It goes without saying that the world of SEO is becoming ever more technical, and over the past decade, webmasters, SEOs, and in-house teams have been widening their knowledge and skillsets to help their sites compete in search engine results pages.
One of these areas, which has seen the most development since its launch in 2011, is, of course, schema.org markup.
Although it has been eight years since the data schema was introduced, whether due to lack of development capability or technical knowledge, many popular brands are still to implement structured data to their websites.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at what structured data is, and the benefits that the markup can provide for websites.
A brief introduction to structured data
Put simply, structured data is a form of markup that is implemented in the code of a website and provides search engines with specific pieces of information about a page, site, or organization.
By improving the knowledge that a search engine has about a particular page or site, it can, therefore, provide users with the information that they need when conducting a search.
It also means that if a business invests in structured data throughout its site, it could enjoy higher and more relevant levels of traffic.
But how does this happen?
Structured data can enhance AMP pages
Despite structured datanot being a direct ranking factor, it can, however, influence other elements of your website which are ranking factors.
In a world where a lot of searches (even the biggest part) are made through mobile devices, site speed has never been more important, especially when you consider that users will leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load.
For this reason, many businesses have implemented Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on their site (read more about them here), which can help overcome critical mobile speed issues and improve the usability of pages.
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But most people don’t realize that AMPs can actually be enhanced via structured data markup.
Google states that by implementing structured data to AMPs, they can enhance the appearance of the page in mobile search results while offering the ability to appear within rich results.
If a site gains the opportunity to appear within rich results for an important search term, the site could gain a great amount of search traffic as a result.
You can learn a little more about how structured data enhances AMPpages in this handy Google guide.
Structured data helps sites appear in Google’s Knowledge Graph
For sites that appear in highly competitive verticals, getting the edge over your competition is critical, and one way to do this is by establishing your site presence with Google and appearing in the Knowledge Graph.
Knowledge Graph cards appear on the right-hand side of search results and they provide users with functional and visual elements of your site; making it far easier for users to familiarise themselves with it.
To enable your business Knowledge Graph card, earlier you would have needed to add the necessary Corporate Contact markup on the homepage of your website. But Google now automatically discovers your business’ corporate contact information to include in Google knowledge panels.
Structured data can be vital for improving a site’s click-through rates
CTR of a website is rather important for its rankings. And according to Neil Patel, the best way to increase it is to research and use keywords, especially long-tail keywords. Serpstat can help you make deep and useful keyword research and improve your rankings as well.
Also, the whole point of structured data is to provide clean and concise parcels of information to search engines so that you can clarify the purpose of your site and its pages to quickly provide users with the accurate information that they require.
This means that by implementing well-written and relevant structured data into your pages, your site should be shown to a more relevant audience base, meaning that your click-through rates will inevitably improve.
In fact,sites that implemented structured data found that theirCTRs improved by at least 10%.
How to implement structured data
We’ve already learned the meaning and value of structured data on the site. Now, we’ll explore two of the main approaches for adding schema markup to your website.
How to add Schema.org micro-markup with Schema plugin
The easiest way to add a micro-markup to the site is to use the Schema plugin. It works with any available schema options and is embedded in the Yoast SEO plugin.
To install, go to Plugins – Add New in the WordPress console and find “Schema.” Activate it and go to Settings.
Fill in basic information, such as the location of your About Us page, Contacts, upload your website logo.
By filling out additional information, content, knowledge graph, and search results, you can optimize your site for each of the areas.
Then, you can go to Schema – Types and add the selected schema type or publication category.
If the above-mentioned plugin doesn’t suit you, you can choose from a large number of WordPress plugins alternatives for schema markup. Here are some of them:
- All In One Schema Rich Snippets
- Schema JSON-LD Markup
- Rich Reviews
- WP SEO Structured Data Schema
- Markup (JSON-LD) structured in schema.org
How to add Schema.org markup manually
Here, you should work more with the code, but you can add your schema markup individually to any page or post.
With arbitrary schema markup, you can include several different types of markup on the same page. For example, if you have an event page, and you also want to place a feedback schema on it, you can easily do it.
The most efficient way to manually add schema to your site is JSON-LD. This method is also recommended by Google. It’s based on JavaScript. You’ll add schema markup to your site as a script, so it’ll be much easier to read and debug.
Remember to follow all Google structured data guidelines while creating the code for your markup.
If you don’t know how to write markup code, you can use the Structured Data Markup Wizard from Google or JSON-LD Generator to create your code.
To use this approach, go to any post or page where you want to put the markup. Click Screen Settings at the top of the page and check the “Custom Fields” box. Now, scroll down to the “Custom Fields” settings and press “Enter new” to create a new field. Name it “Schema” and enter the code. For example, local businesses data type:
Please provide the source and a possible caption for the above image
Next, you’ll need to edit your header.php file. Open it and paste the following code before the closing </head> tag:
Thanks to these actions, your schema code will load separately with metadata. You can add any kind of custom schema markup to your WordPress website with the above-described approach.
