As search continues to dominate how users find information, its value as a tool for navigating your website cannot be denied. This means, depending on the website, at least half of your visitors do not start their journey on a website’s home page. Rather, the lion’s share of these visitors came on site from either a search engine or through a social media link. If we’re not considering how our data serves visitors looking for us from these venues, we have not prepared ourselves for the full audience of people who want our content and services.
When I attended IA Summit in 2016, I spoke with dozens of attendees, and was very surprised by how few were aware of the many types of metadata and structured data available to create a superior and more informed experience for web browsers. This data is endorsed and used by search engines and social media sites, and is intended not to bring in more traffic, but in improving the experience of people, thereby helping the right, relevant people find what they’re looking for.
My presentation will explain how an IA can use properly formatted schema, structured data, and metadata — both on- and off-site, to help the people who want or need your content. IA Summit 2016 was fantastic, and I’d like to give back to the community by sharing information from my unique and different knowledge set, where it is valuable and relevant to the IA community.
