You also have to compete with the big websites like Yelp, Tripadvisor, Houzz and many more depending on your niche who rank very well and have large teams of SEO professionals behind them.

These websites are optimized for the very same keywords that are important to your business so they can send traffic to their own profile or search pages to benefit businesses on their site.

They also have large advertising budgets and quite often buy ads that appear at the top of search pages for competitive keywords.

Maybe it is impossible for your business to get on page 1 of Google for these highly competitive keywords, but there is a very good chance your business could get to page one on one of these third-party services.

You will then get traffic when people click through to a third-party search page that you are listed on.

What is Barnacle SEO

Barnacle SEO is a search engine optimization technique where businesses and individuals leverage the authority and traffic of established websites to improve their own online visibility. The name “barnacle” is aptly chosen, as it reflects the idea of attaching oneself to a larger, stationary entity in order to benefit from its position in the online ecosystem.

Instead of relying solely on building and optimizing their own website, Barnacle SEO practitioners identify high-ranking, authoritative websites and platforms in their niche or industry. They then strategically create and optimize content, profiles, or listings on these platforms, effectively “riding” their coattails to gain exposure in search engine results pages (SERPs).

This strategy allows your business to gain exposure on page 1 for very competitive keywords when the searcher clicks through to a search page on one of these websites.

You should then aim to be ranked as highly as possible on these websites so your profile or listing is as high as possible in the search results for each service.

Is Barnacle SEO useful for my business?

Barnacle SEO can be utilized for any business.  You just need to determine which websites are important to your business niche and optimize your presence on these services.

This strategy is particularly effective for local businesses as the search pages typically cover one location. You just need to work on making your profile better than your local competitors on each service.

Barnacle SEO for local businesses

Barnacle SEO can be a very powerful strategy for local businesses like electricians, plumbers, doctors, accountants, lawyers, restaurants, hotels etc.

Each of these niches has its own list of powerful websites designed to help people find and connect with businesses in these industries.

These websites have large advertising and search marketing budgets and quite often have an Advertisement or well-ranked search page for important keywords relevant to your niche.

Barnacle SEO for online businesses

You can also use Barnacle SEO if you are an online business.  There are plenty of services that support the ability to list online businesses.

How to implement Barnacle SEO

Barnacle SEO is easy to implement and the steps involved are things that you should already be doing for your business.

1. Identify your most important keywords

What are the most important search keywords that people use when searching for a business like yours.

Identify a list of at least 20 keywords and use a search tracking tool to determine which are most important.  Use Search Volume to determine which keywords get the most traffic.

Focus on these keywords in order of the ones with the most traffic.

2. Determine which third party sites rank on page 1

For each of your keywords do a search on Google and make a note of any services that allow you to create a listing or profile.

Record which services appear the most and at what position along with the search volume for the keyword.  You can also determine the Domain Authority of each websites as a guide to which websites may rank better.

Once you have made your list you will be able to determine which websites are the most important for your business.

These are the websites you should focus on for your Barnacle SEO strategy.

3. Have a presence on each site

Before you can appear in search results for each site you need to have a presence.

Check each website to see if you have an existing listing, If not add a new listing or profile.

Some sites will be free to list or will require you to pay for a premium listing.  You should decide for each site if you feel a paid listing is worthwhile depending on how much traffic the listing may bring.

There may be other advantages to a paid listing. For example, if a paid listing also includes a dofollow backlink this would be an added bonus.

Creating listings on these niche websites is also valuable as they are additional citations for your business to boost local seo and gives your business another way to be found by people who go directly to these niche services to find businesses.

4. Optimize your presence on each site

Once you are listed you need to optimize the listing as much as possible and generate high quality content so that the service ranks it as high as possible in relevant search result pages.

Each service will have their own ranking algorithm.  Look at the search results page for each service and determine the factors helping each business to rank.

Some common ranking factors include:

• Ratings
• Number of reviews
• Quality of reviews
• Whether the listing is premium or not
• Completeness of listing
• Photos and Videos
• Engagement of the page
• Inclusion of products and services
• Specials and offers

If the service supports ratings and reviews a good strategy is to start getting good reviews on the page.

