Google announced yesterday that the Knowledge Graph would now include information on tour dates and concert schedules for performance artists. (Brief nod to SearchEngineLand and WebProNews who also covered the story early).

This means that when you search Google for a band or musician, details of their upcoming performances (if any) will be displayed on the search results page.

Google Knowledge Graph

The Knowledge Graph was a supplementary update to search results rolled out by Google to present educational answers to user search queries. You’ve no doubt noticed these – they appear on the right hand side of search results pages and normally include a synopsis pulled from Wikipedia and include a photo and basic biographical details.

Below is an example  based on a search for Lady Gaga. (Brief aside: I am not a fan of Lady Gaga. Not that I have anything against her, I’m just not much of a pop music guy). But I digress.

Visually, the search results page is split into two columns down the centre. The left side features “regular” search results such as news articles and websites that are optimised for the term “Lady Gaga”. (Brief aside: if you would like to talk to InBound about Search Engine Optimisation, please contact us.) The right side of the page contains the Knowledge Graph results featuring factual information relating to Lady Gaga.

Lady-gaga-search

Lady Gaga: Knowledge Graph search results

What’s important here now is highlighted in the red box – Lady Gaga’s upcoming tour dates in New York. All that’s really missing from this type of search experience now is a direct purchase link from these results.

How Does Google Do This?

Google provide three ways for websites to get in on the game:

1. Structured data markup – schema.org

2. Event widgets such as BandPage

3. The Data Highlighter tool provided in Google Webmaster Tools.

This really highlights the importance of using structured data and optimising your website to keep up with changes that Google make along the way as the search experience evolves.

Entertainment Sector, Take Note!

The key lesson to be learned here is this: the importance of structured data has never been clearer and an advanced semantic web is fast approaching – whether the notation is Schema.org – or something else down the line.

It’s been reported that Google are now including menu listings in search results. Add to that the influence that Google Maps listings, Reviews, +1s and Google+ pages are having on search results and the critical point is this: businesses in the entertainment and hospitality sectors should do two things:

1. Ensure they leverage the full suite of Google marketing tools, and

2. Investigate the feasibility of adopting structured data markup schemas into your website.

It goes without saying that InBound are happy to help you with these.

– DK