No? The answer should be obvious.
It’s Schema.org Markup!
Schema.org is a markup vocabulary for structured data developed by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex. It’s one of the latest evolutions in the world of SEO. It takes the form of code that you can add to your website to define what different elements, including dates and images, all mean.
Essentially, it’s structured data, and without structured data your website is all information, no context. Adding structured data is what gives it context, because it’s data with a very high level of organization.
When you store information about your website in a highly predictable and structured way, search engines can display it more easily and in a more detailed manner. Basically, because search engines can more easily glean what your page is all about and what different elements it contains, they can rate and rank you higher.
So if you get a handle on how to use the superb language of Schema.org, you might just get a leg-up on the competition.
Getting started
To implement structured data, you need a vocabulary, Schema.org houses a collection of tags along with their properties for marking up the local business listings, products, reviews etc on your website in full detail.
Not everything is necessarily relevant to your website. Before implementing Schema.org on your website, you must first ascertain which elements of your website you need to markup. Do you own a restaurant? Do you sell products in an online store? Do you offer local businesses a service? Whatever your website is designed for, you need to carefully consider what you want to do with the available possibilities.
Once you understand the vocabulary, your applied structured data can be used by search engines to ‘read’ the contents of your web page. You might find you achieve a better display in search results in the form of rich snippets or rich cards.
Structured data in the form of Schema.org is very important for SEO because of its ability to increase the search engine rankings of your website. If your website listing has a rich snippet and your page actually does what your listing promises, then you are obviously a valid result for the customers. This will lead to a lower bounce rate.
Key terms
Structured data forms the basis for a lot of development in the SEO world, and comes with its own set of jargon. Here are some of the key terms you need to know:
- Rich Snippets. Rich Snippets are the extra pieces of information provided by search engines in addition to the regular text in the meta description. They might contain product information like prices, reviews, breadcrumbs, site search, etc. See below.
- Rich Cards. Rich Cards are a new type of rich search results that only appear on mobile devices for certain types of items including recipes, movies, local restaurants and courses. They are presented in a swipeable, touch-friendly way.
- Knowledge Graph. Knowledge Graphs are a key section of information on the right side of Google SERPs. They contain important information about a particular topic: if you are a big recognized brand then you might see your name, logo, and social media profiles on a Knowledge Graph.
- Featured Snippets. Featured snippets are also a kind of rich search result but they don’t mine their content from structured data. They answer a search question in the search results using regular content from the related web page.
Different markups
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