If you have no clue what MicroFormats are, don’t feel bad- most people don’t.

A good place to get started is at the site http://microformats.org but if you just want a simple explanation: it’s a way of tagging (identifying) something with a standardized label that makes it easy for search engines to find the correct data- and for you to be able to exchange it in a standardized way.

A perfect example is the vCard standard- which stores your contact data in an easy to exchange format.

The importance of being able to tell what data is, is almost as important as the actual data.

Using Microformats in WordPress | blogHelper

The second approach involves the use of specialised WP plugins to create microformat-ted content right from your admin panel. This seems to be the cleaner and more streamlined method.* The exact steps to take will differ depending on the microformat type and plugin you use. Therefore, I’ll just list the plugins available for WordPress, and a link to relevant documentation (if available):
1. Multiple format plugins:
o Structured Blogging – Supports hReview, hCalendar, hCard, and various other elemental microformats (i.e. XFN, relLicense, relTag, and XOXO).
o WP-Microformats – Supports hCalendar and hCard. Adds buttons for each microformat to your Write Post panel, each of which toggles the relevant popup form.
2. hReview plugins:
o hReview WordPress Plugin – Adds the appropriate form fields (which you can toggle on/off) in your Write Post/Page panel.
o WP-Movie Ratings – Movie reviews published via this plugin are in the hReview microformat.
3. hResume plugin:
o hResume Plugin – Creates a new page for your resume, marked up in the hResume microformat.
4. hCalendar plugin:
o uPress WordPress Plugin – Adds the appropriate form fields to your Write Post panel. Screencast guide for WP 2.0 available.
5. hCard plugin:
o WP Microformatted Blogroll – Creates a new page for your links, marked up in the hCard, XOXO and XFN microformats.
6. MicroID plugin:
o MicroID Plugin for WP – Automatically attaches a MicroID to your blog, each post, as well as each comment. More information on this microformat is available.
7. XFN-related plugin:
o Happy Pals – This isn’t exactly a plugin for the XFN microformat itself, but it does automatically apply CSS classes to any rel attached links (e.g. rel=”friend”), so you can apply custom styles denoting the various relationships in your links.
* Besides plugins, there are custom WP themes with support for the hAtom microformat. A few examples are as follows:
1. Sandbox Theme
2. Strangelove (Modified Kubrick) Theme

You may also be interested in more information regarding hAtom support for WordPress themes.

Another tool for microformating is geotagging- where posts are linked to geographic coordinates. We used the geopress plugin for a real estate site in Dayton.

The beauty of WordPress is that it automatically tells Google (and a bunch of other sites) to look at your post- every time you post. But, there are a lot of other ping services as you can see in this post:

SEOposition.com Blog » List of Pinging Services for your Blog

Ping services simply let other sites know when your site has updated. By allowing XML-RPC or (pings) as they are more commonly called, sites will know almost instantaneously when you update new blog posts or content. In turn, they will update their indices accordingly.These notifications, or pings, are valuable in many ways although I think you can also “over submit” if you’re not careful. It really depends if the site’s using the ping have URLs that are indexed in search engines. Most are dynamic search pages only, so they are fine.

Here’s a list of pinging services you can use with your blog…
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping/
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2 euro.weblogs.com
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.catapings.com/ping.php
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

Although Google does a fine job of locating WordPress content (especially if you alt tag everything and categorize properly) there are other ways to find what’s up on blogs:
Track What Bloggers are Saying – Bill’s Buzz Marketing Blog – ECNext

Blogpulse is an AC Nielsen service with a simple interface and some trending reports.IceRocket searches not only blogs by MySpace as well, another CGM channel that deserves monitoring. IceRocket also offers a trending tool.

Technorati often uncovers blogs not picked up by the other engines, but usually returns the fewest results for searches I conduct.

And of course, there’s the small start up known as a Google. Goog’s Blog Search returns the greatest number of results for the searches I’ve conducted and has that oh so friendly and simple Google UI.

This is by no means a comprehensive list- and there are other sites, like Digg, that help you find out what people are talking about, interested in, or posting about.

Most people don’t start at one of these sites for search, they start at a major search engine like Google, but, times change, and it never hurts to be aware of what’s out there.

Remember, Search Engines don’t all index the same thing- or give the same results, so it never hurts to have many of them available for different searches.