Setting Up Rich Snippets For A Video Post
Rich Snippets are turning up everywhere in the SERP’s as a result of Bloggers and Publishers marking up their content to make it more visible in the search engines.
And Why Wouldn’t You?
Rich snippets allow you to put a break in the sometimes mundane search engine results, with information showing the same result in a SERP including rich snippets experience a 20 – 30% rise in click through rates.
What are Rich Snippets
For those of you that are new to the whole internet game, check out the image below that shows an example of a rich snippet in action:
The True Benefits Of Rich Snippets
As mentioned above, rich snippets allow you to stand out from the crowd in the SERP’s (search engine results pages), resulting in an increase in click throughs as a result of the end user getting a much better idea of the details of the page their visiting.
I know if I was looking for ‘Beef Mince Recipes’ I would definitely select the second result as I can see an image right away and it even shows me a 4.5 out 5 stars, based on 51 reviews.
You can instantly share this important information by simply marking up your pages and you could really say that marking up your content helps you stand out from the crowd.
Different Types Of Mark-Ups
As I am writing this post and checking Google’s site on rich snippets (check it out here) there are 11 different types of mark-up you can use that cover an array of services.
The current list of Rich Snippet Types are:
Breadcrumbs
Events
Music
Organizers
People
Products
Recipes
Reviews
Review Ratings
Software Applications
Videos
Each snippet has it’s own unique code, some offering different features and functions then others.
As I mentioned earlier, check out the Google’s Rich Snippets Page Here .
An Example Of Rich Snippets In Action
In this post I have placed a short video which and have marked up that video using the rich snippets methodology.
If you take a look at the ‘source code’ of this post you can see exactly how it looks.
As of writing this post it is a little complicated to set up mark up your code but like any emerging technology as people use an embrace it, developers will develop to simplify.
Elements Of Video Markup
Ok, let’s briefly get a little Techo for a moment…
The elements of a marked up video are:
The Title of the video
The location of the embedded video
The length of the video
A thumbnail image of the video
Description of the video
A link to the author page of the creator of the video
These are the areas you essentially need to tag in order to communicate what the video is about. If you understand a little bit of code, it’s really that simple.
So, how does it actually look for those that are a tad lazy or don’t understand how to view source code?
A Word Of Caution
Yes a word of caution! There are a couple of not so bright individuals that have figured… Hey, I can use rich snippets to make the SERP’s think my page is about [subject] by just placing the wrong or inaccurate mark up code. Well, don’t bother! The SERP’s are keeping an eye on that too and they may penalize you if you mess around with it.
Direct from Google Webmaster Quality Guidelines:
Will It Help Me Rank?
At the time of writing this post… no.
But as mentioned earlier it will help with the conversions of people viewing your site and more importantly will assist with your end users overall experience.
Cool? I think so!
