Importance of Structured Data in SEO

                          Structured Data is one of the important factors of on-page optimization. To achieve better rankings and consequently gaining targeted traffic from competitors it is important to maintain structured data for a site.
 Structured data is being used in RDFa and micro formats from past few years. But when it actually went on live with search engines like Google then it was seen as insufficient. With the help of Living Standard HTML and new microdata attributes, a new own standard called schema.org was created by search engines and they have more control over structured data. 

Why Structured Data makes sense

Search engines can even parse and comprehend complex information even without the help of structured data but it will not be complete and exact. For example, a page may list an event but it will not be exact without structured data. While schema.org makes work easy by writing schemas for HTML where in it cannot be changed how a user views the data. At the same time it also provides search bots with sufficient data.
Now there is each type of schemas for every type of structured data such as Person, product, event, organization, movie, book, review etc. There are tools for creating schemas.

What is the need of using structured data?

Even search engines are particular about using structured data which can be understood by usage of structured data dashboard in Google Webmaster Tools.

Google gives much importance for pages with structured data in SERPs. This can be observed as we can see pages using structured data at top. Also usage of structured data has increased rapidly.
Schema Creators:
With the increased usage of structured data for sites, schema creators are introduced where in these tools help us to create schemas without much difficulty.

Google Analytics Gets New Feature Reports

 Google analytics help website owners to check their website problems, success and future content opportunities. You can easily track out the data with the help of google analytics. Now, Google came out with real time reports by adding four new features.
 Mainly, Google analytics redesigned two new social reports based on the social data hub partners data. Google announced Data Hub Activity and Trackbacks are the two new social reports.

 This helps the webmasters who depend on analytics, it provides a better idea of what are the changes taking place on your site right now. You will identify the problems and success quickly rather than waiting for several hours.

Real time reports with new features:

1)
Shortcuts for your important real-time segments
             
       A new feature called "create shortcut" has been added to real time reports, Hence no need to create filters each time. You can create shortcuts to your favorite segments and you can save your time. Shortcut feature has been added to the reports to speed up the process. Previously in order to get the accurate data, advertisers applied advanced segments or metrics. This process has to be done every time when you log into the analytics and you have to change the segment every time. So, with the launch of shortcuts, you can apply the segment only once. Google will remember the settings and you can easily see the data by clicking on your pre-set shortcut. 

Creating a Short Cut:

You can create shortcut easily with the five steps:
Firstly, navigate to a report that you use regularly with in Standard Reports or Custom Reports.
Next, apply any segment with the help of Advanced Segment, metric or dimensions.
Later, Collect the dataset and click on the shortcut link above the report.
After that, mention a name to your shortcut. Name it logically, so that you can easily find out the shortcut in future.
Lastly, Click on the "OK" button and this will save the shortcut within the home tab in analytics. 

2) Comparison real-time to overall data

 Google announced few improvements and added new features, with this new report you can easily see the top events as they occur as well as you can filter specific event categories. You can analyze page views and complete  traffic side by side.

3) Trackback Report

  Previously Trackbacks report was available in social reports and now the reports are available in standalone report. It shows all your inbound links across the web and also displays number of visits during the reporting period to check the importance of each inbound link.

4) Data Hub Activity Report

  Navigate to a Data Hub Activity report, it shows a timeline of the number of activities taking place in the Social Data Hub and displays the raw activities in a list. This report permits a user to filter or extract the list by a specific social network.

 New social media reports were previously available in Network Referrals or Landing Pages reports.

 Google is still trying to innovate new features to have an idea of what is happening on your site and it also helps you to identify areas for improvement.


 

SEO Vs SMO

Optimizing your site is important because in past few years no one was able to locate your business on Google. Search Engine Optimization helps in optimizing your site for search engines. A search engine spider allows your website to get crawled and indexed. Social Media Optimization is used to optimize your website and makes it user friendly. Search engine optimization and social media optimization both have impacts on the traffic, a website receives. When social media was introduced, the concept of promotion and online marketing has been changed.

Search Engine Optimization:

In SEO, on-page optimization and off-page optimization are considered as the most important factors. In on-page optimization technique, content is king of SEO traffic so make sure your website has unique content. Some of the on-page factors are keyword analysis, optimizing URL, optimize meta tags, robots.txt, image optimization, internal linking, pagination, canonical URLs. The major off page optimization factors are directory submissions, article submissions, press releases, social bookmarking, business listings, guest posting, forum posting, blog commenting, one-way linking, two way or reciprocal and three way linking. All these factors help to increase the back links of your site but it takes time to reach targeted customer.

Social Media Optimization:

Social media optimization refers to the process of optimizing your website, increasing awareness of a product or brand and gaining website traffic through social media websites. The main objective of social media optimization is to generate traffic for your website. Social media optimization includes social news, RSS feeds, social bookmarking sites such as Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious, Reddit and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Myspace, LinkedIn. Set up interconnectivity among the sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as it is necessary for the business owners to maintain.

Comparison Between SEO And SMO:

Link Building:

SEO - Inbound links are the major determining factor in rankings.
SMO - Good SMO links drives towards the result of success.

 

On Page Elements:

SEO - Title tags, use of keywords, heading tags, image title and bold text plays major role in search engine rankings.
SMO - Visual attention grabbers have higher priority than coding and tags.

Titles:

SEO - The title tag is used to tell what a page is about and is influential in rankings.
SMO - Title is used to draw the attention of the users and get users to click-through.

 

Content Must be Easily Readable:
SEO - Make sure that the content should be easily readable by the search engine spiders.
SMO - Your content must be easy to read for human readers.

 

Content:

SEO - Quality content on your website is considered as most valuable by the search engines and plays a vital role in rankings.

SMO - Quality content must be attractive to the readers and must capture their attention.

Analysis:

SEO - Analysis is important to know about the changes and which had made positive or negative impact on the website rankings.
SMO - Analysis helps you to know which and what type of content shows interest to users.

 

Success Breeds More Success:

SEO - Most trusted domains will have a positive impact on all the pages.
SMO - You can increase your traffic flow by new submissions in the sites like Digg.