5. Increase Engagement with your presence

One of the best ways to get your presence or listing on a service to rank well is to get user generated content and engagement on your page.

You can do this by:

• Getting more reviews on your listing
• Improving your rating
• Getting more photos and videos from customers on the listing
• Including questions and answers

You can link to your profile from your website or use review generation tools to get more reviews on your listing.

6. Link back to your website

Whenever possible, include links back (backlinks) to your own website within the content you publish on these platforms. This can help drive traffic from the authoritative platform to your site.

7. Monitor Third Party Rankings

Check how you’re ranking on third party sites every so often to determine if you are improving or holding your rank.

Even when you have made it to position one it is possible that the ranking will change due to changes in ranking factors or your competitors improving.

Keep a list of all the search pages relevant to your business and check each one periodically.  Record your ranking position and the date so you can track changes over time.

Managed Barnacle SEO

Managed Barnacle SEO is not possible with traditional rank tracking services such as Semrush, Ahrefs, Majestic or any other service.

This is because these platforms are not designed to track the information necessary to properly manage and track Barnacle SEO.  These tools only know about your website and have no knowledge of which websites can be used for Barnacle SEO or the ability to help you rank on each of these websites and track your ranking position.

myPresences is the only online marketing tool with specific support for Barnacle SEO.

This is because myPresences is also an online presence management platform . We track all the websites that allow businesses in each niche to have a listing so you know where to list and whether you already have a listing. Once you are listed we help you optimize each listing and get reviews to help the listings rank better on each service so you have a better chance of appearing on page 1.

Coming soon, we will also be able to provide rank tracking for search pages on major third party websites so your rank can be automatically monitored in the same way that you track your google business profile rank.

Try myPresences free for 14 days and start implementing a Barnacle SEO strategy for your business or agency clients.

Organic search traffic is the best traffic to generate as once it is established it doesn’t cost you anything.  If you run ads traffic will stop as soon as you stop paying.  It can take longer to establish,  but organic seo has a bigger longterm payoff for your business.

Below are 7 essential keywords you should be monitoring for your business. These are the keywords that are most important for your business that you should be ranking as high as possible for.

For keywords with your business name, phone number or website you should have the top ranking and probably occupy most positions on the first page.

When monitoring these keywords you should monitor the keywords as if they were searched from as close to your location as possible, or where your customers would search from.

1. Your business name

Keyword example:  XYZ Plumbing.

People searching for your business name are looking for you in particular.

They either:

• Are an existing customer looking to find additional information on your business
• Have seen your business somewhere else and are searching for you
• Your business has been recommended to them

Your business should dominate the first page of results for your business name.  The first result should be your own website and your Google Business Profile should appear in the Knowledge Panel to the right.

2. Your business name and location

Keyword examples:  XYZ Plumbing annerley, Salon XYZ balmain.

This keyword is similar to your business name but the searcher thought it was important to specify a location to make it more likely they find your business.

3. Your business type and location

Keyword examples: plumber in chadstone, plumber chadstone, plumbers in chadstone, plumbers chadstone

These are your opportunity for new business, you should rank as high as possible for these keywords.  It is also very important to compete for these keywords because they generate business for your competitors when they don’t choose you.

These keywords are also likely to include a lot of pages on other websites like Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor and many others. You should ensure your business is listed on these services as people will click through to these services and are most likely to choose a business that is listed on the first page of results on those services.

See our blog post on Barnacle SEO for more information.

4. Your phone number

Keyword example:  555 4555

Searching for a phone number can be a great way to find a business online as there is less ambiguity.

When people search for your phone number they are very likely to be about to interact with your business.  Make sure the results they find are as compelling as possible to get them to decide to become a customer.

5. Business type near me

Keyword examples:  salon near me, salons near me

This is a very important keyword for your business.

People using these keywords are looking for local businesses like yours and if they are searching on a mobile device they are probably very likely to be ready to purchase.

6. Your major services\products and your location

Keyword examples:  fix leak doncaster, korean food ascot, tax return kensington,  car service 3108

Think about the major keywords that your customers use to search for you and then add your location or postcode.  Monitor as many of these as you can as these keywords are about bringing you new business.

