Schema markup has so much potential in regard to search engine optimisation (SEO). Google themselves have stated on many occasions that schema does help search crawlers do their job more effectively, by allowing them to understand a landing page and deliver the relevant information to the search engine results page.
Our SEO experts have put together the following guide to help you understand what schema markup is, and how you can use it to improve your website SEO.
What is Schema Markup?
Schema markup is code that helps search engines to understand your content and better represent it in the search results. You have probably encountered this before in the form of ‘rich-snippets’, for example, the ‘People also ask’ section of the search engine results page.
Schema markup is significant as the rich snippets it powers will often have a higher clickthrough rate than the standard search results. This is because Google deems the information more valuable to the searcher, and they will prioritise your content.
How to Use Schema Markup for SEO
As a general rule of thumb, you only need to consider schema markup if one of the following things are true:
- Your pages already rank well and are therefore eligible for rich results.
- You have a strong brand presence that can establish you in the Knowledge Graph.
Our favourite tool is the TechnicalSEO.com Schema Markup Generator, a Schema.org structured data generator that supports the creation of JSON-LD markups. They provide code generators for the following:
- Article, including news and blog
- Breadcrumb
- Event
- FAQ Page
- How-to
- Job posting
- Local Business
- Organisation
- Person
- Product
- Recipe
- Video
- Website
But don’t worry – there is no need to use all of these at the same time on a single page. You should aim to select the most appropriate one for a page. Rich snippets have the most significant impact in the shortest time period, but only if you have content already ranking on the first page.
1. Generating the code
While it’s possible to write the schema markup code yourself, there is no need to. If your website runs on WordPress, there are many plugins that will make the entire process much easier. If not, then the TechnicalSEO.com generator can write the code for you, and you will just need to input the correct content and information before copying it across to your website.
2. Always test the code
You should always test the markup before publishing it, to check if it is working correctly and will not cause any issues. You can do this easily via Google’s rich results test tool. This tool focuses on rich results and can verify if the Google crawlers will be able to successfully read the code.
3. Implement the code on your website
Once verified, you can implement the code on your own website. There are several ways this can be done, the most obvious being to input it straight into the page’s HTML. Alternatively, for those more comfortable with Google Tag Manager, you can input it through the platform. The most beginner-friendly option would be to use a CMS and plugin.
topclick has an excellent team and more than 20 years of experience, where we have gained priceless knowledge that will help us to deliver an expertly tailored SEO service for your specific business niche. As part of our service, we will give you regular updates, access to granular SEO reporting metrics; as well as a dedicated account manager to help you achieve the results you need. Contact us today for more information.