For any digital marketer looking to
boost their SEO performance, taking the time to add schema.org markup to
their web pages will help those pages appear in richer results, making
them more clickable and desirable to users.
But many are reluctant to work on the backend of their websites. They know schema is important, but leave adding markup to their pages (or default to plugins) without understanding what schema is and how it can help generate more organic traffic.
For digital marketers unfamiliar with the multiple schema types available and how they can increase search engine visibility, this article covers the following schema requirements:
- What is schema.org markup and why is it important to search engines.
- How schema.org helps SEO performance.
- Different schema types and how to choose the best ones for your web pages.
- How to add schema markup to a web page without contacting a web developer
What is Schema Markup?
Schema.org markup is a shared vocabulary of microdata that helps major search engines better understand the content on web pages.
Schema vocabulary includes specific ways of structuring data around people, places, and things. When Google crawlers find a particular schema type on their web page, it helps them understand what that content means and what kind of rich results should be served.
The Schema.org website estimates that 10 million web pages alone use schema. In the vast landscape of the internet, this is a very small percentage.
So digital marketers who take the time to add schema to their pages have even greater opportunities to outperform and dominate their competitors in search.
What are the SEO benefits of schema markup?
The primary value proposition of schema markup is enabling your web pages to appear in richer results or more prominent SERP placements.
For example, look at the first page of the SERPs for the keyword phrase "target."
Rather than just a standard SERP result with a blue, clickable page title and accompanying meta description, this SERP has a variety of rich results that appear at the top of the page.
All of these rich results are driven by schema.org markup.
But there are other benefits to adding schema.org to web pages beyond just improved SERP real estate.
- High CTR: The average CTR for rich results is 58%, compared to 41% for non-rich results. For some advanced result types, CTR can jump up to 87%.
- Advanced Targeting: Whether you're trying to get users to book events, buy products, or make bookings, Rich Results can help you reach the audience that wants to do so.
- Brand Awareness: Appearing on top of real estate and in more prominent real estate will help your brand gain more recognition.
- Get a CTA from Google: Some top results come with CTAs like “Call” or “Get Now,” which help drive clicks and conversions.
Types of schema markups and when to use them
About a third of Google's search results contain rich results. Rich results look more attractive in SERPs and quickly provide users with the exact information they're looking for.
For example, a searcher who types "indoor garden" into the search bar may be looking for a product that allows indoor gardening.
An example of product-rich results for the keyword "Indoor garden".
However, a searcher who types "how to garden" is looking for step-by-step information. Naturally, Google populates that second set of search results with rich "how-to" results.
Because Google likes to make searching as simple and easy as possible for users, Google continues to add a variety of rich results to match the different types of searches people conduct on the Internet.
Google now has over 30 different types of rich results. Here are some of the most common ones you'll see pop up in your Google searches:
- Article
- Breadcrumbs
- event
- FAQ
- how
- Job posting
- logo
- product
- Q&A
- Check out the footage
- scene
With products, jobs, and events schemas and, earlier this year, education sites, Google doesn't seem to be slowing down with rich results anytime soon.
This means that if your web pages aren't still appearing in the rich results, you're missing out on tons of opportunities to stand out against your competition.
But no business needs to add every schema type to their website. Your specific industry and the type of content on your website will influence which schema markups are most beneficial for your brand.
Schema Markup Examples: 6 Powerful Schema Types for Small Businesses
Across the board, there are a few essential schema types that every small and medium-sized business should incorporate to improve their SEO performance, brand visibility, and conversion rates.
If you have content on your web page that matches one of the schema types below, your brand can benefit from adding the corresponding schema markup to the page.
1. Organization Schema Markup
Improve brand recognition and awareness
An organization schema integrates essential information about your business or organization into a knowledge panel that appears on the right side of search results.
This knowledge panel shows up for search queries that include your brand name.
Here are some specific benefits of adding the organization schema type to your web pages:
- Brand Identity: An organization schema consolidates key information about your brand, such as your name, logo, founder, location, and services, which helps improve overall brand awareness.
- Social media following: By integrating links to your social media profiles within the knowledge panel, you can generate more links to your social media pages and more followers and engagement.
- Reputation management: For enterprise brands with a lot of brand recognition and therefore lots of other people publishing content on the Internet with their brand name, schema helps with reputation management – helping users direct the information you want them to focus on and understand. Your business.