7. Your website

Keyword examples: www.mypresences.com, mypresences.com

It might sound counterintuitive to search for a website on a search engine rather than typing it into the address bar but many people do this.

For these people you want to ensure you rank well for when people use a search engine to do directly to your website.  The google homepage will automatically redirect to your website, but other search engines may not.

You should always rank number 1 for your own website but monitor this keyword to be sure.

myPresences makes it super easy to track these keywords for your business.  It couldn’t be simpler, when you add your business to myPresences we automatically monitor all these keywords for your business as if they were performed from your location.

We are also the only search tool that can monitor how your listings and profiles rank in addition to your website.

Try our 14 day free trial and be sure to check out the search page to see how your business ranks for these terms.

If you are a local business you need to have this! You want to make it as easy as possible for consumers to find you and get to you.

In addition to your website your business is also on tens or even hundreds of other maps on online services, blogs, apps and more.

Have you taken the time to check these for accuracy?

Map Location Audit

A wrong map location can be a big problem for your business.  Especially if it is on a major services where is likely to be seen and used by lots of your potential customers.

One of the first things I check in myPresences when I add a new business is the Geolocation variations in their profile.  This shows the map point for every service where a business has a presence and allows you to see exactly which services have an incorrect map location for your business.

This can often be surprising, more often that not there is one or more services where the map point is not even close to the location of the business.

The above image shows all map positions for a business on a single map.  Most of the map positions are clustered around the correct location but two services are not even close to the correct location.

These should be fixed, people who find this business on these services may either:

1. Not consider the business because it appears to be too far away.
2. Use the directions and go to the location and find that your business is not there. You are very likely to lose their business in this case.

The above example is a lot better but some improvements can be made, this shows how much variation exists from service to service.

How Incorrect Map Locations affect your Business

Having an incorrect map location on an online service can lead to a loss of business for you depending on how incorrect the location is and how the service uses this information. Some ways this may affect your business are:

• Consumers may go to an incorrect location and not find your business.
• Your business may not appear when consumers search for businesses based on location or near them.
• Your business may not rank as well for proximity searches performed near your business.
• The directions feature may direct consumers to the wrong place.
• Local consumers looking at your map may get the wrong impression about where you are actually located.
• An incorrect map location on a major service may feed through to other services as they share data, this may lead to an incorrect location on many other services.

Fixing Incorrect Map Locations

To fix this problem or even determine whether you have a problem can be complicated and time consuming.  Here are the steps you need to follow:

1. Make a list of all the services where your business has a profile.
2. Prioritise them so you are concentrating on the most important services first.
3. Check them in order and find the map in the profile.
4. Check the map location for your business (there might be competitors on the same map) and make sure you are happy with the location.
5. If you think the map location is not accurate enough you should be able to edit your information on the service to update your map location.
6. If you are not able to update the map location yourself then try contacting the service and letting them know your map location is incorrect.

While you are checking your map locations why not do an audit of your business information and make sure it is accurate, consistent and complete. This will help people find you and may also help your business rank better in local search.

You can do this automatically in myPresences for free and see exactly where the map markers sit for all of your profiles in less than 10 minutes.

Create a free account at https://app.mypresences.com/signup/ and then add your business. After a few minutes click on profile in the left menu and then choose Geolocation. You will see a map like above for your business showing all your map pins in one place.

With a little initial effort you can create an online presence that not only improves your chances of getting found in search engines but gives you a diversified network of places where consumers can find you. Some may only bring you a small amount of direct business each year but combined they can make a noticeable (and potentially large) difference to your bottom line.

Listing your business in more places online can improve your Local SEO.  If you are a local business Local SEO is vital to your business.  Local SEO helps you get found when people search with Local Intent, such as “Plumbers in Brisbane” or “restaurant in camp hill“.

When you perform a local intent search a special section appears on the first page called the Google Snack Pack.  Your ranking (and even whether you appear here) is based on your Local SEO efforts.

It’s not enough to just list your business, your business data needs to be as consistent as possible across all of your listings.  Ensure your NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number) are as close as possible across all listings.  Getting your business to appear in the Google 3 pack (shown below) for the keywords relevant to your business is gold for your business and conversely dropping off can make a big difference to your ability to be found online.

