Theres two topics for today’s post, and both on very different streams. The first, rich snippets, is the ability to tell search engines to display text and images, that you provide, in the manner you want, on search engine result pages (SERPs).
Hubspot wrote a great article on snippets earlier in the week. The article is robust and covers so I won’t go into too much detail. But in case you aren’t aware there are snippets that allow you to provide structured detail for:
- Authors
- businesses,
- music,
- videos,
- products,
- recipes
- and events.
With my blog hosted on WordPress, I will need to explore how far I can take snippets, but Twitter does already recognise the first image and paragraphs of my post, displaying them in stream much like Facebook. Which is a reasonable first step.
Two benefits I can see from ensuring your snippets are in place and working are:
- You really get a chance to optimise and enhance your calls to action and distinguish your result. I for one would be more inclined to click on a well formatted link, even if it was mid way down the results page.
- You also get the chance to start feeding through your brand, corporate palatte and tie this to your site. Consistency between the author image in the SERPs, and tone of voice can’t help but improve the users experience.
The second edition of Sunday Session was recorded at Priory Park today. I shade from the wind beside the lake, looking across at the pavilion, a feature piece of modern architecture in Reigate.
Which vaguely leads me to the second topic today. UNStudio architects in the Netherlands have said in June they will re-form as an open source architecture studio.
Here’s the tweet which proved popular – perhaps as it is an innovative step for an industry that is still, like many, tightly holding onto IP and what they believe to be competitive advantage through knowledge.
I think this could be an exciting move for the studio, as they vow to make as much as possible of their processes and architecture open to the public and other architects.
It’s not too dissimilar to content marketing and sharing how to, or instructive guides like Hubspot has above. When UNStudio release what would be mainstream architecture fundamentals (say the design of a 3 bed townhouse) it frees them up to focus on innovation and differentiation. Rather than redrafting the same things constantly, to add a flurry at the end.
What’s more, unable to find a structure within their industry that they felt could innovate fast enough, they have looked to the startup scene and the likes of Square, Xero and Twitter. Tech companies using Agile project management.
While the process may not be truly agile they are letting the teams self select and focus in their strength among four topics in the new open source platform: sustainability, organisation, materials and parametrics.
It is definitely one I’ll be watching this year, and that I hope succeeds.
Listen along…
Nick Allen - Marketing, Growth & Running 