Just remember to run your page or post in the Google structured data testing tool to check your markup for errors. This validator understands the following formats:
- Schema.org
- Microdata
- RDFa
- JSON-LD
Using it, you can check the page in two ways:
- Copy in HTML format
- Specify a link to the page
If the site is being developed on a PC or if you need to test some options, you need to use the first method. The second one is suitable for the final verification of the finished markup. Also, here you can check the site pages when using ready-made CMS templates. They may contain some errors in markups.
For example, let’s check thePhase 5 Analyticspage. After copying the URL and clicking the “Run test” button, the result of the verification appeared on the screen. There was the HTML code on the left, and markup on the right with errors if they were found.
Final word
Adding structured data to the site will not take a lot of time. This action will help improve the look of the snippet in the search engine and increase traffic to the site.
The process may seem a little technically complicated, but you’ll discover that even the option to manually add it is not as hard as you’d assume. In addition, many available plugins will make developing structured data very simple.
Inna Yatsyna is a Brand and CommunityDevelopmentSpecialist at Serpstat. She can be found on Twitter@erin_yat.
More about:
- JSON-LD
- schema markup
- SEO
- structured data
FAQs
Why do businesses use structured data? ›
Structured data has many benefits including higher click-through rates, greater search visibility, faster indexing, and voice search domination. It helps Google understand your content better and faster, and can help enhance your site's visibility in search features.
What is the benefit of using structured data? ›Pros of structured data
The specific and organized nature of structured data allows for easy manipulation and querying of that data. Easily used by business users: Another benefit of structured data is that it can be used by an average business user with an understanding of the topic to which the data relates.
Structured data helps search engines understand how to display content. Schema.org supports JSON-LD, Microdata and RDFa. Structured data is used for rich snippets, rich cards, AMPs, knowledge graphs and more. Structured data isn't a direct ranking signal, but it can help to increase CTR.
What is structured data in business intelligence? ›Structured data is information that is highly organized (e.g., an Excel spreadsheet). In the world of business intelligence, structured data is preferable because it is easy to connect to and search, especially when stored in a relational database.
What is an example of structured data? ›Common examples of structured data are Excel files or SQL databases. Each of these have structured rows and columns that can be sorted. Structured data depends on the existence of a data model – a model of how data can be stored, processed and accessed.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of structured data? ›| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Requires less processing in comparison to unstructured data and is easier to manage. | Limited usability because of its pre-defined structure/format |
Structured data is a form of metadata you can add to the backend of your website. The additional information included in your structured data helps search engines to better understand and contextualize your content, leading to more relevant matches with a user's search intent.
Why is structured data important SEO? ›Structured data is important for SEO because it'll make it easier for Google to understand what your pages, products, and your website are about. Google needs to find out what a page is about to show it in the search results. Using structured data is like talking to Google, telling Google what your site is about.
What is meant by structured data? ›Structured data is data that has been organized into a formatted repository, typically a database, so that its elements can be made addressable for more effective processing and analysis. A data structure is a kind of repository that organizes information for that purpose.
What are structured data types? ›A structured type is a user-defined data type containing one or more named attributes, each of which has a data type. Attributes are properties that describe an instance of a type. A geometric shape, for example, might have attributes such as its list of Cartesian coordinates.
What is structured data in big data? ›
Structured data is the neatly organized data you keep in databases, datasets, and spreadsheets. It's easy for traditional analytics tools to read this data. Organizing unstructured data into structured data is time-consuming, but possible with the right solution.
Which company uses structured data? ›Google uses structured data that it finds on the web to understand the content of the page, as well as to gather information about the web and the world in general.”
Where do you get structured data? ›...
Sources of Structured Data:
- SQL Databases.
- Spreadsheets such as Excel.
- OLTP Systems.
- Online forms.
- Sensors such as GPS or RFID tags.
- Network and Web server logs.
- Medical devices.
Structured data testing tools support website optimization by fixing SEO errors and determining if your site is using microdata or structured data markup, which can improve search engine rankings on Google and others.
What are the important characteristics of structured data? ›Structured data is when data is in a standardized format, has a well-defined structure, complies to a data model, follows a persistent order, and is easily accessed by humans and programs. This data type is generally stored in a database.
What is structured data in research? ›The term structured data refers to data that resides in a fixed field within a file or record. Structured data is typically stored in a relational database (RDBMS). It can consist of numbers and text, and sourcing can happen automatically or manually, as long as it's within an RDBMS structure.
What is structured data machine learning? ›What is structured data? Structured data — typically categorized as quantitative data — is highly organized and easily decipherable by machine learning algorithms. Developed by IBM in 1974, structured query language (SQL) is the programming language used to manage structured data.
Why do we need to access data? ›Data allows organizations to measure the effectiveness of a given strategy: When strategies are put into place to overcome a challenge, collecting data will allow you to determine how well your solution is performing, and whether or not your approach needs to be tweaked or changed over the long-term.
What is the primary source of structured data? ›Where Does Structured Data Come From? The two primary examples of where structured data is generated are databases and search algorithms.
What are three types of structured data choose three? ›- data in relational databases.
- white papers.
- blogs.
- spreadsheet data.
- newspaper articles.