The free Online Services Explorer at www.mypresences.com/services/  is the best way to find the online services where you should list your business.   It recommends the best services based on the type of business you are and the country your business is in.

Over 2000 online services and apps are supported worldwide. This is the world’s most comprehensive source of information on online services for small businesses.

There are lots of places you can list and many of them are free! You should list on as many of these services as possible to get your business found online more often than your competitors.

Follow these tips to get the most from the Services Explorer.

Select relevant Business Type and Location

We link services to business type and location so that only relevant services appear.  If you don’t select the correct business type or location you will miss services that are relevant to your business.

The Services Explorer works globally. You will find services for most countries especially Australia, USA, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

Recommendation Level

We categorised all services into 6 recommendation levels based on how important that service is for your business.

Focus on services that are Must List first and work your way down the list, do not add your business to any Services below Suggested unless you have researched the service and feel there is an advantage.

Engagement and Popularity

Services that are popular tend to have better engagement online,  this will be reflected in the number of connections they have on social networks and how much traffic their site gets.  This is not always the case however and it is possible that numbers may be inflated based on other factors, sometimes numbers may be inflated because a service has purchased social media favour but this is far less likely the more established a service is.

A great number to watch is Talking About on Facebook, this is an indication of the number of people who have engaged with their Facebook page in the last week.  The Talking About number will changed from day to day based on the previous week and is a great way to see how engaged a services users are.

We also track the Talking About % which allows you to level the playing field and see how many people are engaged as a percentage of the total likers, this is a great way to see those services that are getting a lot of attention from their users right now. This will change every day so checking who is at the top of the Talking About % for your business is a great way to find trending and interesting services to keep your business ahead of your competitors.

Once you have selected a set of services you can then sort them by the following engagement metrics to see which are most likely to be effective for your business based on engagement.

	Company	Models
	OpenAI	GPT 4o, GPT 4, Chat GPT
	Google AI	Gemini 1.5 Pro, Gemini 1.5 Flash, Gemini 1.0 Pro
	Meta AI	Llama 3 70B, Llama 3 8B
	Anthropic	Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Claude 3 Sonnet, Claude 3 Opus, Claude 3 Haiku
	Perplexity AI	Sonar Small Offline, Sonar Small Online, Sonar Large Offline, Sonar Large Online
	Mistral AI	Mistral Large, Mistral Small
	X.ai	Coming Soon. Grok-1.

Delivery Channels

In the last few years we have seen a big move from desktop to mobile computing on phones and tablets. This trend will only continue and the most innovative companies are moving their focus to mobile.   If a service has a mobile option then they are more likely to be forward focused and your business is more likely to be found by consumers looking for businesses around them when their ready to spend.

You should look for services that have a mobile option and make sure your business is listed on their platform.

Free Services

You can’t beat free right!  A lot of services are either free or provide a free option.  Look for free services by selecting the Free filter  and listing on all Suggested and above services.

Filter on SEO to find services that support a follow link to your website to improve SEO. (to help you rank better in search engines).

Business Type Specific Services

These services are only relevant to a specific business types.  Look for services that are specific to your business in your location by using the Specific filter button.  These services are worth listing your business on because some consumers will rely on these niche services when looking to find a particular type of business, they will also allow you to showcase your business better as they will be tailored to your type of business.

Claims

Services are making claims about their performance all the time, but it can be hard to remember which site claimed what and then to know if the claim is relevant anymore.

The internet changes so quickly that quoting traffic numbers from over 5 years ago can be meaningless and often a telling sign that things are not going well.

We collect claims made by Services so that you can see them side by side, we tell you when the claim was made and show you the source of the claim.

The older the claim the less relevant it becomes, if it is quite old it may indicate that the claimed value has not improved since.

In the above example you can see that Styleseat (www.styleseat.com) users have booked over 5.5 million appointments. If you are a hair or beauty salon then this is a good indication you should be listed on this fast growing niche service. On their profile page you can see this claim was made in January 2014 and link to the source.

