{"id":12660,"date":"2019-05-05T19:30:03","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T16:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/?p=12660"},"modified":"2021-06-26T09:37:37","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T06:37:37","slug":"what-is-schema-markup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/what-is-schema-markup\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Schema Markup in SEO and How to Use it Effectively"},"content":{"rendered":"

Besides traditional SEO practices, there are modern ways to improve your SEO and schema markup (also known as structured data or microdata) is one of these techniques.<\/p>\n

In this article you will learn what schema markup is, why it\u2019s becoming very important and how to use schema markup to improve your SEO. Towards the bottom of this post, you’ll also learn how to use Google Search Console to troubleshoot structured data errors.<\/p>\n

What is schema markup?<\/h2>\n

Schema markup is a way to \u2018describe\u2019 your content to search engines in a way they can understand it.<\/p>\n

This is done by adding pieces of code to your HTML that consists of pre-defined tags (semantic vocabulary) that search engines understand.<\/p>\n

How does structured data looks like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As mentioned above, structured data is a set of tags added in your HTML code.<\/p>\n

These are not visible to users but can be read by search engines when crawling your pages.<\/p>\n

Structured data can be in the form of microdata<\/strong><\/a> or json-ld<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry if this is too technical for you because as we will see below, there are easy ways to add structured data to your website without knowing the low technical details.<\/p>\n

Here is an example of how schema markup looks like:<\/p>\n

\"Schema
Schema Markup Example<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Google or other search engines<\/strong><\/a> crawl a web page their primary goal is to find out what the page is all about.<\/p>\n

The crawlers cannot view a website like a human but they process the HTML of a page trying to figure out different things like the meaning<\/em> of the content, date published, author and other elements they find useful during the indexing process.<\/p>\n

Schema Markup is Supported by Major Search Engines<\/strong><\/p>\n

In order to make their job easier and faster, major search engines have agreed to a set of common standards, also known as schemas<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Schemas cover many content types including articles, videos, images but also different types of entities like organizations, local businesses, people and many more.<\/p>\n

Pro Tip:<\/strong> Read How search engines work<\/strong><\/a> and watch the video to get a better idea on how the crawling and indexing works.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why is structured data important for SEO?<\/h2>\n

Although Structured data is not yet part of the Google ranking algorithm, it is still important for SEO for many reasons.<\/p>\n

Prepare your website for \u2018future\u2019 SEO<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, it is a feature that is gaining ground and Google officially stated<\/em> that it may be something that will go into the ranking algorithm in the near future.<\/p>\n

So, besides taking advantage of the benefits described below, you also prepare your website for future SEO.<\/p>\n

Make your search snippets informative and attractive<\/strong><\/p>\n

Second, structured data enhances your website\u2019s presence on the SERPS with rich <\/strong>snippets<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This means that your entry in Google search results will be more attractive and informative than others and this will lead to better CTR (click through rates) and more visits to your website.<\/p>\n

\"structured-date-in-google-search\"
Structured data enhances your website\u2019s presence on the SERPS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Currently Google supports the following schemas:<\/p>\n