- e-commerce user accounts.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of structured and unstructured data? ›
Structured and unstructured data both have their benefits and shortcomings. Whereas structured data is far easier to handle and understand, unstructured data is plentiful and could contain a wealth of competitive insights.
What do you mean by structured analysis explain in detail? ›Structured analysis is a software engineering technique that uses graphical diagrams to develop and portray system specifications that are easily understood by users. These diagrams describe the steps that need to occur and the data required to meet the design function of a particular software.
What are characteristics of unstructured data and their values to business decision making? ›- Data neither conforms to a data model nor has any structure.
- Data can not be stored in the form of rows and columns as in Databases.
- Data does not follows any semantic or rules.
- Data lacks any particular format or sequence.
- Data has no easily identifiable structure.
Structured data is the language of search engines and the only way to explicitly tell Google what your web pages are about. It's been around since 2011 and is typically a conversation topic of SEO specialists and search teams.
What is your view on implementing structured data markup in SEO pages? ›Example of structured data
In an SEO context, "structured data" usually refers to implementing some type of markup on a webpage, in order to provide additional detail around the page's content.
- When there are multiple schema markups that you want to implement on a single page.
- When you are unable to use a plugin to add structured data to your website.
What Is Structured Data Testing? Structured data testing allows you to paste the JSON-LD code or URL into a generator to preview the result before going live. You can also check our existing structured data to check for any improvements that need to be made.
How do you use structured data markup helper? ›...
Mark up an email
- Open the Structured Data Markup Helper.
- Select the Email tab.
- Choose the type of information you will mark up. ...
- Enter the HTML of your email.
- Select Start Tagging.
- A Secure and Accessible Website. ...
- Page Speed (Including Mobile Page Speed) ...
- Mobile Friendliness. ...
- Domain Age, URL, and Authority. ...
- Optimized Content. ...
- Technical SEO. ...
- User Experience (RankBrain) ...
- Links.
Structured data is when data is in a standardized format, has a well-defined structure, complies to a data model, follows a persistent order, and is easily accessed by humans and programs. This data type is generally stored in a database.
What role does unstructured data play in business intelligence? ›
Unstructured data is used by businesses to determine customer purchasing trends and brand perception. One significant advantage specific to unstructured data is sentiment analysis. A company's sales and marketing performance can be put into context by examining posts on social media, forum discussions, and other media.
What are characteristics of unstructured data and their values to business decision making? ›- Data neither conforms to a data model nor has any structure.
- Data can not be stored in the form of rows and columns as in Databases.
- Data does not follows any semantic or rules.
- Data lacks any particular format or sequence.
- Data has no easily identifiable structure.
Unstructured data offer the key to helping you really get to know your customers. You can come to understand things like what trends they value on social media, what opinions they have, and, ultimately, what they want from your brand.
Where do we get structured data? ›Sources of Structured Data:
SQL Databases. Spreadsheets such as Excel. OLTP Systems. Online forms.
Data allows organizations to measure the effectiveness of a given strategy: When strategies are put into place to overcome a challenge, collecting data will allow you to determine how well your solution is performing, and whether or not your approach needs to be tweaked or changed over the long-term.
What is a structured search? ›The structured search is conceptualized as a technology for querying multiple data sources in an independent and scalable manner. It occupies the middle ground between keyword search and database search.
Why do most business data are unstructured or semi-structured? ›The big advantage of being able to put unstructured data into some form of semi-structured format is that it enables a range of use cases to emerge, such as analytics to spot consumer behaviour, market trends, sentiment analysis.
How do businesses use unstructured data? ›Businesses use unstructured data to identify customer purchasing patterns and sentiment toward the brand. Sentiment analysis is a major benefit unique to unstructured data. Analyzing social media posts, forum discussions, and other media provides context for a business's sales and marketing performance.
Is artificial intelligence important to analyze structured or unstructured data Why? ›Unstructured data is inherently difficult to analyze because there are many different types of it, all with special analytical needs. Artificial intelligence is the key to extracting value from unstructured data, as emerging technologies can handle its vast scale and unique processing challenges.
What is a characteristic of structured data? ›The characteristics of structured data include: The data conforms to a data model and has an easily identifiable structure. The data is stored in rows and columns. The data is well organized, which means that the definition, format, and the meaning of the data is known.
What are structured data types? ›
A structured type is a user-defined data type containing one or more named attributes, each of which has a data type. Attributes are properties that describe an instance of a type. A geometric shape, for example, might have attributes such as its list of Cartesian coordinates.
What is structured data in big data? ›Structured data is the neatly organized data you keep in databases, datasets, and spreadsheets. It's easy for traditional analytics tools to read this data. Organizing unstructured data into structured data is time-consuming, but possible with the right solution.
Why is unstructured data growing? ›As social media use rapidly increases so too do the data stored from social media sites. Social media is the platform for sharing photos, videos, audio files, and text information. Hence, generation of unstructured data is huge.
What is unstructured data analytics? ›What is unstructured data analysis? Unstructured data is data that doesn't have a fixed form or structure. Images, videos, audio files, text files, social media data, geospatial data, data from IoT devices, and surveillance data are examples of unstructured data. About 80%-90% of data is unstructured.