Always check for recent claims when comparing services.  Some of them may surprise you, that service you had never heard of may be serving millions of customers a month.

Go Deep

Looking for more information on a service?  Each has its own profile page that can be found by clicking on the Full Profile button on the service (or by clicking on a service).  Here you can find very detailed information on each service that can help you determine its popularity and user engagement.

On the service profile page you can:

• Track the trend over the last 60 days on statistics for the service.  This will tell you where the service is improving or whether it is falling away.
• Add your Business to the Service.  Clicking the link will take you to the business signup page .
• Login to the service as a User.  This can also be used to login and access a backend management service if supported.
• See search trends for the service.  Google Trends for the service name over the last 4 years is a good way to gauge popularity.
• See the types of information the service supports and the countries where the service is available.

If you have a myPresences account you can store your access credentials securely for each service.  This is especially useful when an agent is managing your online presence for you and they need access to login credentials.  All access to your credentials are logged and reported back to you.

Check Back

We are always adding new services and updating details for existing services.  To keep on top of the best services for your business check back periodically to see if there are any new services or changes to existing services that make them worth listing your business on.  If you have a free account on the myPresences platform you will be automatically informed when new services launch or there are significant changes on existing services.

Good luck with promoting your business online! Most small business owners are doing very little to promote their business online. A little bit of effort will put you ahead of the majority of your competition.

As more and more consumers are looking online first when finding a local business it will only pay off more and more as consumers continue to move online.

If you are looking for a better way to manage your business’s entire online presence and reputation, please try a free trial at www.mypresences.com.

Each of your profiles say something about your business, it is important that you are sure that this information is accurate and best represents your business.  It can be hard enough to get a consumer to see your profiles let alone them having a bad experience with inaccurate or incomplete information when they find you.

Your business profiles are also used by search engines to help determine if you are the business you say you are and build authority through citations. If your information (especially your business name, address or phone number) is inaccurate or inconsistent across your profiles then your business’s ability to rank in local search will suffer.

Every so often you should check your profiles and make sure you are happy with the information being displayed for your business.  Here are a few of the major areas to check on your profiles to ensure you are maximising the value of each profile and giving yourself every chance of being found by consumers and then chosen by them.

1. Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)

It is extremely important that your Business Name, Address and Phone Number are as accurate and consistent as possible across all of your profiles.  This is because NAP consistency is one of the most important ranking factors for your business when it comes to local search.  If you are a local business then local search is extremely important.  If you can rank well for keywords that are for local businesses like yours in your area then you will see a big increase in traffic coming from the search engines as you may be able to make it onto page one for those keywords for free and you know that traffic is very targeted and likely to lead to business.

Being listed in the local pack on page one can also bring you more business as people know that this section of page one is a list of local businesses and they may look there first (rather than looking at organic results or advertisements).

2. Map Location

Most business profiles have a map location and you may assume that this is generated from your business address.  However, in a lot of cases the Map location or Geolocation of your business is stored as a separate data point and may be different to where your street address would suggest.

This map location is especially important as consumers will look at this map to determine where you are if they don’t recognise the address.  An even bigger problem is the use of direction features that will likely send eager customers to the wrong location.

For each of your profiles look at the map pin location and make sure it is accurate enough to be either at the business or close enough that customers would see your business from that map location.

3. Business Categories

Proper categorisation of your business can be the difference between getting found or not.

There are 2 points to consider:

1. Are your business categories correct.

2. Are you taking advantage of all the categories that apply.

The biggest problem when your categorisation is wrong is consumers will not find your business when they search for businesses like yours.  When people do find you they may also disregard your profile if your categories are not correct.

Make sure you check each of your profiles and if the categories currently selected do not accurately describe your business then check to see if there are some more appropriate categories you can choose.  While you are doing this make sure you are included in as many categories as possible  that are relevant to your business as this will result in your business appearing in more search results and help to clarify what your business does.

4. Business Hours

Many web sites and especially apps now handle your business hours more intelligently then just displaying them in a list on the page.  Modern services aim to be as useful as possible and will tell you directly if a business is open right now or not or may not even show your business if the service believes you are closed.

