Google have just announced an incredible new Data Highlighter in Webmaster Tools which allows you to mark up events on your site with simple point-and-click actions.

This is a life saver for webmasters who want to add structured data to their sites but don't have the skills to implement microdata, microformats or RDFa on their site.

For those unfamiliar with structured data markup, it is code added to a site, page or page element that makes content more understandable to search engines and other crawlers which is then translated into Rich Snippets- extra information shown in SERPs with your result. Previously, this would involve marking up elements individually using tags like schemas but now with Google's new Data Highlighter even those with no understanding of HTML can markup certain elements.

The idea behind Structured Data is to take the internet beyond just an archive of 'pages' and instead becomes an 'internet of things' - something that search engines are racing to be the best at. It's something Facebook does - recognising people, relationships, faces and interests. Google are on the right track with authors, publishers, knowledge graph and semantic search but they need the help of webmasters to take this a step further.

Structured data is vital for SEO - something we're looking to add to our SEO courses - not only does it help search engines understand your content but also gives you more visibility in SERPs. Likewise it's a must for content marketers - not so much for blog posts but for other content that needs clear labelling.

Currently the Data Highlighter tool just for events, but we believe that if this test is successful then other elements will be supported. Google made a similar move by making authorship markup (rel=author) easier to implement using email verification rather than tags.

How to Use Google Data Highlighter

The main point of Google's new Data Highlighter tool is that it is dead simple to use. It just requires a Webmaster Tools account and (of course) events on your website.

Disclaimer: If you're thinking "I love the sound of extra real estate in SERPs, but I don't have events,

I had better set some up!" then please stop right there. Tools like these only work if they're not abused.

If you must, think hard about what real event you could put on - it could be a talk, a free session

or a demonstration - just don't set up fake events.

Firstly, log in to your Webmaster Tools account, click on Optimization in

the sidebar and select Data Highlighter. Then click the big red 'Start Highlighting' button.

We always look forward to the panel debates at BrightonSEO as the discussion is more open. It's even better when they involve ex-members of the Google Search Quality team (and a "former" spammer).

Moderated by theMediaFlow's Nichola Stott, this year's panel included Fili Wiese and Kaspar Szymanski, both ex-Google turned SEO Consultant, and Gareth Hoyle, representing LinkRisk.

Key Takeaways

• You cannot recover from a penalty with just a disavow file, you have to do link removal
• Google is using the disavow tool to crowdsource bad links/domains
• A bad link is any link "made for SEO"
• Link building is fine, as long as you build for traffic
• Google can tell if a link is getting clicked or not
• Negative SEO is far less common that it is talked about, it is usually a spam attack or result of miscommunication
• Sites hit by negative SEO are never clean to start with
• There are hundreds of reasons that your site might drop in Google, not always a penalty, so do discovery on your own site, don't look for answers on the internet
• Google focus on users, not SEOs/webmasters, so there is always going to be collateral damage
• You can't recover from a penalty and then delete your disavow file, Google keeps track of everything and will find out
• Second penalties are much harder to recover from that first ones

Karen Gillan Underwear Example

How to identify Trending Topics for SEO

Writing or blogging about trending topics can be a great way to generate traffic (and links) to your site, provided that your content is high quality and that you pick the right keywords to optimise on.

The second half of that equation can be the difference between loads of traffic and very little, so identifying what people want to read about (and more importantly, exactly what they are typing in to Google right now) is paramount. If you can be among the first to blog on a trending topic you can get your site on the front page of Google quickly, and bag the traffic (what's more if you're the first, you're more likely to stay on the front page longer).

If you need to learn more about blogging and SEO, we run regular Blogging Training, Search Engine Optimisation Course, Social Media Training and Google Analytics courses in Brighton, Sussex.

So - "how can I find trending topics?" At Friday's BrightonSEO conference Malcolm Colesgave a very informative (and highly entertaining) presentation about how he used a variety of tools to discover trending topics when working on the celebrity news site HolyMoly, including some very interesting data on the searching habits of the Great British male!

Here are our video highlights from his presentation, along with a summary of the tools discussed (more information can also be found on Malcolm's site here)....

News Search Tools: How to Find Trending Topics

We've split the video of Malcolm's presentation in to two parts - the first summarises the News Search Tools used to identify Trending Topics. The second, which I couldn't resist adding, is an example of how HolyMoly used these tools to exploit the search term 'Karen Gillan Underwear', which reveals some interesting (and very amusing) trends in men's searching patterns after they've watched Doctor Who!

#BrightonSEO Video: News Search Tools Summary

A summary of the News Search Tools mentioned is provided below, but do watch the video as Malcolm puts them nicely in to context with examples...

News Search Tools Summary:

Which of these tools you use will depend largely on the sort of content you publish...

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AOL homepage(look for the green hot searches box) - This tool is more useful for keyword selection as it provides details of exactly the searches users are submitting

AOL hot search blog (ignore the slow-to-update picture box and look for the topic boxes further down) - Scroll down the hot search blog to find most popular searches by category - e.g. if you often write about gadgets you can see which are currently the most popular.

Google News UK (look for the ‘in the news’ list)
Google News USA (click the categories on the left to see the topics)

Google News provides a good summary of what's in the news that day - if its in the news it means that people have already written about it - you won't be able to compete with the major news channels (unless you are one), but you may be able to find an angle on one of these stories for a long-tail search.

Google Insights - A very useful tool if you're writing about an annual / regular event. You can use Google Insights to see what people searched for last time and optimise for those terms. Remember for annual events to include the year in your title (although this has been over-used for major celebrity events like Big Brother and is no longer useful for these).

Webmaster Tools & Google Analytics - These are useful once you're up and running to help you to make the most of the traffic you're already getting and refine your keyword optimisation. Silicon Beach run regular Google Analytics Training and Advanced Google Analytics Trainingcourses if you want to learn more!

Experian Hitwise Data Centre - always a week behind - top 10 searches in various categories on a weekly basis - good for establishing general trends but less useful on a day to day basis.

Surchur - Auseful tool that aggregates multiple sources together to provide "The dashboard to Right Now"!

Major Newspapers often provide useful indicators of what is most viewed - e.g. Guardian Most Viewed and  Telegraph (has a 'most viewed' box on each category page and also 'hot topics' right at the bottom of the page.

The BBC also has a summary of the most popular seaches hour by hour on the site

So - there are some really useful News Search tools out there to help you identify what's trending - but what do you do with this information to ensure you get as much traffic as possible...

#BrightonSEO Video: Using News Search Tools: Example - Karen Gillan's Underwear

Here's Malcolm's highly entertaining summary of how HolyMoly discovered a pattern of men searching for "Karen Gillan Underwear", and what they did to ensure they used this to their benefit to obtain maximum site traffic when the Dr. Who Christmas Special came around.