What is Schema Markup and Importance of Schema Markup in SEO

Schema markup is one of the most cost-effective ways to make your site more prevalent than your competitors’ site. In the following blog, we discuss what schema markup is and how it can help you.

What Is Schema Markup?

Schema markup is basically a form of microdata that is found at Schema.org. When you add the schema markup on your website, it creates a rich snippet or an enhanced description that is visible in the search results.

Search engines like Google, Yandex, Bing, and Yahoo started using these snippets back in 2011. Today, it is imperative, especially for a successful SEO strategy. The context of the query is recognized by the search engine, which is then interpreted in accordance with the search result.

The goal of the search engines is to ensure that users can access relevant and valuable information. For this reason, search engines need to know which information is available on your website. This can be done by looking at keywords, headings, and other text. However, there are specific issues involved in doing so. In this regard, machine learning can improve the process and search engines can use structured data to better make sense of the information available on your site.

Schema markup ensures that the search engine can understand the context of the words on your site. It allows the search engines to understand the difference between the product Apple and the fruit apple. So instead of leaving the search engines on guesswork, schema markup can be used to understand the context of the words.

What Is Schema Used For?

Here are some ways you can use Schema:

• Events
• Business
• People
• Reviews
• Products and services
• Software applications
• TV episodes
• Ratings
• Articles
• Movies
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Book Reviews
• Restaurants
• Videos
• Recipes

Other than this, you can also use Schema to organize any sort of data available on your site, especially if they have associated itemprop, itemscope, and itemtype.

How To Mark Up Your Data?

Microdata can be used to mark up the data. It is a set of tags that help in the annotation of the HML elements. However, one problem with microdata is that you will have to mark every single item within your webpage, so this can get very problematic. Before the Schema can be included to the webpages, you also need to determine the “item type” of your webpage content. For instance, what kind of content is offered on your webpage?

We can use an example of an online store that sells high-quality jackets. You can add a source code on the homepage that will look like this:

<div>

<h1>JacketStore</h1>

<h2> High-Quality Jackets Now Available!</h2>

<p>Address:</p>

<p>123 ABCDEF Road</p>

<p>City, Country</p>

<p>Tel: 123 456 7890</p>

<p><a href=”http://www.jacketstore.com/menu”>Click here to find the best jackets in town!</a></p>

<p>We are open: </p>

<p>Mon-Sat 8am – 10:30pm</>

<p>Sun: 2pm – 8pm</p>

</div>

As you see the code, you will also find a section on the webpage that discusses what your business offers. In the example, all the business information can be found between the starting and ending <div> tags.

On the top of this code, you can add <div itemscope> that identifies the specific item found between in between the code. Then, you can use the attribute of ‘itemtype’ in order to identify the type of item your webpage covers. For instance, here is the itemtype of our example:

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/fashion”>

How To Add Schema Markup on Your Website

You can go to Google Structured Data Markup Helper, select your type of data, and paste the URL of the website or the webpage that you want to markup. You can then select all the elements that you want to mark up and continue adding them until you have included all of the items. You can then create the HTML and add schema markup to your website successfully.

It is also suggested that once you have added the schema markup by going into your CMS or simple the source code, you should test it. This can be done by employing the structured data testing tool to see how the page will look once the markup has been added. In this way, you can analyze the code before it is published. You can also make all the relevant changes before generating the code.