What is Schema Markup and Why Does My Website Need It?

What is Schema Markup | Structured Data?

Schema markup, also called Structured data, is a type of data inserted into your website code that makes it easier for search engines to crawl, organize, and display your content.

Adding Schema markup to your HTML improves the way your page displays in SERPs by enhancing the rich snippets that are displayed beneath the page title.

Schema Markup in WordPress Example

The below rich snippet displayed with stars is the result of correctly applied schema markup to the site content.

Notice how the stars make my listing stand out from the rest on the page.

It’s the latest technology to communicate with google, and it provides enormous advantage to websites that implement it properly.

Below is another one of my schema markup examples in action. If you google the keywords  ‘divorce and estate planning’ ,  notice the five star rating under my client, Altman & Assoc.

My rating schema markup makes the Altman listing pop off the page, and stand head and shoulders above the crowd. What a tremendous advantage and benefit this schema markup offers when implemented correctly!

Schema markup is code that I write for your site that only search engines see,  such as this JSON-LD script below:

{“@context”:”https:\/\/schema.org”,”@type”:”Service”,”name”:”Maryland SEO Services”,”image”:”https:\/\/www.lovettwebdesign.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/mld-google-post-7-18.jpg”,”provider”:{“@type”:”LocalBusiness”,”name”:”Mark Lovett Web Design”,”image”:{“@type”:”ImageObject”,”url”:”https:\/\/www.lovettwebdesign.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Montgomery-county-maryland.png”,”address”:{“@type”:”PostalAddress”,”addressLocality”:”Gaithersburg”,”addressRegion”:”Maryland”,”streetAddress”:”627 Gatestone St”}},”areaServed”:{“@type”:”State”,”name”:”Maryland, Virginia & Washington,DC”},”description”:”Best Maryland SEO Company ”

Why Does My Website Need  Schema Markup?

If you view the above screenshot example to see how the 5 star, rich snippet,  google listing dominates the page and crushes the competition, the amazing advantages your website receives from correctly implementing schema markup should be obvious.

Schema markup will help your website rank better and substantially boost SEO for many content types such as:

• Articles
• Local businesses
• Restaurants
• Services
• Reviews
• Video
• Events
• Products

Implement Schema Markup to Beat the Competition

About one third of Google’s search results incorporate rich snippets derived from schema markup, but according to Searchmetrics, less then 1% of websites are using it!

So if you use schema markup, you’ll automatically have a leg up on the vast majority of your competition.

How to boost SEO with Schema Markup

To boost your SEO, add structured data / schema markup to your website so Google understands, and displays your content, more prominently in search results.

Schema Markup Rich Results Examples

See Schema Markup Rich Results (formerly known as Rich Snippets) examples in Google’s Search Gallery

Rich results on mobile: the carousel

Rich results on mobile are very popular now!

Search results for types of items, like local restaurants, recipes, movies, and courses, often get special treatment in mobile results, which are presented in a touch-friendly, swipeable display, known as the carousel.

How To Add Schema Markup | Structured Data To Your Website the Right Way

JSON-LD is the preferred method of adding structured data to your site. The old way of adding it was using RFDa or Microdata. This is a huge topic, but for now just keep in mind, JSON-LD is the way to go. Don’t use RFDa or Microdata.

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

Google’s goal with their AMP project is to get pages to load lightning fast on mobile using a special kind of HTML.

Google is pushing AMP aggressively which also relies heavily on structured data.

If you want to use AMP in the future,  structured data/schema markup needs to be added to your website.

Conclusion

Although creating schema markup properly takes skill and time, we can’t avoid it anymore.

If your site is important to your business ‘DO IT’.  Implemented correctly, it will achieve amazing results, now and in the future.

Google is always developing new and better ways to present search results, and more often than not, they use Schema Markup | Structured Data,  and will continue to do so well into the future.

Get Schema Markup For Your Site