Structured data is all the talk these days around your SEO agency, mainly because of the potential benefits it provides to those who can implement it on their website successfully. At its core, structured data helps your website perform better in Google results because they understand more about the page and/ or product and service.
Structured data is one of the few quick wins in SEO that you can actually control. When you implement structured data successfully, it makes your search engine listing different to the stock standard one.
For example, if your page is about a product and you have reviews about it, you can implement schema and have your listing displayed with the little yellow stars next to it.
There are a lot of different bits of schema that can be implemented, so it is important that you review and choose the ones that are applicable to your website. Many people do believe structured data to be difficult to put into their website, but at the end of the day it is simple and website’s like Schema.org can help.
Have a look below at some of the quick wins you can implement for structured data on your website:
1. Schema.org Templates
As touched on in the introduction, Schema.org is the perfect place to start, it pretty much gives you all the help you need to implement schema onto your website. With Schema.org you don’t really have to know that much about schema or coding, you just need to know how to copy and paste!
Schema.org has templates for different types of schema. The first thing you’ll need to do is find the schema you are looking for. Then, have a look at the different examples provided and find the one that best matches your situation (it doesn’t need to be a perfect match).
Once you have your best matched example, click on the “JSON-LD” tab, which will have the code in it. Transfer that code onto your website and replace the relevant information with your own business details, and remove anything that isn’t applicable.
If you are going to remove a section that isn’t relevant to your business then you need to ensure the closing brackets “},” match so you don’t break the code. It is a good idea to check with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to see if it is all in working order.
You can also add in something else that isn’t already included, just have a look around at the other templates on Schema.org to find anything else that is relevant. But make sure you validate the data using the Google tool.
It is important to only put structured data on pages that it is relevant to. This means the Schema.org template you have implement should match the content that is included on the page.
2. Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool
As talked about in the previous point, this tool helps you to see if there are any issues with the structured data on your page. It also provides assistance to fix the issues, if any, on the page.
There are two ways you can use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. Firstly, copy and paste the exact URL where the structured data is included; or secondly, just copy and paste the code in.
This tool is definitely a saviour as you are putting in all this effort into your structured data; you certainly want to ensure there aren’t any issues that impact how your search engine listing is displayed.
3. Try the “isSimilarTo” Schema
This schema is perfect for communicating more information about your product and/ or service. The way this schema works is if you have, for example, one product but a number of different styles. Then you would use this schema to associates all the products together.
4. Try the “additionalType” Schema
This type of schema allows for a more precise definition of your business’s products and/ or services. You can put in a more specific description and this type of schema can be used on a number of different places. Remember, the more information you include, the better Google can understand your website.
Schema.org may not have the exact schema that matches your business’s product and/ or service, but there is more than likely something similar that you can simply tweak in order to suit your situation.
With the assistance of websites and tools such as Schema.org and Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool, it makes implementing structured data much more easier then you first thought. Schema.org has a wide variety of templates for you to try out!
If you are completely new to the world of structured data, then you should start with something small, see how it goes then build on that. Don’t forget to always check back with Google’s tool to ensure the coding is all correct.