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<\/p>\nYou may have noticed specialized renderings of specific data in Google search results, like so:
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You might think these are proprietary arrangements between Google and other sites – I imagine many may be, but the technology that powers them is easily available, called “microformats”. Microformats are essentially a loose schema describing a type of data in your site. There are a few hundred different data types – common ones being events, reviews, download links, and metadata about different types of businesses.<\/p>\n
These are beneficial if you want someone to make use of whatever you’re providing (making easier for them to find downloads for your software, for instance). There seems to be a schema that provides a data table from your site, and they do seem to put links to the source material with the summary table in the search results, so this may be a valid form of SEO tinkering as well.<\/p>\n
Regardless, it’s a neat feature, and pretty easy to use. If you just want yellow stars to show up in search results, there is a nice WordPress plugin1<\/a><\/sup> that supports some of the most common types (I have no affiliation with the author).<\/p>\n If you want to do something fancier, the best option is to go to schema.org, and look at the examples.<\/p>\n For instance, you want to link an MP3, they give you an example like so:<\/p>\n To find this, go to http:\/\/schema.org\/AudioObject: The schema objects have a ton of attributes, which is pretty overwhelming. If you scroll to the bottom, you can get an HTML example like the above, for whatever type you like:\n
\n 12oclock_girona.mp3<\/b><\/span>\n \n \n \n \n Recorded on a terrace of Girona a sunday morning<\/span>\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/pre>\n
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\nOnce you have this, it’s pretty easy to drop into React or whatever you’re using, and customize it to have the right data.<\/p>\n