Providing search engines with the right information can increase your website’s visibility.
Structured data implementation is an effective way to help search bots understand your content and its structure.
As a result, the chances of your content ranking for relevant search queries and getting more SERP features improve.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of implementing SEO structured data on your site.
Whether you have a custom-built site or a CMS-based one, this guide is all you need to read for practical guidance.
Let’s dive in.
What is Structured Data?
Structured data is a format used to label data on a web page, making it easier for search engines like Google to interpret that data. It’s an important part of most website’s technical SEO strategy.
With it, you can clearly define different elements on your web pages, such as:
- Articles
- Events
- Products
- And, more
Moreover, it helps search engines showcase rich snippets with important information on search results. Examples are:
- Star ratings
- Images
- Prices
- Recipes
- And, other important information
For instance, by implementing recipe schema (a type of structured data), you can get your recipe ranked as a rich snippet. Here are some examples:
As a result, your website gets more real estate and eyeballs on SERPs (Search engine results pages).
Benefits of Structured Data Implementation
Structured data implementation comes with a range of benefits. Let’s discuss why you should implement SEO structured data on your site.
Improved Search Engine Visibility
Schema markup implementation is a simple and effective way to boost website visibility.
Whether it’s an e-commerce store, a blog, or a job posting site, structured data can help you attract more prospects for free.
Structured data is a search engine language that helps the bots understand your website’s content and structure.
While it’s not a direct Google ranking factor, it indirectly impacts several of them.
Better Click-Through Rates (CTRs)
Structure data such as product and FAQ schema can help you generate rich snippets in search results.
A rich snippet helps you get more real estate on SERPs, potentially attracting more eyeballs than other results.
This can help you generate more clicks. For instance, a product having multiple 5-star reviews is more likely to get clicks from prospects that are in the buying mode.
Now, a page getting more clicks from users is a signal that it’s more relevant to the search query than the results above it. Higher CTR can boost website visibility.
Improved Dwell Time
This is the time an average user spends on your website. Importantly, Google looks at this metric while ranking web pages.
Its algorithms check whether users want to stay on your page or bounce back to look for other results.
When you use structured data, you can help the user understand the web page better before clicking on it.
This helps you ensure that your website attracts users who are most likely to stay on it. And, longer dwell time tends to improve your organic rankings as it’s a positive SEO signal.
Types of Structured Data
There are different types of structured data you can implement to boost website visibility. Here are the most common ones:
Local Business
Helps people find your business with information like:
- Business hours
- Address
- Phone number
- Customer reviews
- Services offered
With local business structured data implementation, you can improve your chances of appearing on Google Maps and local search results.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions structured data directly shows your FAQ content in search results, which can:
- Increase click-through rates
- Provide quick answers to user queries
- Improve SEO performance by occupying more space in search results
Video
Video structured data helps search engines understand your video’s content, boosting its organic visibility. It includes information like:
- Video duration
- Upload date
- Thumbnail URL
- Video description
Job Posting
Do you post jobs on your site? Implementing Job Posting structured data can help you get visibility for job-related searches.
It has details, such as:
- Job title
- Location
- Salary range
- Application deadlines
Event
If you host or promote events on your site, implementing this structured data can help your events appear for relevant search queries. It has information like:
- Event name
- Date and time
- Location
- Ticket information
Breadcrumb
This helps search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of content on your site. In addition to offering better navigation for users, breadcrumb navigation improves your site’s SEO strength.
Product
This structured data type is essential for e-commerce store owners. It showcases information like the product name, price, availability, and ratings.
Steps for Effective Structured Data Implementation
Here’s a step-by-step guide for effective structured data implementation on any website (Custom and CMS-based).
Step 1: Gather the Right Tools
Your first step should be to find the tools that can help you find, create, and test your structured data. These include:
- Google Structured Data Markup Helper: To create structured data markup
- Google Structured Data Testing Tool: To test structured data markup
- Google Rich Results Test Tool: Preview structured data for rich results
- Schema.org: Find structure data markup
Step 2: Identify the Type of Structured Data You Need
Start by identifying the type of structured data your website needs.
This mainly depends on the nature of your website and its content. For instance, an e-commerce store owner would want to implement a product schema.
Step 3: Generate the Structured Data Markup
There are two ways to implement structured data depending on whether your website is custom-built or CMS-based.
For a custom website, you can generate a structured data code with Google’s Structured Data Markup helper.
But, before that, choose a page to markup. It’s best to pick the pages that are performing well in terms of traffic.
Once you’ve selected a web page, go to Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper. The tool helps you mark up elements on a web page so that Google understands the information on that page.
Select the type of schema markup you want to use and enter the web page URL.
If you don’t see the specific structured data markup you want to use, such as FAQ schema, you’ll have to use a different tool.
Next, select the appropriate elements of the web page. For instance, if you’re creating a product schema, highlight the price and select “Price” from the drop-down menu.
After marking up the page, click on “Create HTML” at the top-right of the page. You’ll then get your structured data code.
If you’re on a CMS like WordPress, use an SEO plugin like Rank Math. It’ll automatically generate and insert structured data into your pages.
Step 4: Test the Structured Data
Testing your structured data helps you ensure search engines can read it correctly.
Any error in the code or implementation can prevent search engines from displaying rich results like recipe details and product ratings.
Before adding this code to your website, make sure it works as intended with a tool like:
- Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool
- Or, Google’s Rich Results Test Tool
Both are effective at testing structured data, but if you’re using one for rich results, use the second one.
Just enter the URL or paste the code into the tool to see if everything works well.
Step 5: Insert the Structured Data to Improve SEO Performance
Once you've generated and tested the required structured data code, it's time to add it to your website's back-end.
For custom sites, getting a developer to do this step might be the right way to go.
If you’re comfortable doing it on your own, add the structured data code to your web page before the closing tag. You can also add it to the beginning of the page.
If your website is on a content management system like WordPress, your SEO plugin will handle this step automatically.
Some reliable options are:
- YOAST SEO
- Rank Math
- Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP
- WP SEO Structured Data Schema
Step 6: Monitor and Update to Improve SEO Performance
Setting up structured data on your site isn’t enough. To be able to improve SEO performance, you need to keep yourself updated on its status, and Google Search Console is the right place to do that.
The tool can essentially help you monitor the performance of these results. It’ll tell you which of your web pages won a rich snippet and if they got any clicks from search results.
Go to your “Performance Report” and click “Search Appearance”.You can filter the performance by page, date, device, and country.
Structured Data Implementation: Conclusion
Implementing structured data on a web page is an effective way to let search engines know what the content is all about.
It helps you improve SEO performance and showcase your content on SERPs in the most appropriate way possible.
For instance, with product schema implementation, you can showcase the product price on SERPs. This helps you attract the most qualified leads to your product pages.
In addition, it’s a great way to boost website visibility through an improved click-through rate and dwell time.
The good news is you can implement most structured data types with Google’s free Structured Data Helper tool.
And, before adding the code to your website, you can test the code with the Structured Data Testing tool.
Websites that are built on a CMS like WordPress can automate virtually everything with a plugin like YOAST SEO or Rank Math.
The process may be a little tedious for custom sites, but the long-term benefits are well worth the effort.
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