The Role of Schema Markup in Advanced SEO

‍For a website to bring traffic and convert it into sales, you need not only to get it into the top 10 search engines but also to attract users’ attention and motivate them to go to your website. You should make an attractive snippet and work on CTR to do this. You can improve your snippet and increase your CTR using schema markup.

‍Structured data markup is the markup of content on website pages that allows search robots to recognize the content better, speeding up the indexing of this content. Markup also allows you to display marked-up content in a snippet, which makes it more informative and attractive to users.

‍Structured data markup consists of specific attributes added to the site page code. The corresponding markup attributes are used for different content elements.

‍The marked data is pulled into snippets and highlighted in search results, making the snippet more informative and noticeable and giving the snippet an advantage over competitors.

‍What can be included in the snippet:

• Breadcrumb trail.
• Rating and number of votes.
• Number of reviews.
• Prices for goods and services.
• Product Images.
• Phone number and operating hours, etc.

‍Improving snippets in this way will increase CTR, which will, in turn, lead to increased traffic and an increase in applications and sales.

‍However, the introduction of markup does not guarantee an improvement in the snippet since search engines decide whether to include the marked-up data. The algorithms by which the decision to improve snippets is formed are unknown.

‍Everything is very simple. Markup makes the page snippet in search results more informative and attractive. SEO structured data lets you distinguish your site from competitors in searches, leading to increased transitions. And as traffic grows, conversions and sales grow accordingly.

‍However, it is worth considering that relying only on structured SEO and schema markup in this case will be wrong. You must offer competitive prices for your goods or services and favorable delivery conditions (free delivery in a short time will allow you to grab a share of users from competitors with less favorable conditions).

‍We have already mentioned the main reasons to use markup — it helps search engines better understand the content and allows the site to stand out in the search results. Let’s take a closer look at all the benefits of using markup:

• Markup organizes content for search engines. If a page is structured, Google is more effective at analyzing its content and determining the relevance of individual elements to user queries. This helps to display the site for queries with clarifications when searching for content of a certain type, monitoring prices, reviews, and so on.
• It helps to adapt the page for voice search. If a page specifies what type of content it is — for example, instructions, news, a recipe — Google Assistant will be able to find that page in response to queries like “show news,” “answer a question,” “recipe selection,” and the like.
• Markup helps a site stand out in search results. Search results (snippets) with enriched elements are called rich snippets. They look more noticeable compared to other sites and, as a result, receive more clicks. Setting up rich snippets is one way to increase the CTR of your pages. In addition to rich snippets, properly configured markup helps the site get into the Knowledge Graph and transmit additional information about images and videos.
• It increases the attractiveness of a page snippet on social networks. SEO schema markup affects what information is included in the post when you share the page URL on social networks. The Open Graph type is used to ensure that when adding a URL to a post, the title of the page with the image is pulled up.

‍Schema is a unified data markup scheme developed jointly by Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. It aims to improve search results and help webmasters and developers promote websites.

‍What is structured data? Schema markup allows you to structure website page content, improve indexing, and generate informative and attractive snippets in search results.

What Content is Marked Up with Schema Markup

‍The following elements are most often structured data examples:

• Products and prices in online stores.
• Services and cost of services.
• Contact information.
• Reviews and ratings of products and services.
• Comments and ratings in articles.
• Questions and answers.
• Instructions.
• Breadcrumbs and Menus.

Schema Markup Syntax

‍Schema markup can be transmitted in 3 structured data formats:

• JSON-LD
• Microdata
• RDFa

‍Google accepts the JSON-LD format but does not support Yandex. If you prioritize Google, we recommend using this format. You can use online generators to generate Google schemas in this format, and the markup code can be added to the page’s header, greatly simplifying the task of implementing markup.

‍Schema markup syntax consists of several attributes:

• Indicates the scope of the markup dictionary. Using an attribute, search robots determine that the page contains a description of a certain object. The attribute is used in conjunction with the attribute;
• Indicates the address of the markup dictionary that is involved in the markup of the corresponding element. The link will lead to the corresponding folder on the schema.org domain.
• Defines a property of the selected element.

