In recent weeks, I've been marking up my book reviews using microformat review code. This will enable my reviews to appear more prominently in search engine results where rich snippets are available, like this:

An example of a "marked-up" review in Google search results

Unlike regular search results which display only plain text, pages which are marked up using microformats are more eye-catching and concise, containing star-ratings, summaries and more.

Many major websites have been marking up their pages using microformats for some time, but as Google is beginning to display rich snippets among regular search results it's important for us as independent bloggers to keep up and retain our search engine rankings!

So in this post I'll explain how we can easily mark up our review posts and enhance their ranking in search engine results.

In honor of today's Royal Wedding, I decided to review this beautiful short novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Glamumous Reads for the Next Month

Having just read A Little Princess which was recommended in Camilla Morton's book, A Girl for All Seasons, I decided to create myself a reading list for the next month based on the titles she's recommended.

Here's my list of twelve books, including both classic and more recent titles based on Camilla's recommendations:

1. The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd
2. Perfume by Patrick Suskind
3. The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans
4. A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy
5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
6. The Black Violin by Maxence Fermine
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland
9. Animal Farm by George Orwell
10. Miss Garnet's Angel by Sally Vickers
11. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
12. The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson

Phew - that's a lot to get through in a month!

As I read through I'll review my favourites here on Glamumous so you can read my own responses and let me know what you think about them too.

Image credit: Moriza, via Flickr.

Encouraging our children to read...

After reading Michael Gove's suggestion that 11 year olds should read the equivalent of a book each week, I got to thinking about our own family "library" (which currently consists mostly of my own vast collection of books).

If I were to start devising a library solely for my children, what would be the 50 books I would include first?

Here follows the books I've chosen in alphabetical order which I'm sure will make a great base for our growing family library. Don't forget to let us know what you think of these choices in the comments!

Hope you had a Happy Easter!

...It's the perfect excuse to share this adorable image by Goddess of Chocolate. Hope you and your family enjoyed the holidays!

After reading BritMums' tips for boosting blog traffic, I decided to create a Glamumous Facebook page and designed this rather snazzy landing page to give new followers an idea of what the site is about:

Top half of the Glamumous welcome page. Read on for the full-page screenshot

The lovely ladies over at BritMums have organized an Easter blog hop for British parent bloggers to share their sites and favourite posts.

If you're a British parent blogger, be sure to join BritMums (dads are welcome too!) and add your site to the BlogHop below to be included in this month's round up: