom search and Google site search results, so this technique is definitely worth exploring if you use those tools as well.

Google, of course, does a great job figuring out addresses, etc from a a web site but why not help it out and label what’s what. The microformat does this. I had no idea what microformats were set up but was about to learn.

Example

—- start code —-
<div class=”vcard”>
 <span class=”fn org” style=”display:none;”>
  <span class=”organization-name” style=”display:none;”>Mid-Columbia Insurance</span>
  <span class=”organization-unit” style=”display:none;”>Kennewick</span> 
 </span>
 <strong><a href=”http://www.MidColumbiaInsurance.com/Kennewick” class=”url” title=”Car Insurance Kennewick, WA”>
  <img src=”/images/Kennewick-145.gif” alt=”Kennewick, WA Office” title=”Kennewick Insurance Office” border=”0″ /></a></strong>
  <div class=”adr”>
  <span class=”street-address”>8601 W Clearwater, Ste A</span><br />   <span class=”locality”>Kennewick</span>,
  <span title=”Washington” class=”region”>WA</span> <span class=”postal-code”>99336</span><br />
 </div>
 <span class=”geo”>
  <span class=”latitude”>
   <span class=”value-title” title=”46.208625″ />
  </span>
  <span class=”longitude”>
   <span class=”value-title” title=”-119.237502″ />
  </span>
 </span>
 <span class=”tel”>
  <span class=”value”>(509) 783-5600</span>
  :<span class=”type”>office</span><br />
 </span>
 <span class=”tel”>
  <span class=”value”>(509) 783-0954</span>
  :<span class=”type”>fax</span>
 </span>
</div>
  —- end code —-

—- display start —-

Mid-Columbia Insurance Kennewick

8601 W Clearwater, Ste A
Kennewick, WA 99336

(509) 783-5600 :office
(509) 783-0954 :fax

  —- dispaly end —-

Now I have to look at other applications where I can use microformats, most likely for book reviews!

Links & More Info:

• Yoast: Google & Microformats
• Yoast: Implementing hreview in your WordPress theme
• Microformats.org Blog, wiki, & discussion
• Wikipedia: Microformats
• Google Webmaster Central
• Google Documentation on Rich Snippets
• Rich Snippets Tips & Tricks
• Rich Snippets Testing Tool

Ideas for later

• Personal Page: Jared Hanson, Roger King, Tim Van Damme