five-star seo: advice from...

Five-star SEO: Advice from Bazaarvoice expertsA resource book for clientsFirst edition, November 2015

2 Five-star SEO: Advice from Bazaarvoice experts

Table of ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

SEO today: Life after Google’s JavaScript update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Strategy consideration: Reach customers earlier in the buying journey with category-level SEO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

To-do: Understand the top 10 reasons rich snippet stars don’t display in your Google search results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Key SEO Takeaways from Bazaarvoice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Introduction



Search Engine Optimization is one of the most top-of-mind concerns for many Bazaarvoice clients . We hear from you regularly, in our daily conversations and at our Inspire and Summit events, about the strong SEO value you get from your CGC programs, as well as the challenges presented by today’s dynamic and complex SEO environment .

Our product managers and engineers study SEO closely, keeping up with current best practices and conducting research of our own, so that Bazaarvoice products are built for the current state of SEO .

This book walks you through some of the most common SEO issues we hear about from our clients, providing both useful technical insights and big-picture strategy that you can use to understand today’s SEO environment, troubleshoot problems with rich snippets, make sure your code is up to snuff, and drive more traffic to category-level pages .

Maximizing SEO value takes persistence and effort . We encourage you to use this material as a conversation starter and reference within your company .

http://www.bazaarvoice.com/events/?utm_source=bazaarvoice&utm_medium=pdf&utm_campaign=five-star-seo

http://www.bazaarvoice.com/events/

SEO today: Life after Google’s JavaScript update



It’s now been more than year since Google’s October 24, 2014 blog post, Updating our technical Webmaster Guidelines. That quietly-launched blog post notified the world that the Googlebot now indexes JavaScript, and marked a significant development in the state of SEO .

JavaScript has never been more integral to the functioning of the modern-day web and ecommerce in particular, so this change aligns search with today’s browsers and user experience .

Bazaarvoice’s experience and research over the past year have revealed some fundamental guidelines that will help you and your team better navigate the technical aspects of SEO as the industry is, in its current, transitional state .

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/10/updating-our-technical-webmaster.html


Consider these guidelines in today’s world of the JavaScript-crawling Googlebot:

1 View Source is obsolete – mostly

Since the beginning of SEO time, about 1995, SEO professionals have agreed on a simple principle: search engines only read what’s visible in View Source . But because the world’s number-one search engine now crawls a more complete version of web pages, we have to look beyond View Source to newer methods .

To properly understand how search engines see our web pages, we must

evaluate and audit two versions of our source code: View Source HTML and

Rendered HTML (Inspect Element) . Failing to audit both versions prevents us from having a complete picture of the content or markup hierarchy that we are presenting to search engines . We will discuss this in more detail shortly .


2 There is a timeout and some content will be missed some of the time

Search engine bots, such as Googlebot, must run efficiently . They can’t wait forever for pages to load . Therefore, it is very important to consider how timing affects a search engine’s ability to crawl and index your website .

One specific aspect of timing is especially relevant as we seek to understand the JavaScript-enabled Googlebot – all evidence indicates that it has a timeout . We do not yet know exactly how much time Google allows, or the factors that affect how much time is allotted, but evidence clearly supports that a timeout exists . Therefore, JavaScript-powered edits and additions must load quickly to be picked up by the Googlebot .

3 Assume that Googlebot will not scroll or interact

Many websites have experimented with lazy-loading (aka: infinite-scrolling, scroll-loading, progressive-loading) techniques over the past couple years . While techniques that load content as you scroll down the page provide a user experience attractive to consumers, and will often result in better initial performance statistics, they may have a negative impact on SEO . When auditing code using the Inspect Element method, load the page and do not interact or scroll . Assume that Google

will only load the content that is visible in the initial, pre-interaction state

of the page .


4 Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool is broken

As absurd as this sounds, the updated version of Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool, launched in March of 2015, does not include content and markup added after a page reaches the end user’s web browser . Even though the tool was refreshed and re-launched after Google’s JavaScript Update, the tool’s Fetch URL feature mimics the functionality of Googlebot prior to October 2014 . Therefore, when using Fetch URL, the All Good and Error messages within the Structured Data Testing Tool may not be accurate .

In order to overcome this issue, do not use Fetch URL . You must copy and paste markup directly into the Structured Data Testing Tool . Begin by pasting in the HTML retrieved via Inspect Element, as described in detail below . Evaluate the feedback received by the tool, then repeat the process using the HTML retrieved via View Source .

