Schema markup is one of the most useful but underused forms of SEO available to businesses. Although it may sound confusing, once you get to grips with the concept, you will be able to utilise it to its full potential to increase the visibility of your webpage in SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages).
What is Schema Markup?
Schema markup is a code that you can use to help search engines, such as Google, to generate more informative results. So, if you are looking for something specific, the schema markup will display additional information related to your search. For example, suppose you search for a restaurant, pub or hotel nearby. In that case, schema markup will display additional information about upcoming scheduled events, providing you as the user with more detailed information.
Schema markup uses schema vocabulary, and Google’s crawlers register this vocabulary which in turn helps Google understand what the content means. This allows search engines to provide rich snippets to users. These rich snippets make your website much more attractive and visible to users on SERPS. This increased visibility, will therefore improve click-through rates and potentially increase your ranking on Google.
Schema markup tells the search engines what the data means. Search engines will organise content from your website and show up in search results. However, with schema markup, some of the content will be organised and show up differently – providing more relevant results to the user.
If you want to use schema markup, then visiting schema.org will provide you with a collection of shared vocabularies. You can then use these shared vocabularies to mark up web pages. All the major search engines can understand these markups.
Types of Schema Markup
There are multiple forms of schema markup, so it’s essential to choose the right one for your business.
1) Breadcrumbs Schema Markup: Breadcrumbs Schema Markup helps search engines understand the architecture of your website. This type of schema markup assists search engines with understanding how content and web pages on your site interrelate. Although his kind of Schema Markup won’t necessarily drastically increase your SERP results, it helps search engines understand the content organisation of your website. Breadcrumb Schema Markup encourages users to browse through more site pages and reduces the bounce rate back to the original search engine.
2) Organisation Schema Markup: Organisation Schema Markup is useful for businesses that want to increase their brand identity and awareness. This schema markup correlates essential information about your business and displays it as a knowledge panel in the search results. Benefits to Organisation Schema Markup include social media following, reputation management and brand recognition. It does this by linking social media profiles within the knowledge panel, directing users to information about your business, and displaying logos and services.
3) Product Schema Markup: Product Schema Markup allows you to show search engine users key information about your products at the top of the SERP’s, in the form of a carousel. E-commerce businesses will benefit the most from Product Schema Markup. You can display details, including price, reviews or special promotions, and images of the products. Using this Schema Markup form can also help you rank higher than your competitors on SERP’s.
4) Review Schema Markup: Review schema markup is helpful for all business types. Reviews are crucial for all companies, with almost 90% of customers making a buying decision based on reviews alone.
Review snippets display business ratings as well as a preview of customer testimonials. Having these reviews easily visible in the SERP results will make your website look more desirable and should result in higher click rates.
5) Local Business Schema Markup: Local business Schema Markup can help you to rank your business higher on SERPS. Google can identify when users are searching for local businesses and will rank local businesses at the top of the search if this is the case. The majority of local searches happen on mobile devices; therefore, it’s crucial to ensure your visibility in Google Local Pack. Local business schema displays key information about your business, including hours of operation, address, phone numbers and displays your reviews. A useful function you can use with Local Business Schema is adding an action schema, including booking an appointment or making a reservation.
6) Sitelink Schema Markup: Sitelink Schema markup can help you provide more search options and become more visible in SERPs. Sitelink Schema can be beneficial as it gives more users relevant search results, directs users to your highest-converting pages, and makes your SERP results more desirable and clickable than other page options.
Why should I use Schema Markup?
Most webpages with schema markup still use HTML, but add schema.org vocabulary to the HTML microdata. You don’t need to learn coding skills or coding language to use schema markup on your website. But, using schema markup will increase your SERP ranking, making the pages appear in rich results. Research shows that users click on rich results 58% of the time, compared to 41% for non-rich results. Some types of rich results can increase your click-through rate up to 87%.
Generally, websites that use schema markup will rank higher in Google and other SERP’s. However, it is very underutilised, with studies indicating that less than a third of websites use schema markup. This underusing could be a result of the challenge of implementing schema markup. But, if you can implement it for your business effectively, you will have an advantage over some of your competitors.
Schema markup displays valuable information about your business and has been called the ‘virtual business card’. The focus of Schema Markup is purely to increase the user experience, as search results that use schema inform the user faster. The user can preview your page and decide whether to continue on your website or move on to the next one. Your website can therefore rank higher and better for various content types and increase click-through rates from users.
Other positives of adding schema.org to web pages include more than just improved SERP rankings. These include improved targeting, helping you reach specific audience types for particular activities. Brand awareness, helping your brand gain more awareness and recognition. And lastly, getting a Call To Action from Google. Rich results will display CTA’s like “Call” or “Get Now,” which can help drive clicks and conversions.
Contact Design Grid today!
However, if you are not confident choosing and implementing your own Schema markup code, then contact Design Grid today! Our digital marketing and SEO experts can help you implement schema markup on your website, to help you get the most out of your SEO.
