How To Use Schema Markup To Improve A Website’s Structure?

Websites are a necessity for digital companies. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a vital strategy to help a company’s website rank better in search results. It aims to increase the online presence and website visibility by ranking higher within all major search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. Studies have shown that 91.5% of the traffic on Google goes to the first page of search results, leaving only 8.5% of traffic that makes it to the second page and beyond. It is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses to improve their SEO to remain competitive and attract new customers. Structured data can help improve the SEO of a website which in turn can improve targeted search traffic and allow the website to attract and convert more customer leads. Structured data can help search engines to understand the website better and easier to crawl. 

What is schema markup?

Schema markup is a code that is put on a website to help the search engines provide more informative and relevant results for their users. Schema markup allows websites to create enhanced descriptions that appear in SERPs. Essentially, it provides vital information to search engines to include in the listing that can massively improve online visibility online and click-through rates.

Schema markup is defined as microdata that can be extracted and processed by search engines, browsers, and crawlers and used to provide a richer experience to users. Schema tags effectively tell the search engine what the content of the website is as well as what it means and how to portray the content to users. Schema Markup can help companies rank better for various types of content including products, events, articles, book reviews, etc. According to a study by acmqueue, less than one-third of Google’s search results include a rich snippet with Schema.org markup. Thus incorporating schema markup into the website code can have tremendous benefits for an organization.

Where to place schema markup?

Schema markup can be added to businesses and organizations, events, people, products, recipes, reviews, articles, and videos. Each type of information has unique properties that can be used to describe the items in more detail. For example, a “book,” which falls under the category product can have the properties like “name”, “author,” “illustrator,” “ISBN,” and more, depending on how fully one wants to describe it. 

How can companies use schema markup to improve their website’s structure?

Here is a step by step guide to how companies can use schema markup to improve their rank and boost SEO:

• Go to Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper and select the type of data. Some of the common options available are- articles, book reviews, events, software applications, products etc.
• Once the data type is selected, enter the URL or HTML you want to markup into the allotted slot and click the option ‘Start Tagging’.
• The new page will load which will provide you with the workspace for tagging items. The web page will be on the left pane of the page while the data items will be displayed on the right pane. 
• Then select the items to markup. Once you select the items, the tool will automatically add it to the ‘Data Items’ in the right pane.
• Keep adding markup items to the list and use the list of data items as a guide. Highlight the other items to add them to the markup list.
• When the list of markup items is finished, click on the ‘Create HTML’ Tag. In the next page, the HTML of the page with the relevant microdata inserted in the spots that you selected will be shown.
• After that go to the source code or CMS of the website and add the highlighted snippets in the appropriate spots. Alternatively, you can download the automatically-generated HTML file and copy-paste it into the CMS or source code. Once you click ‘Finish’, you will encounter a series of next steps to be followed.
• Following this, use the Structured Data Testing Tool to find out what your page will look like with the added markup.

Final Thoughts

Schema can ensure that a business has relevant listings, ratings, images, or any other information needed to have better online visibility and ultimately be able to attract a customer’s attention. At Alkye, we offer clients SEO services that can help them grow their online traffic, conversions, and improve business growth and continuity.