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Publisher growth tactics for election season | WEBINAR
After going through this guide, you should be able to add schema to your articles to improve Google’s ability to comprehend your website.
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2.5.1 What Is Schema?
Schema markup is code or structured data that helps search engines more easily classify and display a page’s contents.
There is an unfathomable amount of data on the internet, complicating search engines’ ability to provide the ideal search results for their users. In response to this challenge, search giants Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Yandex collaborated to create schema markup, which allows publishers to better communicate their content to the search engines.
Common examples of schema markup include:
If you were looking for a recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala on Google, wouldn’t you be more likely to click on a link that mentions the cooking time, has a snippet of ingredients as well as a user rating?
Schema allows search engines to display your web page in the rich-content format. See the below example to see what we mean.
If we use Schema.org’s validator tool to check the tasty.co link’s JSON-LD structured data (schema) snippet, we can see it looks like this:
We’ll talk more about the different design languages used in structured data a little later, but for now, let’s focus on the above example.
As you can see in this snapshot, highlighted in yellow, all the relevant information — type, title, date published, date modified, author, ingredients, etc. — are clear cues to the search engines on how to display the page and make it more appealing to searchers.
Google Search Advocate John Mueller has said it’s quite likely that implementing schema is going to get tougher in the future. This is owing to the ongoing development of additional and more complex types of structured data markups.
We’ve explored other challenges encountered when trying to implement structured data below.
For schema to work as intended, the code needs to be error-free and properly implemented as per the prescribed syntax and policies that govern it. These directives from Google require every applicable object to have a valid value in the property field.
Errors while using schema will not provide the desired rich media result when your site is displayed on SERPs.
You need to ensure that your JSON-LD markup is describing or highlighting an aspect in the code that is also visible in the on-site text.
For example, you have a review in your SERP rich result, however, the same is not there on the page that the user clicks through to. It may be an oversight or a coding error, but this may be perceived by the search engine as deceptive or misleading.
Google, in particular, tends to send a warning through Google Search Console (GSC) when it encounters such a scenario during its crawling routine. Here’s an example of a warning regarding missing fields from a site’s products page.
While Google issues a warning, it also gives you the chance to fix the issue and use schema the way it’s intended.
While using schema markup doesn’t guarantee improvements to your site’s rankings, it does help search engines gain a better understanding of your content.
The benefits of using schema markup are:
You can design your schema in one of the three formats supported by Google Search:
Among the aforementioned three, Google recommends using JSON-LD. Since it is a scripting language, it is added using the <script> tag on the page, which means it does not create any blank spaces on the page. It is relatively easy to use and can be placed in either the head or the body of the page.
Another advantage of using JSON-LD is the ease of reviewing and editing it. Unlike the other two HTML-based formats, JSON-LD script is distinct and easy to identify amongst numerous lines of a code, making it quicker to debug.
Here is an example of a JSON-LD script for a recipe page:
You can see how the script clearly identifies the title, type (recipe), date published, description, preparation time, and author of the article to appear as a rich result snippet in the SERP.
With the design basics of schema under our belts, it’s now time to see how we go about implementing markup on our sites. For this section, we’re going to look specifically at WordPress sites, for the simple reason that it’s the world’s most popular CMS for publishing.
This process can be broken down into three main steps.
Let’s examine each step a bit more closely.
Creating the schema markup can be done in one of three ways, either manually, via an online tool or through plugins.
If you have the knowledge and the experience, you can choose to write the schema in one of the three Google-supported formats. Simply pick your text editor of choice for web development and begin writing.
We’d only recommend going down this path if you’re a web developer. Otherwise we’d recommend using another option such as an online tool.
A simpler option to writing your own code is to pick one of the number of free online tools available to you. For this guide, however, we’re going to look at Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.
Structured Data Markup Helper can help you generate schema in a few easy steps. The best part about using this tool is that its GUI can create the code and implement it as well. Let’s see how it works.
For this example, we’ve chosen the option of Book Reviews for the popular site www.goodreads.com.
Another user-friendly option is to use a plugin, such as Yoast SEO and Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP, which can generate the schema for you. If you don’t have enough coding experience, then using a plugin might be the best way forward for you. This option has the advantage that most plugins are able to test and implement the schema for you.
Having created your schema, you need to test it for errors. While a plugin or Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper may already do this for you, it’s always prudent to test the code and see how it may appear on the actual web, before deploying it.
You can use Google’s Rich Results Test and Schema.org’s Schema Markup Validator tools for this.
This tool test’s your structured data to see which rich results your page will generate and can also preview how those results will look in Google Search if applicable.
If we do a Google Search for the “best apple pie recipe”, Natasha’s Kitchen is one of the rich results returned.
Copying the URL into Google’s testing tool, we have the option to test it for both mobile and desktop screens. Selecting either option shows us there are seven items that are eligible for the rich results section of Google’s SERPs.
Let’s look at a quick preview of the first valid item on mobile:
This tool is used to validate all Schema.org-based structured data that’s used on a page. Running the same URL through Schema Markup Validator we can see the use of the recipe schema as well as the various tags.
Now that your code has been tested, you can now deploy it. You have a number of different ways to do this.
Pro Tips
Irrespective of how you generate the schema, it may eventually require tweaking. As such, it is worth testing and validating your code to ascertain how it will appear on the SERP.
