How does Schema Markup impact SEO?
What is Schema Markup?
Schema Markup tells the search engine exactly what your web page’s content is trying to say. It transforms unstructured information into organized information. Adding schema will aid search engine crawling, allowing the website to rank higher while adhering to other SEO recommended practices.
Schema Markup is a type of Structured Data. Structured Data is any form of data that has been organized to read and obtain information for a certain system or purpose. There are other types of Structured Data, but in the field of Web Development, Schema Markup, or simply schema, is the most common, therefore the terms are commonly interchanged.
Why Is Schema Markup Important for SEO?
The point of structuring your data is to communicate better with search engines. When Google understands entities on a deeper level, it serves better results to searchers.
Items like rich cards, rich snippets, and the knowledge panel appear on SERPs after gathering information from structured data.
While there’s no evidence that that schema will improve your rankings, it does provide a wealth of opportunities.
Types of Schema Markup
Here are five common examples of schema and what they look like on the SERP (search engine results page):
Logo Markup
Logo markup tells Google what your logo is. That way, your correct logo will appear in the Google knowledge panel every time someone searches for your company.
Local Business Markup
Local Business markup points out which elements of your website contain contact information, your address, and other important business details. Google then displays that information in a Local Business Panel on the right side of certain SERPs.
This markup ensures that Google gives those searchers the right information and encourages local foot traffic.
Review Markup
The review markup adds a star rating to the bottom part of your results page entry. It shows searchers what other people think of your site or products. This is helpful because customers are more likely to purchase products with reviews.
Sitelink Markup
Sitelink markup adds extra navigational links to your listing on the results page. Instead of just a link to your home page, searchers will also see links to your careers tab, blog, and other important digital pages.
Product Markup
Product markup gives Google more information about products listed on your digital site so that searchers can see more details directly on the results page.
It also gives Google an image of your product that can appear in Google Image Search. Image searches make up 22.6% of all searches, so you can miss out on a lot of traffic if you ignore it.
How does schema markup impact SEO?
Rich snippets
A rich snippet is a Google search result that shows extra information between the URL and the meta description. Rich snippets often show up for recipes, reviews, and events.
Rich snippets are more interesting and appealing than typical search results, so giving Google the data it needs to create a rich snippet can help drive visibility for your marketing site and clicks from organic search.
Knowledge Graph
Schema markup is also one of the main sources of information for Google’s Knowledge Graph, a knowledge base of entities and the relationships between them.
The Knowledge Graph helps Google better understand users’ search queries, which in turn helps them provide more relevant results.
One significant benefit of being included in Google’s Knowledge Graph is getting a knowledge panel when people search specifically for your marketing brand.