What is schema and why do I need it?
You’ve probably heard of schema, but you may not know exactly what it is or why your business needs it. Schema is a code that helps search engines understand the content on your website. It’s a way of giving structure to your data so that search engines can more easily find and index your content.
While schema is not required for your website to rank in search results, it can be very beneficial, especially if you want to appear in rich snippets. Rich snippets are those little pieces of extra information that appear in search results, such as star ratings, price ranges, and author names. They can help your listings stand out from the competition and attract more clicks.
Schema can also help you get featured in other types of rich media, such as voice and image searches. With over half of all searches now being conducted on mobile devices, ensuring your site is optimized for voice search is more important than ever. And with image search becoming increasingly popular, optimizing your images for schema can also help you get more traffic from that channel.
What is schema?
Schema is a code (often called “structured data”) that you can add to your website to give search engines more information about your content. This code is usually added as HTML tags, which are then read by search engine bots when they crawl your site.
Schema can mark up different data types on your website, such as events, products, reviews, and more. This code is then read by search engines when they crawl your website, and it can help them display your content in search results in a more useful way.
For example, let’s say you have a recipe on your website for chocolate chip cookies. By adding schema code to this recipe, you can tell search engines that it is, in fact, a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. This may seem like a small thing, but it’s actually quite important.
If you have a product page on your website, you can use schema to markup the product’s name, price, category, and other details. This information can then be used by search engines to display a “rich snippet” in the search results which includes some of this information. Rich snippets can help your click-through rate from the search results because they make your listing stand out more and provide more information about what the user can expect to find on your page.
Schema is not just for e-commerce or recipe websites; any type of website can benefit from using schema. For example, if you have a blog, you can use schema to markup your blog posts so that they appear in the “rich results” section of Google searches. Or if you have a local business, you can use the schema for local business. This can help increase the visibility of your website and attract more readers.
Why Use Schema?
There are several reasons why you should use schema on your website:
Makes your content more search engine friendly
As we mentioned above, one of the main benefits of using schema is that it helps search engines understand your content better. By marking up your content with schema code, you are providing additional information about what each piece of content means. This helps search engines index your content correctly and also display it in relevant searches.
Can Help Increase Your Click-Through Rate
As we also mentioned above, another benefit of using schema is that it can help increase your click-through rate from the search results. This is because rich snippets that include information from schema code are more likely to be clicked on than plain text listings.
Can Help You Rank Higher in Searches
In addition to helping increase click-through rates, using schema can also directly impact how high you rank in searches. This is because Google has stated that they use structured data as a ranking factor in their algorithm.
What Are Common Schema Types?
Organization Schema
Organization schema is code that you can use to markup your business information on your website. This includes things like your business name, address, telephone number, logo, etc. By marking up this information with organization schema, you can help search engines return more informative results for searchers. For example, if someone searches for your business name, they may see your logo and contact information in the search results.
Local Business Schema
Local business schema is used to mark up information about your business on your website. This includes things like your business name, address, phone number, hours of operation, and more. This information will then appear in rich results when someone searches for businesses like yours in their area.
Product Schema
Product schema is code that you can use to markup products on your website. This includes things like the product name, price, description, etc. By marking up this information with product schema, you can help search engines return more informative results for searchers. For example, if someone searches for a product that you sell, they may see the product name, price, and description in the search results.
Recipe Schema
Recipe schema is code that you can use to markup recipes on your website. This includes things like the recipe name, ingredients, instructions, etc. By marking up this information with recipe schema, you can help search engines return more informative results for searchers. For example, if someone searches for a recipe that you have published, they may see the recipe name, ingredients list, and instructions in the search results.
Event Schema
Event schema is code that you can use to markup events on your website. This includes things like the event name, date/time, location, etc. By marking up this information with event schema, you can help search engines return more informative results for searchers. For example, if someone searches for an event that you are hosting, they may see the event name and date/time in the search results.
Ratings Schema
Another popular schema type is the ratings schema. This allows you to specify the rating that your products or services have received. This can be extremely helpful in increasing your click-through rate, as users are more likely to click on results that have high ratings. In addition, it can also help improve your organic search ranking, as Google takes ratings into account when determining which results to show for a given query.
Person Schema
Person schema is a type of structured data that allows you to provide information about a person on your website. This information can include the person’s name, job title, contact information, and biographical details.
Article Schema
Article Schema is a type of code that you can add to your articles to help search engines understand the content. This code provides additional information about your article, such as the author, date published, and keywords. Adding this code can help improve your article’s ranking in search results and increase your click-through rate.
How to Add Schema to Your Website
Adding schema code to your website is relatively simple and can be done in one of two ways: by hand or using a plugin such as RankMath.
How to Use A WordPress Plugin to Add Schema
The RankMath plugin is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to easily add schema to your website. RankMath also allows you to customize the schema code for each post and page on your website. To install the plugin, log into your WordPress dashboard and go to the Plugins menu. Then, click on Add New and search for “RankMath.” Install and activate the plugin.
Once the plugin is activated, you will see a new menu item called RankMath in your WordPress dashboard. Click on it and then go to the General Settings tab. Scroll down to the Enable Rich Snippets option and turn it on. Save your changes.
Now that you have enabled rich snippets, you can start adding schema code to your website. To do this, edit a post or page on your website and scroll down to the RankMath section. In the Rich Snippets tab, select which type of rich snippet you would like to add from the drop-down menu. For this example, we will choose Article.
Fill in the required fields such as author name, publication date, etc. You can also add an image by clicking on the Upload Image button. Once you are finished, click on the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page. That’s it! You have successfully added schema code to your website using the RankMath plugin.
Add Schema using RankMath
How to Add Schema Code to Your Website
If you’re comfortable working with code, then adding schema to your website is not difficult, but it does require some technical knowledge.
1. Choose the type of schema you want to use.
There are many different types of schema, so you’ll need to decide which one is right for your content.
2. Generate the code for your chosen schema type.
Once you’ve decided on the type of schema you want to use, you can use a tool like Schema Generator to generate the code for you.
3. Add the code to your website.
The next step is to add the generated code to your website. Where you add the code will depend on which platform you’re using (WordPress, Squarespace, etc.). Once again, if you’re not comfortable making these changes yourself, hire a developer to help you out.
4 . Test your code.
Once you’ve added the schema code to your site, test it using Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. This tool will let you know if there are any errors in your code so that you can fix them before Google indexes your pages.
There are plenty of good reasons why you should use schema on your website. If you’re looking for a way to improve how well your site appears in searches and attract more clicks from searchers, implementing schema should definitely be on your list of things to do. For more information about schema, check out RankMath’s schema markup guide.
