The Basics of Schema Markups Implementation
Site Audit Issues
When you post certain information on a webpage, you need to help search engines understand what a page is about. This can be achieved with the help of schema markups.
What is schema markup? Basically, it's the code that you use to help Google display the content of your webpage in rich snippets. Read further to discover how to use schema markup for SEO efficiently.
The Most Common Types of Schema Markup
Schema.org currently contains 803 different schema types. Google, however, supports only a few of them, although it might change in the future.
Schema markup examples supported by Google include:
- Article
- Breadcrumb
- How To
- Logo
- Product
- Course
- Event
- Review
- Video
Let's explore the most common of them.
Product
This schema in SEO displays the price, availability, review ratings, and shipping details of your products in search results. It is often used in eCommerce to offer a detailed view of your goods for potential customers.
Article
This schema helps Google understand the written content, such as news, blog, or sports article pages. Using it allows search engines to improve title text, images, and displayed data. It also explicitly explains what your content is about.
Event
This schema highlights upcoming events, online or offline. It helps display them prominently in Google search results.
Sitelinks search box
This schema helps present related links to important pages when users search for your brand on Google.
Local business
This schema allows Google to process and display your important business information. This includes business hours, different departments of your business, and other things.
Adding Schema Markup to Your Website
Now that you know the answer to the question “What is a schema markup, and how can it help your business become more visible in search engines?” you probably want to implement it. All businesses should do this, but to be efficient, the chosen SEO schema markup should be tailored to your specific needs.
For instance:
- If you run a blog or an informational website, you can use Article, Person/Organization, and Breadcrumb schemas.
- If you are an eCommerce website owner, you can benefit from Breadcrumb, Product, and Person/Organization schemas.
However, it's important to know not only what is schema SEO strategy for your website type but also how to implement it. The good news is that these days, most websites use modern content management systems (CMSs) that make the whole process easy. Popular CMS options like Wix or Webflow allow adding your markup SEO schemas through customizable settings.
For WordPress users, the process is a bit more complicated and can consist of various options depending on the chosen schema markup for SEO. You can discover more in our article about WordPress rich snippet creation.
You can also add schema markup SEO code to your website manually. However, in this case, we recommend consulting an SEO professional or developer, especially if you have little or no experience with code.
Schema markup code can be written in
- microdata
- RDFa
- JSON-LD
Google supports all three of these languages but recommends opting for JSON-LD if you want to reduce user errors. You can use apps like Merkle's Schema Markup Generator, Google's Structured Data Markup Helper, or ChatGPT to generate such code. Simply choose the type of schema that you want to create and add information about your business.
To insert the code, place it in either the <head> or <body> of the page. Technical users can even use Google Tag Manager to inject the code using Javascript.
Validating Your Schema Markup
At this point, you not only know what is schema markup in SEO but have the idea of how to install it. The next step of the process is code validation.
You can do this with the Schema Validator or Google's Rich Results Test tool. The second option generates detailed error reports for each test result.
Google's Rich Results Test tool is effective for page-specific schema validation, especially for pages eligible for rich results. However, to assess the status of all rich results, you'll need to use Google Search Console.
How to Check Structured Data with Netpeak Spider?
You can verify if the code is implemented correctly by using the Google Structured Data Testing Tool. Simply enter the URL or a piece of code with schema SEO markup syntax into the tool. Integrate the code into your website only if the validator detects no errors.
Netpeak Spider tool allows you to not only identify pages with structured data but also pinpoint ones that should have some data but are lacking it. It also lets you check the structured data formats and types on various pages.
Here's how you can do that:
1. Paste the URL of your website in the 'Initial URL' field.
2. Go to the 'Content' group parameters and then choose 'Structured Data: Markup Types.'
3. The Netpeak Spider will start crawling the data.
4. When the crawl is done, you'll be able to view the results:
- In the inner table
- In the 'Contain structured data' item located in the 'Overview' tab in a sidebar
To validate structured data, you will need to click on the 'Google Structured Data Testing Tool.' It is located in the 'Open URL in service' section of the main table context menu in Netpeak Spider.
Another option is to use the scraping feature. You can do this by:
1. Opening the tab with 'Scraping' settings.
2. Enter [itemprop] selector that will allow you to locate structured data elements.
3. Choose 'Data extraction' → 'Entire HTML element.'
4. Enter the URL of your website into the 'Initial URL' tab.
5. Go to the parameters sidebar to tick the 'Scraping' checkbox.
6. The tool will start crawling.
7. Once the crawl is complete, visit the 'Reports' tab → 'Scraping,' and review the results. Click on 'Found' or 'Not Found' to see pages with or without structured data.
Try Netpeak Spider to see the benefits of this tool for yourself!
Bottom line
Now you know what schema in SEO is, how it can benefit your website, and how to implement various types of such schemes. While this might seem like a complex issue to tackle, with little practice and the help of various tools, it will become easier.
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