5 Canonical tags and other metadata can be edited with JavaScript

Tests performed by Bazaarvoice, as well as Merkle | RKG have confirmed that Google will honor JavaScript edits to the HEAD section of pages . When doing such edits, consider the JavaScript timeout, noted above, as well as the order of operations as your page is built out . If the HEAD edit is performed too late, it may be missed .

http://searchengineland.com/tested-googlebot-crawls-javascript-heres-learned-220157


6 Bing and Yahoo! are trying

At Bazaarvoice we continue to monitor changes and track the differences between how Google, Bing and Yahoo! index pages . Relative to Google, the other search

engines have only crawled a very small percentage of the Internet with a

JavaScript-enabled browser. Therefore, we must consider the limitations of search engines other than Google, and seek to understand the traffic potential of each engine in different geographic markets .

11 Five-star SEO: Advice from Bazaarvoice experts — A resource book for clients

Strategy consideration: Reach customers earlier in the buying journey with category-level SEO


Putting consumer-generated content on your product pages has added a lot of SEO value, and following the advice in this book will ensure that you have optimized your Bazaarvoice program and your site code to get the most search value from CGC on the product page . This makes it possible for customers to most easily find their way to your products while they are in the consideration stage of their shopping journey .



Another important aspect of getting the most search value from CGC is identifying opportunities to reach consumers earlier in their journey . Before they are looking for your product, they are looking for products like the ones you sell . This is why category-level pages matter so much . We call this the discovery stage, when consumers are trying to figure out what product to choose .

Unfortunately, category-level pages are often the weakest pages in terms of natural search on a typical website . Traditional category pages have a few shortcomings:

1 The content isn’t very fresh . We know that search engines prize fresh content, and these pages are among the least often updated on your site .

2 Product pages are mostly photos, prices, and links . Aside from not being very rich, the preponderance of links signals to Google

that there are better places to find the information, actually sending value to a different page on your site .

3 Category page content tends to be obvious marketing

copy, and it’s not fooling anybody . Search engines do not value this keyword-stuffed “garbage content,” and we expect that soon, they will actively de-value it .

There is a fairly easy fix for these problems that will significantly enhance their search positioning: surfacing fresh, relevant social content on category pages .


Enter Spotlights, a product we introduced in 2015 . Spotlights builds on your existing

CGC program and can drive as much as 25% more search traffic to your category

pages, capturing customers in the discovery phase of their journey.

Spotlights goes into your catalog of entities (like products, recipes, stores, and so on) that are well loved by consumers, putting a small number of them into a carousel that is refreshed daily . It then displays reviews for these entities, selecting based on relevance and keyword targeting . The content on a category page is newly fresh as a result, with Spotlights bringing as many as 2,000 words of rich social content to a category page .

What’s more, Spotlights links those reviews and ratings to real people, adding reputation value by clearly telling Google and other search engines that they are looking at a social conversation .

We encourage you to take a closer look at Spotlights to see if it’s a valuable way to expand to your CGC program by increasing traffic from natural search and capturing the consumer’s attention earlier in the buying journey . Learn more or request a demo here .

http://www.bazaarvoice.com/products/conversations/spotlights/?utm_medium=pdf&utm_source=bazaarvoice&utm_campaign=five-star-seo


To-do: Understand the top 10 reasons rich snippet stars don’t display in your Google search results



When visible in search results, rich snippet stars typically provide a healthy boost in click-through rates from Google . However, getting those attractive little yellow stars to display in search results has proven to be quite the challenge for many domains . In fact, an October 2015 study from Raven Tools reports that 80% of sites do not have Schema markup.

Over the past few years, the Bazaarvoice SEO team has worked with hundreds of domains to identify and resolve issues that block Google from displaying rich snippet stars . The issues aren’t difficult to understand, but finding the specific problem can sometimes be a challenge .


Toyota of Manhattanwww.toyotaofmanhattan.com

Toyota of Manhattan of New York New York serving Manhattan, Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken is one of the finest Toyota dealerships.

Rating: 4.9 - 189 reviews

http://searchengineland.com/study-29-of-sites-face-duplicate-content-issues-80-arent-using-schema-org-microdata-232870


Issue #1 Failure to nest

The most common issue we encounter is a failure to properly nest schema .org markup elements . The basic premise of nesting is that HTML code should identify when the webpage starts and stops addressing a given topic .

Bazaarvoice clients should use WebPage as the outer-most type itemscope on all pages except the homepage . WebSite is the appropriate type itemscope for a domain’s homepage . We recommend including these attributes on the body node, as seen in the example on the next page .

In cases where a page has a main entity, which is typically the case for detail pages (Product, Recipe, Hotel, LocalBusiness, Store, etc .), the mainEntity itemprop should be added alongside main entity’s type itemscope . (See line 2 in the “Good” example .)

