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Should my website be using Schema markup?

matt-willson

Even though search engines have advanced remarkably, you can’t expect them to work out everything about your business just from the words you’ve put on your website.  That’s where structured data – as specified by the likes of Schema.org – comes in handy.

The result of collaboration between the major search engines, structured data provided in Schema.org markup gives specific information that search engines translate into “rich snippets” in search results.

Which means – better rankings, and your website taking up more of the search page.

What kind of content benefits from structured data?

There are many pre-defined name / value pairings, grouped into specific types of data. The most common uses of Schema markup are to provide informaiton relating to:

  • Events
  • Products
  • Organisations
  • Places
  • People

How do you add structured data to a site?

There are three ways to provide the information

  1. Using HTML, for example here on a LED bulb being sold online:
    screen-shot-2017-04-03-at-20-03-02
  2. Using javascript, for example here on an event being held by a nursery:
  3. Using (for Google) Search Console, for example here on our homepage:
    screen-shot-2017-04-03-at-20-32-05

How will my site benefit?

It’s not been proven conclusively that a site will rank higher in search, through having structured data. However when a site does appear in search, it is more likely to have “rich snippets”, which in turn do translate to taking up more of the search screen and an improved click-through rate.

We definitely recommend using Schema markup when your website is

  • selling online (marking up product and review data)
  • holding events

We would also recommend taking time to markup

  • your business
  • its location(s)

After that – keep an eye on search results for your industry and services / products, to see the prevalence of rich snippets – if you see them appearing, look through Schema.org to see what’s available.