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The Power of Invisible Information

What You Need to Know About Rich Snippet
AutoVitals implements Rich Snippet

Today’s consumer necessitates that a shop owner recognize the importance of online marketing. Websites need to take advantage of every available opportunity to entice searchers to click on their page instead of a competitor’s. Rich snippet provides the perfect outlet to embellish their search results with add-ons like ratings and thumbnails to draw the searcher’s eye as well as offer additional information.

So what are rich snippets? At their very simplest, rich snippets are a small line of text which accompanies a search result link. They describe the site’s relevance to the user’s search query, with the exact keywords highlighted in bold. Google added rich snippets back in 2008 to give users a better search experience and allow them to make quick, informed decisions about a website’s relevance to their search needs. Rich snippet functions differently for their designated business types, whether it be for restaurants, recipes, movies, music, videos, etc. It can easily be inserted into site templates so that the code appears on every relevant page and for every search keyword. For example, correct rich snippet usage for a recipe has it’s own template that includes information like cook time and ingredient list, lending a search result like so.

Ultimately, the appearance of rich snippet in a search result is dependent on the markup code used by the developer and Google’s trust in the website that is it being implemented in. Although we’ve utilized rich snippet correctly from the start, Google began showing AutoVitals’ rich snippet results only after an 18 month vetting process.

 

Rich Snippet preview of recipes
Rating Preview in Search Engine Results
Link in Local Listing

For our shops, the rich snippet we implement focuses primarily on the parameters of address, hours, phone numbers, etc. to insure that Google promotes a consistent NAP. A consistent NAP — or Name, Address, Phone Number — is integral to good web presence and has a direct impact upon the ranking of a Google My Business Local Listing. AutoVitals is the only company in the automotive space to pro-actively monitor and fix NAP issues. We also utilize a rating parameter in our rich snippet templates to give a five-star system preview to the search engine results.

As important as rich snippet is to online marketing, it’s important to note that all sites can implement it, including business directories. While this is usually beneficial to a website in terms of SEO and increasing domain authority, sometimes it can cause some problems. For example, Google aggregates data about a website from a variety of different sources — rich snippet and business directories included. Our monitoring found one case where a new link was added to a shop’s Local Listing without the shop’s or our consent.  We will not only have this solved within a 6 week time frame, we will take advantage of this new feature by then as well.

Google’s algorithms for indexing are constantly in flux, so we continually take steps to follow the current trends of online marketing. One of our new projects is to try and implement the “Book an Appointment” feature that has been recently added to Local Listings. Google began testing the add-on back in August for select site types. After choosing the type of booking, the tool forwards you from the Local Listing search result directly to a request an appointment page from the service provider, with Google listed as the referrer. This is a handy tool visible in both mobile and desktop searches that can streamline the appointment request process and get online customers through your door faster than ever. This, like everything else to do with search engine presence, is all dependent upon implementing rich snippet correctly and effectively!