Key definitions you should know:HTML Node –in HTML code, a node is the word used to define an opening HTML tag, a closing HTML tag, and all elements in between . For example, the following is a complete HTML paragraph node with the id of foo: <p

id=”foo”>This sentence is part of the node .</p>

Nested HTML Nodes – HTML nodes may be placed inside of each other . For example, the following is a complete HTML paragraph node where one word is made bold with a bold node: <p id=”foo”>This sentence is <b>part</b> of the node .</p>

Itemscope – a schema .org itemscope attribute may be added to an HTML node to identify the topic that will be addressed within the node .

Type Itemscopes – A few itemscopes are special and we typically refer to them as type itemscopes . These itemscopes are used to identify major topics within a website . Product, LocalBusiness, Store, Recipe, Hotel, Article, and WebPage are some of the most common Type Itemscopes where reviews are relevant .

Itemprop – a schema .org itemprop attribute may be added to an HTML node to identify the specific type of data within the itemscope . It’s often helpful to think of itemprops as a hidden label . In the following sentence, the author itemprop is added to a bold node: <p id=”foo”> This sentence was written by <b itemprop=”author”>Newman</b>


In the bad example, the code starts addressing the topic of a product on line 1 and stops on line 3, prior to any aggregateRating information.

In the good example, the code nesting was adjusted so that the </div> does not appear until line 7. As a result, the aggregateRating data is properly nested within and attributed to the Product itemscope.

Bad: 1 . <body itemscope itemtype=”http://schema .org/WebPage”>2 . <div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema .org/Product”>3 . <span itemprop=”name”>Kenmore White 17” Microwave</span>4 . </div>5 . <div itemprop=”aggregateRating” itemscope

itemtype=”http://schema .org/AggregateRating”>6 . Rated <span itemprop=”ratingValue”>3 .5</span>/57 . based on <span itemprop=”reviewCount”>11</span> customer reviews8 . </div>9 . </body>

Good: 1 . <body itemscope itemtype=”http://schema .org/WebPage”>2 . <div itemprop=”mainEntity” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema .org/Product”>3 . <span itemprop=”name”>Kenmore White 17” Microwave</span>4 . <div itemprop=”aggregateRating” itemscope

itemtype=”http://schema .org/AggregateRating”>5 . Rated <span itemprop=”ratingValue”>3 .5</span>/56 . based on <span itemprop=”reviewCount”>11</span> customer reviews7 . </div>8 . </div>9 . </body>

The two examples below illustrate the problem as it appears in the code.

Issue #1 (cont.)


It is acceptable for pages to have multiple type itemscopes, which would be proper for list and grid pages, as well as detail pages with product recommendations . If there is no main entity on the page, do not include a mainEntity itemprop .

All attributes related to each entity (each type itemscope HTML node) must be nested within the HTML node . It is very common for the HTML nodes to be closed prematurely . (see line 4 in the “Bad” example, line 8 in the “Good” example .)

Properly nesting the code this way tells Google that the entirety of the content

within the type itemscope, such as price, availability, ratings, reviews, and other

CGC elements, is related to that entity. Google then knows to display the stars for a product in search .

It’s also a good idea to refer to each entity with exact-match naming throughout the page . For example, if the name itemprop is defined as “yellow scarf” and itemReviewed itemprops are defined as “yellow fringed scarf,” Google may believe that the page contains data about two products .

Also, to ensure that the product name indicated at the top and bottom of the page is an exact match . Using the term “yellow scarf” at the top of the page and “yellow fringed scarf” at the bottom of the page will confuse the Googlebot .

Issue #1 (cont.)


Issue #2 Unclosed HTML tags

When writing HTML code, each HTML node must be opened and closed – the forward slash character (/) communicates closure of an HTML node . The following examples show a typical node that uses separate opening and closing tags .

Bad: <div>This is an unclosed node

Good: <div>This is a closed node</div>

Some HTML elements (<img>, <meta>, etc .) don’t use a separate closing tag . In these cases, a single tag is used that contains the closing forward slash .

Bad: <img src=”image .gif”>Good: <img src=”image .gif” />

If HTML tags are not closed, Google’s structured data interpreter may struggle to understand the hierarchy, and may therefore misinterpret the nesting referenced in Issue #1 .


Issue #3 Multiple aggregateRating itemprops

As discussed above, each entity should be defined using a type itemscope . However, there must only be one aggregateRating itemprop for each type itemscope . Even if the display includes an aggregate rating in multiple places, the markup must only be labeled with an aggregateRating itemprop one time per type itemscope . Multiple aggregateRating

itemprops will confuse Google and no stars will show.

