Are Rich Snippets & Schema part of SEO work?

[noeltock]

In other words, do those items fall under the category "SEO".

[Hurf]

Yes. (Assuming by schema you mean Schema.org rather than the greek word for plan? ;o) As they allow you to show relevance to search engines - ultimately Google et al are definitely in the business of 'trying' to deliver relevant results to their searchers/customers.

See this article for more information - it's a good read.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/schemaorg-a-new-approach-to-structured-data-for-seo

[EGOL]

If it will effect your rankings or your clickthrough rate in the SERPs then it is part of SEO.

Why are you asking this?  Are you trying to get out of work? 

[noeltock]

Thanks Mark

[noeltock]

Thanks for that. Not trying to lose work lol, was based on this comment from a top SEO dude for WordPress:

http://twitter.com/#!/yoast/status/78572549084168192

[Hurf]

Yoast's plugin for Wordpress is excellent! (and I agree that custom Wordpress theme frameworks should allow SEO modification to be taken over by a dedicated SEO plugin such as Yoast's -  if one is activated)

Personally however I think the SEO/SEF banter is a game of semantics - If you think of Search Engine Friendly URLS for example - these can be generated using Yoast's Wordpress SEO tool - so SEF and SEO are pretty much one and the same when it all boils down to it.

One of the things that every SEO worth their salt will do is recommend working toward making the project site Search Engine Friendly by promoting proper use of Schema and other SEF elements as part of their SEO strategy.