You also don’t want consumers coming to your business when you are closed and wasting their time, they may just go straight to your nearest competitor that is open rather than wait until you are open.

There have even been examples of businesses that have lost considerable business because they were mistakenly marked as closed on weekends.

Check each of your profiles and make sure your business hours are accurate.  If your business hours are seasonal you should make a note to update your most important business profiles whenever your hours change.

5. Ratings

Ratings are becomingly incredibly important for many businesses and a material change in ratings on any of the major online services can have an affect on your bottom line.  You should check the ratings of your profiles as much as possible and make sure they are at least equal to your closest competitors if not higher.  If your ratings fall below your closest competitors then you will likely lose business to them when people are looking for businesses like yours.

If you feel your ratings are being manipulated by competitors or other parties try to contact the service or flag fraudulent reviews. Unfortunately in many cases there may not be much you can do. You should aim to provide a quality service and suggest to your customers that they rate or review you on important services such as Google My Business, Yelp  or any online service where you need to improve your rating.

6. Reviews

Similarly to your overall ratings you should be checking your reviews as often as possible and you should try to reply to as many as you can in as timely a manner as possible.  You should try to remain professional and reply as courteously as possible to both positive and negative reviews as these reviews and responses will be read by other prospective customers and peers and you want to remain professional and enhance the online reputation of your business.

These reviews are also very valuable feedback for you and your business and you should remain as impartial as possible and try to take the feedback on board where it is warranted.

7. Menus, Price Lists and Documents

Many websites allow you to upload Menus, Price Lists and Documents that allow consumers to learn more about your business.  This is a great way to give prospective customers a lot more information on your business than the website may allow.  You could include your latest brochure, an article you published in a magazine, or a story about your business.  However this information can quickly become dated and you can quickly forget which information is out there and on which profiles.

If you are not checking your menus and price lists periodically and updating them you will quickly find that you are showing consumers older price lists that will become outdated and contain items you no longer provide.

Make a note of each document you upload and to which sites and set a routine to periodically update them or to update them whenever you make changes.

8. Cuisine

If you are a restaurant setting the correct cuisine is extremely important.  Diners will search for certain types of restaurants and getting this right can make for a better experience when a diner finds you.  If your cuisine is set incorrectly then you will not be shown to diners when they are looking for a restaurant like yours.

There are many other bits of information that are also very important and you should check these as well to make sure your information is accurate – especially phone numbers, web addresses and links to social profiles.  You should also look at each of your profiles and make sure you have extracted as much value as possible by including things like photos, videos and anything else that will help your profile standout.

We make it easy for you to manage all your business profiles automatically and from one place, and we let you know where your data is inconsistent or can be improved.   Try our free version to see how myPresences helps you get more from online by building an amazing presence and reputation across all of the sites online where your customers will look for you.

In pre apple SIRI you could ask it to find nearby italian restaurants that are open now and then directly make a reservation.

This really brought home to me how important a business’s online information would be moving forward and how we are moving away from people looking for businesses and choosing one at their own discretion to a world where businesses will be recommended by an algorithm and the user will be given limited choice over which businesses they are presented.

This is as much a factor of form changes as anything else as we move from large desktop computers with big screens, to laptops, tablets, phones and watches and further.  User Interface is becoming No Interface where you interact increasingly with your voice from search to selection and action.  The integration of this technology into TV’s and Cars will help to accelerate this change.

This change has profound repercussions for traditional search marketing which relies on the searcher being able to see the ads or search results and then interact with them.  How will the major players adapt their business models to monetise a world with limited or no UI? Will businesses pay more to be recommended more often? Will a sponsored result be announced first in your list of recommendations?

The major players are preparing for battle in this new arena with Apple Siri,Google Now, Microsoft Cortana, Facebook M and many more upstarts preparing to take them on.

One of the major differentiators will be the quality of the recommendations generated by these Digital Assistants. Similarly to how google won search by giving the best search results the next era will be won on the back of quality recommendations that not only take into account traditional search metrics but will know a lot more about the context around the request.  Who is the searcher? What do they like? Who are they similar to and what do those people like? Have they made this request before? Which places have they already visited? Did they have a good or bad experience?

