Adding structured data.. part deux

After searching for "microdata and css" and finding little, I realized the problem was me.  I went back to my html and tried putting the elements within the <div> tags.

The markup became:

 <div itemscope itemtype ="http://schema.org/Event">
    <p>It's almost time for the <span itemprop="name">MS Spring Fling 2013</span>.</p>
    <p><b>When:</b>  
 <meta itemprop="startDate" content="2013-04-06T0800" />April 6th, sign-in starts at 8:00</p>
    <div itemprop="location" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">
     <div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">   
    <p><b>Where:</b>  <span itemprop="streetAddress">1101 Shiloh Glenn Drive - Hwy 54 & I-540 Morrisville</span></p>
    </div>
    </div>       
    <p>The 2013 MS Spring Fling <a  itemprop="url" href="http://www.active.com/cycling/morrisville-nc/ms-spring-fling-2013">online registration</a> is now open until April 3rd. </p>
    </div>

This markup respects my css as you can see here.

Adding structured data markup to a page

I've been reading a lot, and by "a lot" I mean A LOT, about the importance of structured data.  I'm sold.  So I thought I'd give it a try.

We have an upcoming event on the TeamCBC home page, the 2013 Spring Fling.  I originally coded the event information in straight html:

 <p>It's almost time for the MS Spring Fling 2013.</p>
 <p>
 <b>When:</b> April 6th, sign-in starts at 8:00<br />
 <b>Where:</b>  1101 Shiloh Glenn Drive - Hwy 54 & I-540 Morrisville<br />
 <p>The 2013 MS Spring Fling <a href="http://www.active.com/cycling/morrisville-nc/ms-spring-fling-2013">online registration</a> is now open until April 3rd.</p>
 
 When i added the microdata as defined at schema.org, I ended up with this:

<div itemscope itemtype ="http://schema.org/Event">

  <p>It's almost time for the <span itemprop="name">MS Spring Fling 2013</span>.</p> 

  <p><b>When:</b> 

    <meta itemprop="startDate" content="2013-04-06T0800" />April 6th, sign-in starts at 8:00 

<br />  

<b>Where:</b>  

<div itemprop="location" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place">  

<div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">  

 <span itemprop="streetAddress"> 

1101 Shiloh Glenn Drive - Hwy 54 & I-540 Morrisville</span> 

<br /> 

 </div> 

<p>The 2013 MS Spring Fling <a itemprop="url" href="http://www.active.com/cycling/morrisville-nc/ms-spring-fling-2013">online registration</a> 

is now open until April 3rd.

 </div>

The markup took a lot of time, and a lot of referencing the examples on schema.org.  But that wasn't the biggest problem.

When I published my html, turns out the added div structure screwed up my css and the text formatting was blown away.  So looks like if I want to use the microdata markup, i'll have to accommodate for it in the css... really ?!?!  

For the time being, I've put the microdata'ed html in a "mud" test directory, as in "clear as" or "markup data" .. depending on my mood.

SEO... go

SMX West 2013 has wound down.  I'm saturated, but ready to get started blindly feeling my way through SEO.   This blog is a way for me to keep track of what I do right and what  I do wrong.

There's group consensus on the first step.  Build a small website where I have total control over the buttons and levers, and start experimenting.  

So I've got two (soon three).

I built the TeamCBC site several years ago to support my cycling team, yeah!, and to learn css, even yeaher!! 

Now to test it's standing, or ranking, in Google search results.   .... not very impressive, yet.

With the help of friends and search engines, I've found two utilities that seem pretty helpful in understanding what Google sees and thinks of my content.

First:  A utility that lets me see my page as Google sees it.  Jennette Banks clued me into this and documented it's usage on her blog entry Google Cache Hack: see what Googles sees.    You add it to your bookmarks, open a page, and then invoke the bookmarked utlity.... voila, your page seen through the eyes of Google. 

Hopefully this is not a shock.  When I invoked the TeamCBC site, it looked just like my site.  This is goodness.  However, when I invoked in on several of the community pages within IBM developerWorks, as well as the top abcnews.com page, I get the following 404 error from Google.. which can't be good.

I'll figure out what is going on and report back in a later post.

Second:  This utility from Google Webmaster Tools lets me see the keywords Google believes are relevant to the content from my page.  And note, this would be the content it can see: 

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal


I enter the url www.teamcbc.com, in the website field, Google returns keywords it believes are relevant.  Quite a shock.  I get a lot of keywords associated with "tours" and "vacations".   "NC cycling" is about #25 in terms of relevance.   

Seems Google and I don't see eye to eye, yet.