If you’ve ever conducted any search engine optimization (SEO) for your website, you’ve likely heard of schema markup. But what is it, and why is it important?

Simply put, schema markup, also known as structured data, is a way to add metadata to your website’s content that helps search engines better understand the context and content of your pages. This is important because search engines like Google use complex algorithms to understand and rank websites in search results. By providing more information about your content through schema markup, you can give search engines a clearer idea of what your website is about, which can improve its visibility in the search results. 

There are several types of schema markup that you can add to your website, with JSON-LD being Google’s top recommendation. However, microdata and RDFa are also good options.

It’s important to note that while schema markup can improve your search engine rankings and the display of your pages, it is not a ranking factor in or of itself. In other words, it will not directly improve your rankings but can provide additional context to ensure search engines are more familiar with your content. This can improve the relevance of your pages for search queries and thus improve your rankings and increase traffic. 

Schema markup isn’t just beneficial for search engines – it can also help improve the user experience for your website visitors. For example, by adding schema markup to your pages, you can make them eligible for “Rich Results“.

Rich Results are enriched search results that include additional information and features such as images, ratings, and prices. These results can help heighten your visibility and lead to higher click-through rates from people actively searching to learn more. By improving the user experience in this way, marking your pages can help attract more visitors and increase your traffic. 

 

According to a study by ACM Queue, only a third of Google’s search results use Schema.org markup to enhance their pages, meaning there is a massive opportunity for you to maximise your search traffic with this data. And in our experience, very few things in SEO can help bring in as much organic traffic faster than winning the featured snippet position in the results page.

 

 

Want to learn more? Here’s our guide on maximising search traffic with schema markup by embedding structured data into your webpages:

 

What Types of Websites Should Use Schema?

 

Just about any website can benefit from schema markup, as there are many different types available. Here’s our list of commonly used schema that you could use for your website:

 

• Product: For e-commerce websites, you should implement a product schema to provide information about your products, such as their price, availability, and reviews. This is particularly valuable when providing information about your products to shopping platforms such as Google Shopping. 

 

• Event: If you have a website promoting events, you can use event schema to provide information about it, such as its name, location, date, and ticket price. 

 

• Recipe: For websites with recipe content, recipe schema is valuable for providing additional information about a recipe, such as its ingredients, cooking time, and ratings. 

 

• Article: If you have a blog or a reviews/news website, you can implement an article schema to provide information about said article, such as its author, publication date, and headline. 

 

• Video: For websites with video content, you can use video schema to provide additional information about the video, such as its duration, thumbnail, and description. 

 

There is structured data available for pretty much any type of content that you’ll find on an average website. If you’re searching to markup something that isn’t on the list, there’s probably an ‘itemprop’, ‘itemscope’, or ‘itemtype’ associated with this content that you can use. 

 

Use this comprehensive list of item types to find the appropriate markup for your content.

 

How To Add Schema To Your Websites And Webpages:

 

The first step is identifying the types of schema markup relevant to your website. Many online resources can help you determine the appropriate schema markup for your needs, such as Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper and the Schema.org website.

Implementing schema markup on your website is relatively straightforward. Still, it is worthwhile to use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to create your markup before adding it to the HTML of your pages. The markup helper is a valuable tool that allows you to choose your data type, paste your webpage URL or the content you want to code, and highlight the elements that you want to tag. As a result, this tool makes generating and adding schema markup to your website faster and easier. 

If you wish to generate the schema markup manually, schema.org is an excellent database that can help you build the markup in three different styles: JSON-LD, microdata and RDFa. This method requires some knowledge of HTML and can be more time-consuming. However, this method will gives you complete control over the process. 

 

JSON-LD

 

As of 2015, Google recommends using the scripting language JSON-LD to write schema markup. You must implement JSON-LD to your website as a separate data block from the rest of the page’s code, which is helpful for larger applications such as eCommerce sites. Here’s an example of JSON-LD code for a profile of a person named Jane Doe:

 

<script type=”application/ld+json”> 

{ 

“@context”: “http://schema.org”,

“@type”: “Person”,

“name”: “Jane Doe”, 

“jobTitle”: “Software Engineer”,

“worklocation”: { “@type”: “Place”, “name”: “San Francisco, CA” }, “employer”: { “@type”: “Organization”, “name”: “Acme Corporation” }, “email”: “jane.doe@example.com”,

“url”: “https://janedoe.com”

}

 </script>

 

Microdata

 

Microdata allows you to embed schema markup into your webpage’s HTML through tags that search engines can easily read. One advantage of using microdata is that it is simple to implement, as it only requires adding a few additional HTML attributes to existing elements on your webpage.

Nevertheless, microdata can become messy and confusing when annotating a webpage with multiple schema markup types, as you may need to add multiple attributes to a single element. In this case, it may be more appropriate to use a format like JSON-LD, which can be placed anywhere on a webpage, even in the Head section of the webpage code. You can also place it at the end of your code, so it’s easy to find. Here’s an example of microdata code:

 

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>

<h1 itemprop=”name”>Jane Doe</h1>

<span itemprop=”jobTitle”>Software Engineer</span>

<div itemprop=”workLocation” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Place”>

  <span itemprop=”name”>San Francisco, CA</span>

</div>

<div itemprop=”employer” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Organization”>

  <span itemprop=”name”>Acme Corporation</span>

</div>

<a itemprop=”email” href=”mailto:jane.doe@example.com”>jane.doe@example.com</a>

<a itemprop=”url” href=”https://janedoe.com”>https://janedoe.com</a>

</div>

 

RDFa

 

Another option is RDFa, a web standard schema recommended by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). RDFa is similar to microdata but utilises these three tags instead: ‘vocab’, ‘typeof’, and ‘property’. We recommend using RDFa for a webpage that goes beyond what is being offered by Schema.org. Here is an example of RDFa code: 

 

<div vocab=”http://schema.org/” typeof=”Person”>

<h1 property=”name”>Jane Doe</h1>

<span property=”jobTitle”>Software Engineer</span>

<span property=”workLocation” typeof=”Place”>

  <span property=”name”>San Francisco, CA</span>

</span>

<span property=”employer” typeof=”Organization”>

  <span property=”name”>Acme Corporation</span>

</span>

<a property=”email”href=”mailto:jane.doe@example.com”>jane.doe@example.com</a>

<a property=”url” href=”https://janedoe.com”>https://janedoe.com</a>

</div>

 

In addition to these methods, you can also use online tools or website creation platforms to automate the process. For example, WordPress has embedded JSON-LD SEO plugins. Squarespace can also generate some basic markup from the settings menu, while Wix is limited and only allows you to paste already generated code into the Advanced SEO settings. 

It’s also important to note that you should only add schema markup to the HTML of your website, not the visible content that users see. This is because schema markup is only intended to be read by search engines. 

Once you’ve added the schema markup to your website’s HTML, you can use the Rich Results Test to ensure it’s working correctly.

 

Final Word

Incorporating schema markup into your website can be a powerful way to improve its visibility and user experience. By adding additional information about the content on your page, you can help search engines understand what your website is about and increase the chances of attracting more clicks from the search results.

However, it’s important to remember that schema markup is just one cog in a giant SEO wheel. To succeed in SEO, you’ll need to focus on various factors, including creating high-quality content, designing a user-friendly website, and building high-quality backlinks. By addressing these issues and more, you can increase your website’s chances of ranking highly in search results and attracting more visitors.