‍The following tags are used in the data markup in the HTML code:

• <div> — container tag for structuring document sections and organizing data in code
• <span> — line container
• <link> — element for specifying a link
• <time> — tag for marking date and time
• <a> — tag for denoting links
• <meta> — for storing additional information

‍To embed schema markup on a website, you must complete the following steps:

• Determine what data you want to mark up. For example, this could be information about the company, products, events, reviews, etc. Select the appropriate markup type from schema.org.
• Create a markup code for each element you want to markup. The code must be added to the site page in those places where the relevant content is located.
• Add markup code to your site page. You can manually insert markup code into the page’s HTML code or use plugins and extensions to simplify this process.
• Check that the markup code has been inserted correctly. Use markup-checking tools to ensure your data markup is correct and error-free.
• Post changes to the site. After you have made changes to a site page, make sure that they are displayed correctly.

‍It is important to remember that schema markup implementation does not guarantee its immediate display in search results. This depends on search engine algorithms, which may use tagged data when ranking and displaying results. However, using markup increases the chances of creating more informative and attractive snippets.

Requirements

‍Obviously, the design of your pages must meet specific requirements. Let’s look at the main ones.

• Structured data must match the overall context of the page.
• The page with markup Google will notice must be accessible to robots without limiting commands in the robots.txt file or HTML code (noindex meta tag).
• Markup can only be applied to content that is visible to users.
• Data types must contain properties that are marked as required in the search engine Help.
• The markup should be clear to the user. Posting spam and content that is not permitted by law is prohibited.
• The contents of structural elements must comply with recommendations and approved standards. For example, if the page contains the text of a vacancy and there is only one such advertisement, markup with the JobPosting data type can be used.

Consequences of Errors in Markup

‍Google’s Search Console reports include “Manual Actions.” When structured data on pages does not comply with search engine rules, sanctions may be applied to the site. The report includes the following problems: “A resume was found on the vacancy page,” “Structured data in hidden content,” and “Content on the page does not match the structured data.” The user manual lists a complete list of errors.

‍If the report includes such notifications, you must fix the problem in accordance with all recommendations and click “Request review.”

‍Let’s look at several popular approaches that allow you to structure your HTML code.

Structured Data Tagging Wizard

‍This Google tool allows you to tag highlighted elements on a page. Thus, Googlebot recognizes the content more accurately.

‍To use the tool, you need to select the type of data for markup (“Articles,” “Products,” “Movies,” “Events,” etc.) and specify the page URL or HTML code. Then, you need to select the page fragments, assign values ​​to them, and select “Generate HTML.”

‍The finished code must be added to the page through the site’s admin panel or directly to the HTML file on the hosting.

Plugins for CMS

‍CMS developers provide special programs for content management systems that structure the code. For example, the modules All In One Schema Rich Snippets and Markup (JSON-LD) structured in schema for WordPress, Microdata and Schema extensions for Drupal, Google Structured Data for Joomla, and SEO module Micromarking for Opencart.

Online Markup Generators

‍As an alternative way to structure the code, you can use special services, such as Schema Markup Generator.

‍Let’s consider services that analyze the validity of structured code.

Checking Rich Results from Google

‍This is an online service with open access. If the page is published, you can check it by URL. When you need to test the code while setting up micro markup, use the “Test Code” command.

‍If the markup is done correctly, a notification “Page is eligible to display rich results” will appear on the screen. There, you can also see the elements found by the system and examples of how they are displayed on the device screen.

‍Also, in Google Search Console, you can track information about advanced search results after setup, such as whether the data on the page is structured correctly and whether there are impressions for it. To gain access to Search Console statistics and tools, you must confirm your rights to the site using one of the suggested methods.

‍Enter a page address in the URL Inspection section. The Enhancements report will show rich result types that the search engine supports, such as Navigation Bars, Q&A Pages, Events, Products, Recipes, Reviews, and Vacancies. It is worth considering that some structural elements implemented on the page may not be included in the report.

‍Markup allows you to improve page snippets in search results. Additional elements in the snippet can attract users’ attention and positively affect CTR. Informative snippets inspire more trust among users.

‍At the same time, snippets that are too detailed can answer the user’s question in the search results, which will discourage the need to go to the site. Therefore, when adding microdata, you need to think about what content will intrigue the user but, at the same time, will not give a detailed answer to the question. In this case, schema markup will work most effectively and attract more traffic to your site.