One of the newest trends in technical SEO is called schema markup. This additional tool for optimisation will help you rank better and get noticed on the search engine results pages. In this guide, we’ll help you get to grips with schema markup and why it’s important for SEO purposes.
What is Schema Markup?
Schema mark up (or schema.org) is structured data that helps search engines better understand the content on your pages and serve more informative results on results pages.
If you’ve ever seen ‘rich snippets’, such as dates, reviews, or photos in the search results, then you’ve come across the use of schema markup. Things like , rich snippets , and the knowledge graph appear on SERPs after gathering information from structured data.
Below is an example of both book and movie schema for the term “Jane Eyre”:
Types of Schema
Schema.org is a joint effort between search engines like Google, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo to add microdata to websites that create an enhanced description of the context, and provides content behind otherwise vague webpages.
Schema.org has this to say about it:
“Most webmasters are familiar with HTML tags on their pages. Usually, HTML tags tell the browser how to display the information included in the tag. For example, <h1>Avatar</h1> tells the browser to display the text string “Avatar” in a heading 1 format. However, the HTML tag doesn’t give any information about what that text string means-”Avatar” could refer to the hugely successful 3D movie, or it could refer to a type of profile picture-and this can make it more difficult for search engines to intelligently display relevant content to a user.”
The schema.org markup includes formats for structuring data around all kinds of , and on the web. You can find a huge list of items that can be structured using schema markup on schema’s website .
Some of the most common types of schema include:
After adding these different markups to your site where relevant, they allow a search engine to understand what your site is about. The search engine is then able to showcase this information via Rich Snippets.
For example, here is the result of a page implementing the schema markup for recipe:
Why is Schema Important for SEO?
So why it is so important for SEO? While it’s well known that schema mark up is not a ranking factor, there are still many benefits of using schema for an SEO boost.
Schema Helps Search Engines Serve Better Results
Using structured data on your content helps you communicate better with Google about what your page is about. While your content tells search engines what your website is about, schema markup tells Google about the relationship between entities mentioned on your page — for example, who the author of the article is, or what product your pages is selling.
Schema Improves CTRs
One of the biggest benefits of using schema markup is the space that your listing will take up on search engine results. Serving your users the most relevant information right when they’re searching for it has proven to improve CTRs.
So while you might not see a direct rankings boost after adding schema markup, you could certainly see more organic traffic!
How to Create Your Own Schema
There are several tools on the web that are available to you to help you get started implementing schema markup.
Once you’ve generated your schema, you simply have to implement it into your code — either straight into the coding or using schema WordPress plugins that make the job even simpler.
Schema Generators
Here are some of the best schema generator tools online that you can try out:
Implementing schema is a lot easier than it seems — and it’s an SEO best practice that everyone should get on board with.
Ready to get started? Happy Data Structuring!
If you’re looking for some advanced help on technical SEO and how structured data can help your organic traffic grow, get in touch .
Originally published at https://www.tecmark.co.uk.