2. Local business schema markup
Get more appointments and bookings
Google knows when users are searching for a local offering and ranks local businesses at the top of the results accordingly.
Since most local searches take place on mobile devices, it's important to help improve your visibility in Google Map Pack.
Local search results for "physical therapists" on mobile
A local business schema makes it easy for Google to find and display important information about your business, such as hours of operation, address, and phone number, as well as display your reviews.
In native business schema markup, you can add an action schema with your result, such as "Book an appointment" or "Make a reservation."
Some of the information displayed in rich results for local businesses is pulled from your Google My Business listing, so make sure your business is set up correctly and claims your listing.
Then, I recommend adding schema markup to your home page, about page, and contact page.
3. Breadcrumbs schema markup
Help users (and search engines) understand your website architecture
A breadcrumbs schema helps search engines know how the web pages on your site relate to each other. If you have a lot of content on your site, breadcrumbs are a must-have schema.
Although breadcrumbs don't drastically change the appearance of SERP results, they do help users and search engines understand how your content is organized.
This helps reduce the number of times users return to search results, instead encouraging them to navigate through more pages of your website.
4. Sitelink Schema Markup
Give searchers more options and take up more real estate
When it comes to influencing the SERPs, site links can help you provide searchers with more options and take up more space.
Some of the key benefits of the SiteLinks schema include:
- Give users more options related to their query
- Direct users to your high-converting pages
- Make your SERP result more desirable and clickable than others
5. Product Schema Markup
Let shoppers see important information about your products
Ecommerce companies can benefit significantly by adding product schema to their product pages.
A product schema shows search engine users important information about your product in a carousel at the top of the SERPs.
In addition to your product image, information such as price, reviews or special promotions will also appear in your rich result.
Product schema puts your product front and center in the user experience so they don't have to navigate through category pages or your e-commerce site's search bar.
For your competitors who don't use Products Schema, you can easily outrank them by appearing in the carousel at the top of the page.
6. Review the schema markup
Tell the searcher that you have happy customers
It's arguably a review schema that every business should use, regardless of their industry.
Because reviews are an important part of most users' purchasing decisions. About 90% of buyers look at reviews before buying a product. So if you have great reviews, there's no reason not to showcase them.
Review snippets display yellow stars along with how many reviews your product, local business, or software product has received.
Seeing directly in SERP results that your business, product, or service has plenty of 4 and 5-star reviews makes your result more desirable in the eyes of users who trust ratings and reviews when choosing products or services.
How to Add Schema to Your Web Pages
Since adding schema markup means accessing the backend of their websites, many digital marketers hesitate to add schema.
Although it is best to guide beginners with the help of a skilled web developer, anyone can add schema markup to their web pages using schema tools.
Select the schema markup format
There are three different schema markup formats. These formats determine which attributes are required, optional, or recommended in the schema markup.
No schema format is better than another, but you should know and understand them to ensure your schema is properly validated and appears in rich results.
- JSON-LD: This format is considered easy for beginners to implement, as the annotation type can be simply copied and pasted into the title of a web page.
- RDFA: Short for Resource Descriptive Framework in Attributes, you can add this code to any HTML, XHTML, and XML-based document.
- Microdata: Microdata has different characteristics than RDFa, but the implementation is similar.
If all this code talk makes you nervous, don't worry. You can implement the schema into your web page using tools that generate the code for you.
Use the Schema Markup Generator
To add schema to your web pages, use the Schema Generator tool. These tools simplify adding schema markup by doing the hard part (coding) for you.
Schema generator in the Search Atlas software suite
Simply select the schema type you want, add the required properties prompted by the tool, and you'll see the tool generate your code.
The tool above uses JSON-LD markup, so all you have to do is copy and paste the markup into the title of your web page.
Check your schema markup
You can then check whether your schema is implemented correctly with the help of Google's rich results test.
After you deploy your web page with the new schema, copy and paste the URL into the tool.
Google will tell you whether or not a page is eligible for rich results, indicating whether it is eligible and whether or not there are any warnings on the page.
If the page isn't eligible, you'll see:
Improve your SEO, CTR, and reputation with Schema Markup
If you don't feel comfortable choosing your own schema and implementing the code yourself, feel free to work with an experienced SEO strategist or web developer to incorporate schema markup into your web pages.
But if the cost of hiring those services is holding you back, you can implement this powerful SEO optimization on your own.
Adding schema to your website is well worth the value it brings in the long run: more visibility, more clicks, and more converting traffic.
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