We have all witnessed search results with auxiliary features like prices, reviews, recipes & events incorporated with the search listings. These eye-catching listings are called Rich Snippets by Google.

The striking Rich Snippets entice visitors and boost traffic to your website. And this high traffic sends a signal to Google that the listing is relevant to the users.

It is very likely that you already know what Google Knowledge Graph looks like. But in case you don’t, just search for any alpha company & you will see every single detail about the company listed on the right side of the search result.

All the features that make a search listing look “Good”, such as Rich Snippets & Knowledge Graph can be scored by adding the Schema formatted Structured Data of your website content.

Schema markup allows you to:
– Bring forth search results Rich Snippets, Breadcrumbs, live blogs & search boxes.
– Drive data into Google’s Knowledge Graph, Maps & even results.
– Make your content easier to understated for the search engine.

Structured Data Markup allows search engines to interpret content more efficiently & generate Rich Snippets.

Since the very beginning, programmers have been trying to understand human language using computers; but it is way too hard. For instance, we use so many different formats for date & time that it can be difficult to interpret.
– February 1st, 2016
– 1st February, 2016
– Feb 1, 2016
– 02-1-2016
– 1/2/16

Confusing, isn’t it? Search engines also face the same problem.

Despite the fact that search engineers have done a tremendous job in this regard, they still need help & structured data does exactly that.

History

Google started to use Structured Data Markup in 2009. They continually developed their support to multiple formats as technology advanced. In 2011, all the major search engines, including Bing, Google & Yahoo agreed to support one standard vocabulary named Schema, which consists of different standard options such as Microdata, RDFa & JSON-LD.

***You may want to bookmark the website “Schema.org”, as it has all the supported Structured Data codes.

Coming back to the date & time instance, Schema requires them to be in a single format, specifically ISO 8601. (2016-02-10T22:00:00.)

In daily use of Structured Data Markup, the Schema Markup that uses ISO 8601 time/date format for machines will look like this& for humans it will be Wednesday Night, February 10th.

GOOGLE WILL NOW SHOW BUSIEST HOURS OF YOUR NEARBY POPULAR PLACE

If you happen to visit your nearby happening place or store for some shopping or just hanging out with your friends or relatives on a non-weekender but still found yourself waiting in queue for long hours then perhaps you haven’t used the latest search feature by Google. Google has recently introduced a new search feature, which will show when the local stores are at their busiest at any time during the entire week. According to a Google FAQ received by Mike Blumenthal, the search giant gets its data on a store’s foot traffic data from users who have opted-in to location sharing. Don’t worry Google isn’t randomly following you or tracking anything that the user haven’t opted into to begin with. The information provided is completely anonymous and the stats are based on the data provided by the users, who have opted in for the location sharing of the apps on their android phones. Because of this, only Android Mobile Phones will be enable with this latest feature. Here is how it looks:

Marketing your local business online is becoming more complicated as technology advances and your potential
customers expect to find your business instantly. If you’re working with a business that has multiple locations, we’ve
put together a few best practices to that’ll help your business rank better in the Carousel or the Local pack in Google
SERPs.

1. Use Schema.org Markups 

For a single location, search engines are usually very good at parsing a business’s web site and determining its NAP (Name, Address and Phone) information. However, it gets a bit trickier for the search engines to get it all right for businesses with multiple locations, which have several (perhaps even hundreds) of addresses and phone numbers. The good news is that Google and Bing have made it easy for us to distinguish exactly which NAP information goes together with a specific form of structured markup called Schema.

Schema data is more or less equivalent a business card for the search engines though. Your schema markup clearly tells them what your business name is, along with the street address and phone number combination for each and every one of your locations. It is advisable to use schema wherever you display NAP info on your Web site.

Here is an example of a schema code for a local business:

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/LocalBusiness”>
<span itemprop=”name”>The Cleaning Authority</span>
<div itemprop=”address” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/PostalAddress”>
<span itemprop=”streetAddress”>610 North Alma School Rd, Suite 44</span>,
<span itemprop=”addressLocality”>Chandler</span>,
<span itemprop=”addressRegion”>AZ</span>
<span itemprop=”postalCode”> 85224</span>
</div>
Phone: <span itemprop=”telephone”>480-857-4045</span><br>
<a
href=”https://www.google.com/maps/preview?ie=UTF8&cid=16227635319544351318&q=The+Cleaning+Au
thority+-+Maid+%26+House+Cleaning&iwloc=A&gl=US&hl=en” itemprop=”maps”>Location Map</a>
</div>

And, here is how it will appear on your website:

The Cleaning Authority
610 North Alma School Rd, Suite 44, Chandler, AZ 85224
Phone: 480-857-4045
Location Map

Be completely sure that you are using almost all of your available options for a particular type of schema.

Local Listing & Citation Article: http://www.brightlocal.com/2014/05/21/15-great-citation-resources-local-search/

You can have your business information listed correctly on 50+ websites including those listed above by using our Local Listing Syndication tool.

Check it out here — http://seosolutions.us/local-listings-scan.php

Local Listing Network