Search engine optimization and social media are becoming ever more intertwined as the days and weeks go by (we move fast on the Internet folks). With the introduction of Google+ this is no longer theory it is fact. And if your business does not participate in social media it will kill your search engine optimization efforts.

Click on the screenshot below to open it in a new window. We’re going to be talking about this and it will be easier to reference.

Click on the image so we can talk about it

Let’s get to it!

The Semantic Web Has Risen

There is no easy way for me to explain what the semantic web is so I’ll let Wikipedia do it for me:

The Semantic Web is a “web of data” that facilitates machines to understand the semantics, or meaning, of information on the World Wide Web. It extends the network of hyperlinked human-readable web pages by inserting machine-readable metadata about pages and how they are related to each other, enabling automated agents to access the Web more intelligently and perform tasks on behalf of users.

What this means is that web pages are associated with specific people and software like search engines and web browsers can see that association. This stuff has been in progress for many years, but we’re at the point now where it’s starting to come into play.

Recently Google has added support in their search engine for two HTML tags: rel=”author” and rel=”me”. You use these tags like this:

• Use rel=”author” on a link when you want to tell Google that you are the author of the page you are linking to. An example is linking your blog post author line to your about page.
• Use rel=”me” on a link that points to another profile, for instance a Twitter or Google+ page, or a guest post that you’ve written. This tells Google that you associated with that profile or content

I linked to a YouTube video on my Google+ profile where Othar Hansson (of Google) says explicitly that the big G wants to use this as a ranking signal. And this bring us to the image open in another window.

The Effect of Social On Search

The screenshot is of a test I ran in the Rich Snippets Testing Tool provided by Google to test if your semantic markup is working. We’re halfway there with this blog. What I’ve done so far is:

• Tell Google that I am the author of this blog
• Tell Google which page contains my profile information
• Linked to my other social profiles, including my Google+ profile, using the rel=”me” link tag
• Linked back to my blog on my Google+ profile

I ran a recent post through the tool as a test took the screenshot. There are 3 major parts I’ve pointed to. All are extremely important. Let’s look at each.

Part 1: The Search Result

The top part of the screenshot shows an example search result. There are a number of noteworthy parts:

1. The standard SEO information is there – title, url and description
2. It indicates me as the author and puts my picture beside the result
3. It shows the picture of the last person to comment on the blog post – my friend Adam Teece

So we can see deeper connections between what’s happening on the blog post and the result that Google displays. It gets even more interesting from there. The next two parts of the screenshot show additional information that Google has about the people involved with this page.

Part 2: Google Knows About The Author

Here is where more of the semantic markup stuff we talked about comes in. Because of the updates I’ve made to the blog, to my profile on the blog, and the link to my Google+ profile, Google can see my:

• Name
• Author profile
• Google profile

The tool also tells me that the authorship information is correctly formatted. Now Google knows for sure that it is I that am the author of this post and can connect me with the appropriate profiles.

Oh but wait, that’s not all!

Part 3: What Google Knows About The Commenters

Looking at Adams comment on my post about knowing if your SEO company is worth the money, you see:

• His name
• A link to his site
• His gravatar image

Google sees that too, and can also split his name into first name and last name. But what’s really interesting is how it uses that information in the search result – it put Adam’s picture right beside it! And based on his Google+ profile it looks like it chose to display his gravatar profile picture rather than his Google+ profile picture.

I wonder if Adam had his blog linked to his Google+ profile if Google would display that image instead…

Implications For Your Business

The semantic markup that Google is now supporting has been around for many years. Now a growing number of companies are beginning to implement it on their sites to show who the original author of the content is.

Don’t forget that Google said they are going to use this as a ranking indicator too. This means that those annoying people that steal your content won’t get credit for your work and you’ll rank higher than they do. You win, they lose (as they should).

With social media being tightly connected with search – your social media profiles ranking highly, your image and commenters images being placed beside search results, Google connecting all the profiles together to determine authority – it’s imperative that you participate in social media, and become an authority in your niche. Your standings in the search engines will be up for grabs very soon. Wouldn’t you like to rank above your competition?

My advice: start implementing this on your blog today.

About Robert Dempsey

CEO & Founder of Dempsey Marketing, web developer, avid reader, proud father and husband. I get a lot of stuff done.

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