#and if I also don’t get a ticketmaster code I WILL be finding the nearest cliff

[brandnewdress]

just realised that the release of speak now tv will be tainted if I don’t get a code to the eras tour sale through ticketmaster on the 5th and if I don’t get my presale code on the 6th for the label presale

[madehq]

Updates to Google’s Event Search Result Pages

Google announced last week that it has updated the way that it displays event information on search engine result pages. If it thinks you are looking for an event, it will display a new event results box with a ton of contextual information that it thinks is relevant to your search. For example, it might show the start times, key performers, ticket prices, and links to book tickets.

How does it work?

First, the basics. Google is clever, but it isn’t magic. How does it know what information, from the vast web of data it crawls every day, relates to events? It uses something called ‘structured data’, that it reads right off the webpage. This is metadata that can be included on web pages, that describes the content of these pages so that computers can easily understand what the page is about.

This structured data isn’t a Google-specific format. Instead, it follows a universally agreed protocol, independently administered by schema.org. So, while we might be most concerned about how Google reads the data, it is also the data source for information crawled by Bing and other search engines, as well as other listings and directory sites and apps. Some apps use their own format, like Facebook’s Open Graph (OG) protocol, and it’s worth making sure your site includes this markup too. It also relates to more than just events, and can describe data including organisations, maps, episodes, blog articles and much more. In fact, describing your whole site in a way that makes sense both internally (i.e., is internally consistent and networked) and externally (relates the page content to other authoritative content through the use of SameAs information) will only bolster the quality of your event search results.

How do I find out if I have structured data on my site?

Google has a testing tool that you can use to see what it sees when it crawls a particular web page. Find an upcoming event/production details page, and copy the URL into the testing tool. You will then see the page how Google does, including visibility over any structured data errors or warnings. The more complete the description of the event, including performers, event type, prices, and links to other relevant information (such as performers’ social media profiles, venue information etc.), the more authoritative the page will look to Google.

What does this mean for arts and cultural organisations who promote and sell events online?

1. Improves general search performance. Customers get more and more of their information without leaving the search engine result page, so if you can push more richly presented information into your users’ discovery journeys. It’s worth saying that you don’t have any control over how Google actually presents the information you give it — it might add or remove information from it’s ‘cards’ at any time. But by presenting the Google crawler with as full information as possible, you will give yourself the best chance possible of appearing in user’s search engine results.

2. Compete for the ticket purchase. If you’re an organisation that sells tickets for your own events, but you’re in competition for those ticket sales with third party ticket agents, then you need to get in on the structured data game in order to claim back ownership of the events. A lot of the structured data that currently appears for event search comes from sites like Ticketmaster, which often means their ticket links are the ones that are linked to.

3. Sets you up for voice and beyond. When users carry out a voice search, or use a digital personal assistant, the only search engine result that matters is the first one on the page, or the featured result. Richly describing your event information using structured data gives you a much better chance of being the featured result, and therefore being the one that Google, Cortana, Siri or Alexa helps you find in the future.

How do I set up structured data on my pages?

Structured data needs to be included in the <head> of your webpages, and the information for most pages on your site will be different. So, if you have access to add tags to your site, either manually or through Google Tag Manager, you could manually generate structured data for each page and add it one-by-one. Structured data is written in JSON-LD, a fairly straightforward structured data format. If the sight of code sends you running for the nearest exit, you could also use one of many online tools to generate the schema before copying it across to your site.

Alternatively, your web designers may be able to generate some or all of this information programmatically, from the data you already store in your content management system.

If you work for an arts or cultural organisation, and want some help with structured data, or any other part of your SEO, SEM or discoverability strategy, get in touch!