Schema Markup and SEO

Schema markup is one of the many techniques to improve your SEO. This new form of optimisation is one of the most powerful but least-utilised forms of SEO available today. In fact, some people have taken to calling schema markup your virtual business card.

Schema markup can make your page stand out in the sea of search results. 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. For example, some search results contain star ratings and publication dates. Both of these can be added using schema markup or structured data.

Structured data can be used to mark up all kinds of items from products to events to recipes.

In technical terms, what is schema markup?

It is code in your webpage which tells the search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing what your data means and not merely what it says.

It is a form of code that can be added to any HTML, XHTML, and XML-based document.

Markup is created by adding pieces of code to the HTML that consisting of pre-defined tags. Or if you use Wordpress, it can be done using a selection of different plugins.

These set of tags can be read only by search engines while crawling your pages and are not visible to users.

This, in turn, enables the search engines to return more informative results to the users.

What does schema markup actually look like?

There is a plethora of schemas to choose from, depending on the type of business/organisation that you are.

For example, organisational schema markup is used for organisations like school, NGO, company, club, etc. Also, site Nnvigation schema is used to make search engine aware of your site structure and navigation.

Here's an example of the local business schema markup for a page on our site:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "LocalBusiness",
  "name": "London SEO Agency",
  "url": "https://searchauthority.co.uk/london-seo-agency.html",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "130 Old Street", 
    "addressLocality": "London",
    "postalCode": "EC1V 9BD",
    "addressCountry": "GB"
  },
  "openingHoursSpecification": {
    "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
    "dayOfWeek": [
      "Monday",
      "Tuesday",
      "Wednesday",
      "Thursday",
      "Friday",
      "Saturday",
      "Sunday"
    ],
    "opens": "09:00",
    "closes": "18:00"
  },
 "aggregateRating": {
  "@type": "AggregateRating",
  "ratingValue": "5",
  "reviewCount": "23"
  }
}

LocalBusiness and PostalAddress schema markups are useful for your local listings, especially for the physical stores or locations.

For best results, experiment with schema markup to see how your audience responds to the resulting rich snippets.

Why are schemas needed?

Search Engines work hard to understand the content of the page. However they can't always determine exactly what the page is about. Schema markup helps the search engines understand your web pages purpose which can have a positive effect on your page's rankings. In turn, this helps provide users with better, more accurate information in the rich snippets that are displayed beneath the page title.

What is the significance of structured data for SEO?

Due to its standardised semantic vocabulary, when added to your sites HTML, schema markup helps the major search engines understand your pages information better and return richer, more informative results.

Therefore, we can say that a better schema markup means better SEO.

This article was written by Gaz Hall, a UK based SEO Consultant on 14th January 2013.

Gaz has 20 years experience working on SEO projects large and small, locally and globally across a range of sectors.

If you need any SEO advice or would like him to look at your next project then get in touch to arrange a free consultation.