What is Schema Markup?
Schema markup, also commonly referred to as structured data, is a code used by search engines to understand the contents and elements of a webpage, as well as how to categorize it accordingly during the indexing and crawling process.
Think of it as the website being converted and represented through code—a language and medium that the algorithm can comprehend—which is then used by search engines to visualize the page’s content and organize it in a way that makes it easier to understand and characterize.
In case you didn’t know, search engines browse through online content before storing the gathered information in a database known as the index, which is meant to make it much easier for search engines to recall and retrieve information for later use, and the schema markup greatly helps with this and makes this process much more efficient and less time-consuming.
There are several types of schema markup. Here are some common ones!
Article Schema
This can be added to any website with textual content like articles and blog posts. Not only will this help search engines retrieve certain information—titles, images, dates, author, and more—more easily, but it also helps communicate to search engine algorithms what your content is really about, which can help your article appear on more relevant search queries.
Local Business Schema
This helps search engines better understand your business, as well as other information regarding it like your business’s name, address, contact number, operating hours, payment methods, and more. With a simple search on the internet, prospective customers will be able to learn more about your business thanks to this schema.
Product Schema
This schema will allow users to see a product, along with other pertinent information like price, availability, reviews, and delivery information among other things. This is especially useful for e-commerce and online stores that want to give their customers a more in-depth view of a product, even without having to enter their websites.
Event Schema
This is used for upcoming events like concerts, conferences, or festivals and includes details like the event name, date, and location. This makes it easier for users to find an event—whether it's online or offline—and all the necessary information about it, which can help brands and businesses better promote their events.
Review Schema
This schema appears on websites that are affiliated with products or services and may include certain information like a reviewer’s name, rating, and the date that this review was made. When properly utilized by a brand or business, this schema can help users decide whether or not to pursue your product or service and enter your website.
What are the Benefits of Implementing Schema Markup?
Aside from making it easier for search engines to understand and navigate the content of your website, utilizing schema markup can also increase your chances of appearing on search engine results pages in the form of rich results—enhanced snippets taken out from your schema that are featured on search engines as carousels, images, boxed sections and other formats that go beyond the standard layout of search results.
While schema markups haven’t been shown to directly affect your ranking on search engines, appearing as a rich result increases your chances of drawing in users by making your website link look more enticing and reputable.
By leveraging these rich results and the dynamic presentation of your content, you’ll be able to give your users a much more visually engaging and informative preview of your website.
How to Implement Schema Markup?
There are a few ways that you can use to add schema markups to the HTML code of your website:
JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Objects)
This is the most popular and recommended method of adding a schema markup to your website. It’s typically placed within a specific tag in your HTML and provides a clean and easily readable way to include structured data. Different tools can help generate a schema markup for your website like Merkle’s Schema Markup Generator and Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.
Microdata
Unlike JSON-LD, which can simply be added as a separate data block in your code, microdata has a different format and needs to be embedded into your website’s HTML code, which may make it more difficult for beginners to use and revise. It’s also not recommended to use for larger websites like e-commerce platforms. Fortunately, it’s no longer that common to use today.
RDFa (Resource Descriptive Framework in Attributes)
Similarly to microdata, RDFa is added directly within the HTML tags and attributes of your website. While much more complicated than other schema encoding languages, RDFa allows you to easily integrate it with other programs and platforms that also use this encoding language.
Blog Features and Plugins
Don’t worry if your website is hosted on a blogging platform because many of the biggest sites have features and add-ons that can integrate structured data into your content for you. An example of this is Yoast SEO, a WordPress plugin, which lets you customize your schema settings to suit your content better.
All of these and more can be found on Schema.org—a website that contains all the industry standard schema types available. This website was created by the biggest search engines to make schema markup easier for webmasters and developers.
How to Test Schema Markup?
If you want to test out and validate your structured data code, then you can visit Google’s Rich Results Test and enter your URL or schema markup code. This will show you all the different errors, issues, and warnings that may warrant some concern. You’ll be able to resolve and address these directly on the site and rerun the tests. Another tool that you can use for this is the Schema Validator.
Semrush’s Site Audit Tool will also allow you to test your whole website for any issues with your schema markup code and give you a Markup Score that indicates the overall validity of your markups—the higher the score, the fewer markup errors there are on your website. The tool also has a feature that lets you easily view all the items that returned as invalid, making it easier for you to fix the issue.
The Takeaway
Schema markup is added to give search engines an easier time understanding, characterizing, and categorizing the content of your webpage. While it doesn’t have any direct benefits toward your rankings on search engine results pages, it can improve the visibility of your website by increasing the chances of it showing up as a rich result, which is much more interesting to users and can draw in more organic traffic and engagement.
There are also many methods and online tools that can help you create and validate your schema markup tools, as well as additional resources available to provide further information.