Use the URL Inspection Tool to ensure all your links are accessible to Googlebot, otherwise, they won’t be crawled or indexed.
Use Google’s Codelabs to tinker with the concepts discussed in this module, to see the code in action, as well as ways to optimize it.
Schema is a great way to have your site featured in the SERPs and drive up organic traffic. However, not getting the code right or non-compliance with Google’s guidelines regarding structured data can be detrimental in this regard.
In fact, Google has warned that pages that violate its guidelines “may receive less favorable ranking or be marked as ineligible for rich results”.
To make the most of schema markup, we’ve drawn up our list of the top mistakes to avoid.
With the prevalence of click-bait links and other forms of spamming, Google has developed a low-tolerance policy to anything that is deemed spammy. The search giant has clearly stated that it will apply a manual action to affected pages.
A lack of action after repeated warnings can see your page flagged, which means that not only will it not show up on rich results but your site could even be downgraded in SERP rankings.
Schema is frequently used to add reviews and ratings to pages. However, these reviews need to be independent and genuine.
Google has an internal detection system to flag when publishers generate their own reviews. In that case, the search engine might overlook the review entirely or, in extreme cases, even lower the site’s ranking.
While JSON-LD is easy to use, errors in the script when manually marking up schema will lead Google’s search algorithm to ignore your content in part or in entirety.
If your structured data is in any format other than JSON-LD, Microdata or RDFa, Google will not pick it up.
If you accidentally or deliberately block Googlebot’s access to your structured data content, your site will not show up in the SERP’s rich results. Check for robots.txt, a noindex tag, or any other access control methods that may block access.
While the date is an innocuous-seeming property, it can mean different things. Consider datePublished and dateModified. These are two distinctly different tags, and using them interchangeably can hamper your SERP performance.
Ratings is another example. Failing to differentiate between product versus category-based ratings and using the same markup for both could be misconstrued by Google as being deliberately fraudulent and result in the violation being flagged.
Google describes this as a “manual action”, which increases the chance that the page (or in some cases, the entire site) will not appear in Google SERPs.
Here are some of the best practices to optimize your structured data and increase your discoverability on SERPs.
When using Schema.org vocabulary for structured data, always rely on the Google Search Central documentation as a guide to the search engine’s behavior.
This is because Schema.org contains additional attributes and objects that may be applicable for other platforms but are not relevant to Google Search and are, therefore, ignored by the search engine.
Include as many of the suggested page properties that are relevant to your content in order to help Google comprehend it better. This also enhances the user’s search experience and increases the likelihood of your content being viewed.
If you’re using images on your page, then ensure that the image URLs are accessible and can be indexed and crawled by Googlebot.
To increase your page’s relevance and visibility, include multiple rich items. For example, if you’re covering a sports event, then adding a highlight video reel, a scorecard and a breadcrumb will give the crawler a more complete idea of your content
Marking all user-visible information with structured data increases your chances of appearing in multiple searches. You should also consider linking them together to offer more comprehensive information to Googlebot by using the @id tag.
The @id tag is used as an Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). Using it, you can identify your schema, subschema or a specific object. By using it in your structured data, you can identify the base objects and tag them to a common theme, like the sports event example cited above. Linking them together informs Google that these are related and should be displayed as such in the SERP.
The Rich Results Test tool allows you to see how your rich results will actually appear when a user searches the content, ensuring compliance with Google’s technical guidelines.
There may be instances when you need to duplicate your structured data across several pages within your site for added emphasis.
For example, if you’re selling some ingredients for a recipe, listing job openings or highlighting a vehicle for sale, the description of the content and values of the property will remain the same.
But if you use a different value for the location, the algorithm will consider each instance as unique and display it accordingly. If you don’t do this, then the occurrence will be treated as a duplicate and get ignored in the search results.
Prominent soccer site Goal.com goes beyond marking up their articles with basic news article schema, they also markup people, places and things. What makes the site so easily discoverable is that the publisher has also done this across all of its language-targeting sites.
Let us go behind-the scenes and take a look at the code and structured data properties that Goal.com uses.
As you can see on the right side panel in the image, the publication has peppered its page with several relevant properties and corresponding values. It uses the NewsArticle schema and contains all the key information needed to inform Google regarding the content and context when it displays the link on the SERP – type, accessible image, descriptive headline, dates for publishing and modification, author name, etc.
The code also makes use of the @id tag as mentioned in the above best practices section.
If you wish to inspect the code in more detail, click here.
Taste.com.au is one of Australia’s most popular food sites, with a collection of more than 50,000 recipes. Pertinent to its core purpose, the publisher has used a recipe card schema across the site to ensure heightened visibility as well as a greater UX.
Let us take this recipe as an example to check out their detailed schema markup, and use of properties and rich features.
Notice the use of multiple properties of the recipe schema to make the page attractive to searchers when it appears in the SERP. There’s a detailed use of properties and objects to make the page stand out, including ingredient, parsedingredient, preptime, cooktime, serveQuantity, difficulty, etc.
It is little wonder then that the site gets such a large amount of traffic.
At the close of this module, you should now have a clear idea of the schema’s ability to help search engines better understand and display content.
Not only is it useful for search bots, but it is also equally beneficial for users, who receive more detailed SERPs. Publishers, meanwhile, benefit from greater discoverability with higher potential traffic.
Remember to classify content and develop a plan to map your schema accordingly, whether it’s done manually, programmatically or via a plugin.