How to Use Schema Markup to Improve Your Website Visibility in Search

Schema markup has become quite a hot topic among SEOs, especially since Bing’s Sr. Product Manager Duane Forrester confirmed that schema markup is a ranking factor. Google also encourages the use of structured data. It’s the newest form of website optimization that hardly anyone is using. In a recent study, Searchmetrics revealed that only a small fraction of domains incorporate schema markup (less than 1 percent!). However, more than a third of Google search results contain rich snippets, which are extra bits of information that make a result stand out, as the images below show.

Bottom line: Internet marketers and SEOs have a huge opportunity to jump ahead of their competition by implementing schema for rich snippets.

This article will help you understand what schema markup is, how it works, and why it’s important for making your website more visible in organic search results. I’ll also show you how to mark up content yourself and point you to some handy resources you or your webmaster can use. If there is one thing you do today, make sure it’s marking up one of your web pages and seeing what kind of impact it has on search results.

What is Schema Markup?

Schema markup can be an Internet marketer’s new best friend. It’s a unique set of HTML tags, or metadata, that can be added to your HTML web pages around specific pieces of content to help search engines get a better sense of what a particular page is about. This makes it easier for people to find exactly what they are looking for online and thus have a better search experience. Using micro-data derived from Schema.org, which has become the industry standard for structured data language recognized by Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, you can help search engines better understand the data on your website with more detailed information that provides additional context.

While most HTML tags tell search engines what your website says, schema markup tells search engines what your website means, which helps them deliver better quality search results to users. When you define item types and item properties on your site, you give search engines the structured information they need to create richer search results. Without semantics, search engines end up having to interpret your website data on their own — and you’re left with a listing that may not be the best representation of your site.

Why Is Schema Markup Important for SEOs?

Schema markup is probably the most under-utilized tool for SEO. Here are just a few reasons to start using structured data if you want more eyes on your website:

• Schema helps search engines interpret the data on your website with more accuracy in an organized, structured way.
• Rich snippets make a listing more attractive and increase click-through rates by as much as 15 to 50 percent.
• Websites using schema markup tend to rank higher in search results.
• The more types of schema you use, the more opportunities you’ll have to appear in search.
• Less than 1 percent of websites currently use schema, which means major opportunities.

Despite all the SEO benefits of using schema, its adoption has been slow moving. It may not necessarily be due to a lack of awareness as much as a lack of technical know-how. This creates yet another amazing opportunity for businesses, especially those with marketing and IT departments working synergistically together for a common goal. Marketers may understand why it’s important to use structured data markup, but webmasters are usually the ones implementing it since they have more advanced knowledge of HTML. This schema markup guide will hopefully set you or your webmaster off on the right path.

Your Schema Markup Guide for Rich Snippets

There are actually two ways to go about incorporating schema to boost your SEO efforts. If you’re familiar with basic HTML, then learning how to use schema markup will come easily. If you’re not familiar with HTML, then you can use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to identify elements on your website and simply tag them with the appropriate semantic vocabulary. Kissmetrics has a really great post on getting started with schema using this very tool. As for those of you who like to play with HTML code, here’s what you need to know about using semantic markup to improve the visibility of your website.

Basic Elements of Schema Markup

Now, on to the technical part of this schema tutorial. Structured data has three basic elements: an itemscope attribute, an itemtype attribute and an itemprop attribute. Let’s explore each of these attributes in further detail using Bruce Clay’s content marketing book as an example.

The itemscope attribute indicates that the content between a set of <div> tags is about a particular item, so your opening <div> tag would look like this:

<div itemscope>
<h1>Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals</h1>
</div>

But it’s not enough to label an item as an item without specifying what that item is exactly.

The itemtype attribute provides search engines with a little more context indicating that the content between a set of <div> tags is in fact about a particular item, or in this example, a book. This is done by using the itemtype attribute immediately following the itemscope, so your opening <div> tag will look like this instead:

<div itemscope itemtype=“http://schema.org/Book”>
<h1>Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals</h1>
</div>

Note that the item type is presented in URL format with a link derived from a list of schemas found at Schema.org.

The itemprop attribute is the last piece of the schema puzzle. It’s used to provide search engines with even more information about an item by labeling all the properties associated with it. For example, to identify Bruce Clay as the author, you would add itemprop=“author” to the piece of content referencing his name. This would make your HTML code look like this:

<div itemscope itemtype=“http://schema.org/Book”>
<h1>Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals</h1>
<span> Author: <span itemprop=“author”>Bruce Clay</span> and <span itemprop=“author”>Murray Newlands </span>
</div>

Note the use of additional <span> tags to ensure the item property attribute is associated with the right piece of content. It’s a convenient HTML element that prevents changes in the way a page appears in a browser.

For those of you feeling ambitious, you can also embed an item type within an item property if the labeled property can also be another item with its own set of properties. For example, we can specify that the author of a book is also a person with properties that include a name and a birthday. Visit Schema.org to learn more about embedding items.

One thing that is important to note when marking up your content is to stay away from marking up hidden text so as not to look like spam. Instead, focus your energy and attention on the content elements visually displayed on your website.

Most Commonly Used Schema Types

There are all sorts of schema types recognized by Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, among the hundreds you can find at Schema.org. New item types are being defined regularly, but the most commonly used schema types include authorship, articles, blogs, products, reviews, movies and events, just to name a few. No matter what type of data might be presented on your website, there is probably an associated item scope and item type for it.

Not sure which schema types you should be using? The laundry list of schema types may be expansive, but before you go off on a schema markup spree, keep it simple by starting off with broad item types before narrowing down to more specific ones.

Testing Your Schema Markup

To make sure your schema markup can be read by the search engines, use a structured data testing tool to see how your content will appear in search results. You’ll even have the opportunity to edit HTML right inside the tool if you want to update the schema and test it again. Once you’ve tested your schema implementations and are happy with the results, search engines like Google will be able to read it the next time they crawl your website and interpret your website data more effectively, so you’ll have more opportunities to be visible in search results. In this example, you’ll see that the authorship markup is working.

Key Schema Markup Takeaways

You don’t have to be a programmer to add markup to your content. Schema.org is an excellent resource for getting started.

Get familiar with the available schema types by visiting the Organization of Schemas page and start optimizing your content for rich snippets. There are literally dozens of markup categories to choose from, so find the ones that best represent what your website content is all about.

Lastly, add as many markup elements as are relevant to your website. The more you mark up your content, the better your chances are of improving your visibility and increasing your traffic.

Niki Payne is a writer specializing in lifestyle, op-ed, local community, dating and entertainment content. She likes singing karaoke, playing softball, and learning about online marketing and business development.

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