When searching for the latest tricks and trends to help you rank your website on Google, often the results will depend on the ever-changing algorithm, whether you’re meeting Google’s standards at a high level or executing the killer SEO strategy you have set out.
It always goes deeper with SEO, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be complicated to learn. One of the recent topics of discussion is ‘What is schema markup?’ and will it help my online business in any way?
Well, in this article, we’re going to discuss what schema markup is, how it could potentially have an insanely positive impact on your SEO, and how to implement it on your WordPress website. Carry on reading to find out the ins and outs!
What is Schema Markup?
In simple terms, schema markup (often regarded as Google’s structured data) is a language that Google understands that helps their search engines understand the content on your website more clearly. It’s essentially a schema markup code or tags that you add to your website to provide extra information about your content.
Imagine your website or web page is a book, and schema markup is like adding some extra notes or highlights to certain parts of the book that you want people to know more about. These notes help search engines, like Google, quickly figure out what your content is about and how to display it to your audience.
For example, let’s say your website talks about timed workouts for beginners that people can try. Schema markup can highlight specific details like the length of the workout, the equipment you need, and even a HowToSchema to show the steps and images of how to perform a certain exercise.
This extra information helps search engines to intelligently display relevant content in Google search results for people searching for workouts for beginners.
In SEO terms, using schema markup can improve how your website appears in search results. It helps search engines understand your content better, making it more likely that your site will be shown to people searching for relevant information. It’s like giving your website’s content a little boost, making it stand out in the crowd of search results.
What Are the Benefits of Schema Markup for SEO?
Although you may think schema markup is the be-all and end-all for your Google rankings, many other key SEO strategies need to be in place first, such as a great content strategy, excellent link-building practices, technical SEO fixes, and many, many more.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean you should disregard schema markup, as it can have excellent benefits for your business on Google’s search engine, but it is certainly something that should be added in time once you have a fundamental SEO strategy in place. Nevertheless, here are some of the main benefits of implementing schema markup for SEO:
- Your website stands out as it provides extra details (star ratings, images, specific information)
- It helps search engines understand your content more, allowing for greater traffic
- It gives you a competitive edge
- Improves your CTR (Click-through rate)
- They allow for rich snippets, which are more visually appealing, attracting your audience’s attention
- Gives your customers a great mobile experience
- Improves your ROI (return on investment)
- You can get schema reports in Google search console
These are just a few of the many mind-blowing benefits you can experience when adding schema markup HTML tags to your web pages. Whether you’re a local business adding cooking time, instructions, and recipes or a nationwide gym looking to help others with exercises, coaching plans, and many more, schema markup will add value to your SEO.
The Different Types of Schema Markup
As you read through the endless number of schema markup types that you can use on Google (35 in total), you will often need specific ones for your website. Yet, this can change depending on your business, what you’re trying to target, and who you’re trying to reach. Here are some of the most common ones so you can get a feel for what you can implement.
1: Product Markup
What it does: If you add this schema markup, it will give you more insightful details about products, such as name, price, availability, and reviews.
Why it matters: It improves product listings in search results, making them more informative for potential customers.
2: Local Business Schema
What it does: It shows essential information about a local business, like address, phone number, and operating hours.
Why it matters: It will boost your visibility in local searches, helping nearby customers find and connect with your business.
3: Review Schema
What it does: It will show your ratings, reviews, and testimonials, giving users a quick overview of your business’s reputation.
Why it matters: It builds trust and credibility, increasing the likelihood of potential customers choosing your products or services.
4: FAQ Schema
What it does: It will structure your frequently asked questions (FAQs), making them easy to find for your customers.
Why it matters: It improves the user experience by providing quick answers to common queries, which so often influences key purchasing decisions.
5: Article Schema
What it does: It shows key information about articles, including the author, how long ago the article was published, and some of the main content.
Why it matters: It helps major search engines understand and present articles more effectively in search results, driving traffic to your content.
Remember, though, that this is not the main reason for your content being pushed towards the top of Google, but it will certainly look credible if you have schema markup built into some of your core pages.
How to Implement Schema Markup on WordPress Websites
As most online business owners use WordPress due to its excellent functionality and number of users, we feel like dropping a gem on how to implement schema markup on your WordPress website, meaning you won’t have to struggle at home alone, scratching your head wondering what is going on.
If you follow along with our step-by-step guide, you’ll have the capability to add this to your SEO repertoire within the coming days to boost your website’s ranking in the search engines.
- Locate Google’s structured data markup helper tool
- Select the data type you want to add a schema markup to within your website’s categories
- Paste the URL of the exact page you want to add schema markup to
- Start choosing the text you want to markup on Google’s search results
- Choose the tag that best suits the text
- When you’ve finished, click ‘Create HTML’
- Once you’ve received the code, choose JSON LD markup
- Now that you’ve got a full list of code, add it to your page in thesection of the HTML
- Now, by using Google’s rich results test tool, you can see if your schema markup shows up
- Do this by entering the URL or code snippet and if there are no errors, press ‘Run Test’
- From here, you’ll receive a markup score (the higher the score, the better)
If, along this journey, you encounter any errors with structured data, make sure to take another look at the structured data testing tool helper. This way, you’ll be able to create a new schema markup and re-test it without making mistakes.
Things to Consider When Using Schema Markup
Here at Quirky Digital, we find the devil is in the details and if you’re not looking out for best practices in everything you do, you’ll fall behind. Some of the main considerations would be to:
- Choose the correct schema type (the one that matches the content)
- Use the script-type application LD JSON, as this is what Google suggests
- Always use Google’s rich results test
- Use https://schema.org as a tool for schema markup
- Don’t use it as spam for every single web page
- Fill out as many relevant properties on the web page as possible (that are relevant); otherwise, it’ll be seen as spam
- Always stay up to date with what Google wants with its schema markup guidelines.
Now that you know how to implement a markup schema, there should be no holding you back from implementing it and using it as a competitive advantage against the core competitors in your field.
However, if you’re still stuck and feel like you need more advice and guidance on the topic, don’t disregard how our SEO agency could take every minor detail like this and create an overall, killer SEO strategy. Get in touch with us today to see how we can take your online business to the next level.
