Decoding Structured Data and Schema Markup

For every business these days, it is becoming a necessity to have their strong digital presence. This requires them to have a good, user-friendly website with responsive design and relevant content. However, there is a lot that goes behind getting your website ranked in the search results for which one of the most important aspects is having structured data and schema markup.

Further in this blog we will help you understand the schema markup and its necessity in detail. 

What is Schema Markup?

Structured data and schema markup are one and the same thing. Schema markup is also referred to as structured data at times. It is essentially a language that is used by search engines to read and understand the data that is available on the web pages. 

In addition to this, there are various benefits of schema markup for your website, some of which are listed below. 

Benefits of Schema Markup

• Allows the search engines to understand and read the website content
• Enhances the appearance of web pages in the search results 
• Helps to increase the CTR (click through rate) and website traffic 
• Adds a competitive edge to the website 
• Enhances overall SEO performance for the website

What is Schema in SEO?

Moving on, we have established the basics of structured data and schema markup. Let’s head ahead and see its involvement in the SEO for a website. 

SEO is an essential part of getting your website ranked in the search results. Now, both schema and SEO go hand in hand for the ranking factor. Since schema helps the search engine to understand the content of the web page. Integrating schema with SEO will further enable the search engine to discover the web pages and help your content get better ranking. Schema tags in SEO plays a major role in driving more traffic to your website and helping you generate more profit as well. 

In addition to this, the other benefits of schema markup integrated with SEO are listed above. For more details get in touch with our expert SEO teams.

Types of Schema Markup

When implementing schema markup, there are different types of markup available for you to integrate. Some of the most popular and often used schema markup are as follows: 

Product Markup

Product markup is integrated to offer Google or any other search engine information about the products that your business offers. It further allows the users to see the details of the products directly on the result page. 

It contains information about the product such as the image, price, rating and reviews, feedback, shipping and return information along with availability of the product. 

Review Markup

It adds a star rating at the bottom of the product information on the search results pages. This star rating helps the news users to understand the product efficiency, and how the previous users had experienced the product. 

This is further useful for the users to assess whether to invest in the product or not. It is an important schema to be added for the e-commerce websites along with the product markup. 

Article Markup

It offers the search engine the detailed information about the article such as the image, author, title, and publishing date as well. It is most commonly used for new websites, blogs and other articles as well. 

Course Markup

Offers detailed information about an educational course being offered at a platform. This offers the details such as the duration of the course, fees, institution name, instructor name, and other relevant information. 

This information is directly visible to the user in the search results to further help them to make an informed decision before enrolling for the course. 

Organization Markup

As the name indicates it offers information about different organizations. It contains information such as the name of the organization, location of the organization, their services, logo, contact information, social media profiles, and other relevant information. 

Local Business Markup

It offers information about a local business. It further includes details such as name of the business, location, contact information, contact person, working hours and other relevant information. 

It is useful for all the local seo businesses that are trying to mark their presence in the local area and get more traffic on their website and the physical store as well. Adding address in the information will further allow the search engine to show the users exact location of your business. 

Best Practices for Schema Markup Examples

Now that we have established and discussed the basics of structured data and schema markup in detail along with the types of schema markup available for integration. Let’s glance through some best practices for schema markup examples for more understanding.

Pick the Right Schema 

From the above discussed types of schema markup, pick the most appropriate and suitable schema markup for your website. Picking the right schema will help you have better results. Based on your requirements, the right schema markup such as product schema for e-commerce websites, article schema for news, articles and blogs. 

Detailed Information

Add detailed information about your business and other relevant required information. This will further contribute to having better results of schema tags in SEO. The more detailed information, the better the search engine can understand your website and the content available. 

Use JSON-LD Format 

As per Google’s recommendation, using JSON-LD format schema is most beneficial. It is easy to implement as compared to other formats and easy to maintain as well.

Use Google’s Rich Result Tool

For testing your schema markup it is recommended to use Google’s rich result tool which offers you accurate information and detail. It further helps you to reduce the errors and other complications arising in the schema markup. 

Updated Markup

Always ensure that your schema markup is updated. This will help you get better results and will contribute to generating more traffic on your website. This is required as the content changes on your website, the same should be reflected in the schema markup as well. 

Avoid Spam Practices 

It is advisable to not indulge in any spam practices for generating more traffic on your website such as keyword stuffing and others. Furthermore, using a schema markup where it is not required is also a misleading and spammy practice which can lead to misleading results. 

Keep Updates 

Ensure that you are always updated with all the latest changes and updates coming in the schema and other practices. This will help you maintain compliance with the updated policies and other requirements as well. 

Concluding Words

In the above discussion we have described and covered all the aspects of structured data and schema markup in detail. MadHawks being a leading digital marketing agency with expert SEO services always recommends implementing such practices for better results. 

For more information you can get in touch with our expert teams today and get your schema markup integrated. 

FAQ’s 

1. What is the difference between schema org and structured data?

The difference between schema org and schema data is that the former is a schematic vocabulary or language being used for interpreting the website content for the search engine, whereas the latter is the data that is being used. 

2. What is an example of a schema?

Example of a schema is a star rating at the bottom of the product description at the search result page which helps the user to understand the efficiency of the product they are investing in. 

3. How is schema used?

Schema is integrated in the website for helping the search engine to better understand the website content and showing better results to the users.