Issue #4 Missing aggregateRating itemprop

Sometimes the rating displayed by rich snippets doesn’t match the average review rating in your webpage – this provides an important clue about what might be wrong . If no aggregateRating itemprops are present, Google will then search for the first review

itemprop and display the rating from only one individual, not the average rating

of all reviewers.

Issue #5 Mixed structured data types

Schema .org vocabulary can be used with many different encodings, including RDFa, Microdata and JSON-LD . Bazaarvoice recommends and supports Microdata . In any case, only one of these types of structured data may be used in a single web page.

Mixing JSON-LD and Microdata in the same page will impair rich snippets from displaying properly .


Issue #6 Main entity not defined

Google will look for an aggregateRating of the first Type itemscope that it encounters in the DOM (Document Object Model) . If a page contains multiple Type itemscopes, make

sure the main entity is labeled with the mainEntity itemscope, as referenced in #1

above.

Issue #7 Use of schema.org/Organization

Organization is also a Type itemscope . However, we have not found a case where Google displays rich snippet stars for Organization . We have seen many cases where the Organization itemscope was placed in the header around general organizational information such as phone numbers and contact info . In every case where our SEO team has found the Organization type itemscope on product pages, it has prevented rich snippet stars from displaying . For any page where you would like to see rich snippets appear in search

results, do not include the Organization itemscope.

Issue #8 Missing supporting review content

Google has displayed rich snippet stars in a few cases where reviews were not present in the same page . However, display of stars with this scenario is sporadic at best, as Google may interpret the lack of review text on a page as a clue that the aggregateRating may be false data . We recommend you always include 8 reviews in the same page where you

display an aggregateRating.


Issue #9 Questionable content authenticity

If Google doesn’t trust a domain, or the contents within the domain, it is unlikely that rich snippet stars will render in search results . This is typically an issue for newer domains that do not yet have a good reputation . Bazaarvoice CGC includes valuable authenticity clues, such as author screen

names and content creation date, which improves reputation. These signal that the social activity happening in your domain is legitimate and improves your reputation .

Issue #10 Inconsistent server-side and Inspect Element code markup

This is an area where the industry is still adapting to changes announced by Google in October 2014 . Since then, the Googlebot has been crawling JavaScript as well as server-side page elements . We’ll discuss these changes in some detail next, but when troubleshooting problems with rich snippets, keep in mind that it is very important to audit both the server-side, View Source version of your code and the rendered HTML version found via Inspect Element, to ensure that both versions contain the intended content and markup . We will discuss how to conduct this dual audit in detail below .

If the versions of the code seen in each tool are inconsistent, Google may also

be inconsistent in its display of rich snippet stars. For optimal results, both versions should adhere to all of the principles in this post .


Key SEO Takeaways from Bazaarvoice:

• Today’s SEO landscape has changed significantly from even one year ago.

• Reputation, freshness, and user experience continue to underpin SEO success.

However, client-side HTML and markup are now playing a critical role in search.

Consider all of these when evaluating how to leverage your CGC program for

search value.

• Google now indexes client-side content from JavaScript, creating new

opportunities and challenges for SEO management. Stay up to date on the best

tools and practices, and use both Inspect Element and View Source to audit client-

and server-side HTML.

• Leverage schema.org markup to maximize search performance and deliver rich

snippets such as star ratings to search pages. Failure to nest the markup properly

is the leading cause of problems with rich snippets not appearing in search results.

• Bazaarvoice Spotlights surfaces fresh, relevant CGC on category pages,

traditionally the weakest element of a typical website, driving up to 25% more

traffic from consumers early in their shopping journey.

25 Five-star SEO: Advice from Bazaarvoice experts25

About Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice is a network that connects businesses to the authentic voices of people where they shop . Each month, more than 400 million people view and share authentic opinions, questions and experiences, and Bazaarvoice powers over 30 million local service reviews . The company’s technology platform amplifies these voices into the places that influence purchase decisions . Network analytics help marketers and advertisers provide more engaging experiences that drive brand awareness, consideration, sales, and loyalty . Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Bazaarvoice has offices across North America and Europe .

For more information, visit www.bazaarvoice.com, read the blog at bazaarvoice.com/

blog, and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/bazaarvoice.


www.bazaarvoice.com/?utm_medium=pdf&utm_source=bazaarvoice&utm_campaign=five-star-seo

http://bazaarvoice.com/blog

http://bazaarvoice.com/blog

http://twitter.com/bazaarvoice

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