One thing is certain .. your business’s online presence and reputation will be of paramount importance and could potentially be one of your biggest assets.  These services will data-mine your online information and try to squeeze any valuable insight they can out of that information and your connections to make that all important magic recommendation that will keep users loyal to their app.

As a business owner you need to ensure that your presence and reputation online starts to be considered as one of the most important aspects of your business.  You should make sure that:

• Your business is listed in all of the places online important to your business
• Your information is accurate, complete and consistent everywhere
• You make it possible for people to interact with your business online as much as possible by leaving reviews, ratings, photos, videos and interacting in any other way that creates connections and signals
• You Claim your profiles

These recommendation engines will become more and more important and will eventually replace traditional search engines in many cases so be prepared for the change and stay ahead of your competition by getting your business ready.

Metadata is simply ‘data about data’ it helps to formally describe some information in a way that makes it easy for a computer program such as a Search Engine to know exactly what a document or page is saying or is about.  You may have seen it referred to by other names such as Structured Data, Microdata, Markup or Rich Snippets and there are many different forms of metadata such as schema.org and the meta tags you include on your website to tell Facebook or Twitter what to say when people share your page.

In the last few years Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex have started to support metadata that allows you to tell them exactly what the most important data points for your business are. This includes things like your Business Name, address and phone number but depending on your business type you might also be able to specify things like menu links, maps, cuisine, price information and opening hours.

Using schema on your website is a no brainer but the reality is that only 0.3% of domains use schema.org metadata as of april 2014 so adding this information to your website will give you a real advantage online.  One of the reasons raised for such a low adoption, especially among small businesses, is that most small businesses do not have the technical chops to be able to properly incorporate metadata so it tends to be the larger sites that use it at the moment …. we are changing that!

There are some other advantages to using metadata including the potential for some of your metadata to appear directly in search results  as Rich Snippets which will help your business stand out, this might include things like menu links appearing directly in search results for restaurants.

You can check whether your website has any schema.org metadata that will affect rich snippets right now at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets … just enter your webpage and click Fetch & Validate.  You should see your business information such as name, phone, address and more on the right side if your webpage has at least basic metadata about your business.

Managed Metadata

myPresences now has a world’s first new feature that provides automated metadata management for your business, making it possible for a small business to use cutting edge metadata without requiring expensive consultants or extensive knowledge and ongoing review.

The Managed Metadata feature provides the following:

• Automatically generated metadata based on your base profile.
• The most specific and complete metadata for your business based on your business type.
• Support for new metadata as it is supported by the search engines so you can take advantage of every opportunity as it becomes available.
• Watch changes in your data to let you know when metadata needs to be updated.
• Monitor metadata on your website to let you know which metadata is currently missing.

The metadata generated by myPresences can be copied and placed onto your website and we suggest placing it on as many pages as possible where displaying the data makes sense.  You can either add the code yourself or get your web developer to make the changes for you.

The Managed Metadata feature will generate two versions of your metadata, one for mixing with your display information and one that can be embedded directly onto your page with no changes to the layout of your page, these are labeled Visible Markup and Hidden Markup.

The hidden markup for mypresences looks this and is accessible from your Website Presence on the Presences page.

myPresences – Hidden Schema screenshot

We recommend you use the Hidden Markup version on your website unless you have a need to use the Visible markup and you have a web developer who can make the changes.  If you choose to add the Hidden markup you can copy and paste the code provided by myPresences and paste it directly into your webpage before the end of the body tag.

With this in place and published after a period of a few days you should see the rich snippet section in your Google Webmaster Account change from:

To:

Google Webmaster Tools – Structured Data – Populated

Including this rich information about your business will increase your chances of having rich search results like below for your business and help to make the information accurate and complete, notice that this restaurant has very rich information such as links to the menu, reservations page and more.

knowledge graph example – restaurant

Remember, you can check the metadata on your page using the google structured data testing tool at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets or myPresences will tell you when your metadata differs from the ideal.

The Managed Metadata feature is now available in myPresences on the Aware and Involved plans.  If you are unable to update your metadata either yourself or via your website developer we can help you out, please contact us at help@mypresences.com and we will get back to you with more information.