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Structured data, also called rich snippets, are special tags that allow search engine algorithms to better understand the content of websites. What are the benefits of using them for website owners? Thanks to them, we can stand out from others in search results and thus increase CTR. How to do it? You will learn this from the text below, and you will also read about:
If you are here, you are certainly interested in website positioning and broadly understood internet marketing. I assume that you have already heard the term structured data, but if you are just starting your adventure with SEO, I invite you to read my previous text, thanks to which you will become more familiar with the definition of rich snippets and their types.
These are structured data used to categorize content on a website and are placed in the website's code between its address and title. There are many types of rich snippets, in this text I will discuss the most important of them, including breadcrumbs, stars, and rich snippets for online stores, which you have probably already seen in search results, but perhaps you have not paid attention to them. I didn't pay attention, I only took a closer look at this topic when I learned about Rich Snippets and how important they are for website positioning.
Rich snippets are tags provided on a page to classify its content. They are displayed beyond the standard elements, i.e. the title and meta description, and contain much more information about the website.
Thanks to them, the search engine is able to provide a response more tailored to the user's intentions, for example, when we enter the phrase leather shoe store in the search field, Google will display the corresponding pages and those that, according to the algorithm, are related to the user's intention. Therefore, the results will include direct redirections to stores, straight to the offer of leather shoes.
Another example would be a search for the phrase black leather shoes Lasocki, the results will redirect you directly to a specific product page matching the keywords you entered. Structured Data will show us the rating of this product and information about its availability.
Rich snippets can be implemented in one of four formats:
Rich Snippets allow you to mark elements such as ratings, product cards and their availability status, articles, FAQ pages, recipes, local data for companies. In the next paragraph I will describe those that I consider the most important, applicable to blogs, portals and online stores. For more information about structured data and formats, visit Schema.org [https://schema.org/docs/schemas.html].
Due to the fact that Google is a popular search engine and more and more people use it, and the number of websites is constantly growing, the algorithms have to examine more and more data. Structured Data is being implemented to make it easier for them. Rich snippets organize pages according to many categories and are a successful attempt to introduce rules for marking websites, they can take various forms, e.g.:
This tag indicates the shopping path that the user should follow to get to a specific page of a given product, which is useful information for him. However, it is also important from the SEO point of view, because thanks to the breadcrumbs, the algorithms better understand the structure of the store and if it is well planned, you have a chance to rank higher on the SERP (search results page). Example of breadcrumbs in the search results below.
This is one of the most popular tags that is known, even by sight, even to those network users who have average knowledge of IT. Raiting Stars, also known as stars because they take this graphic form, are information regarding product evaluation. Products, services and articles can be assessed. Google displays not only the average rating, but also the number of all reviews on the website. Stars have an impact on CTR (locality rate). Everyone probably knows what they look like.
This is another popular type of tag used on blogs to mark articles. The texts should be properly tagged, have well-chosen headings, and it is also worth including data about the author and the date of publication. All this information will influence the website's rating and allow the search engine to present its users with content optimally tailored to their queries. If you publish content on a blog, you are certainly interested in SEO, be sure to read our text about the types of keyword phrases and how to choose keywords
This rich snippet allows you to display multiple search results in the 1st position, the results may come from one or more sites. The search results presented in the carousel are in the format of Rich Cards and can be moved with a finger movement (mobile) or with one mouse click (desktop). The card consists of a large image and a preview of the page content. This solution allows you to increase conversions because the user can pre-assess what is on the website and whether it is what he was looking for in the search results. In this way, the website is visited by people who are actually interested in our offer, so the chance that they will use it is greater.
Currently, there are 4 types of extended cards available, the carousels can present: recipes, events, products and reviews. Each type of content has a corresponding group of tags.
This is a format for describing culinary recipes, it is useful for those who run culinary blogs or on portals where recipes are published. In the case of this Rich Snippets, the search engine displays information such as: average rating, number of votes cast, preparation time of the dish and its energy value in calories. Recipes should include not only the cooking or baking time, but also the total time needed to prepare the dish, a list of ingredients and preparation instructions. Probably each of us has seen recipes on Google.
If you have a tab with frequently known questions on your website, it is worth including this tag so that the FAQ (QA) section appears directly in search results.
FAQ- Frequently Asked Questions
QA- Questions & Answers
Since Google started supporting this structured data format in 2019, FAQ (QA) has had a triple benefit. This not only makes it easier for search engine users, who will find answers to the most frequently asked questions about the brand's offer in one place and saves time for employees who would provide these answers, but also a beneficial measure supporting positioning.
Local data for businesses is not a business listing on Google. These two things are often confused, so let me clarify. Rich snippets for companies may contain information such as the company name, contact details, link and location.
If you don't have a Google business card, be sure to make one, and if you do, make sure that the data in the NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number), as business cards are often called, at least in English-speaking countries, are consistent with those on the company website website. This is another signal for the algorithm about the credibility of the brand, which is positively assessed by them.
Below I will present the extended fragments that you should not only know, but also implement on your website if you sell online. Structured data increases conversion and usage affects SEO, as the report prepared by Power Reviews "Mapping the Path to Purchase" shows, over ⅓ of all purchases start with the Google search engine, of which more than half of people making them (52%) will click on the next step one of the offers in Google Shopping. This report clearly shows that it is worth fighting for a high position on the SERP. And structured data helps with this, and thanks to them you can stand out in the eyes of users.
Of course, the ones I have already mentioned are also used in e-commerce (I mean the main Raiting Stars, because they are often used by customers who decide to make a purchase and therefore you must implement them in the store), but below I present the remaining Rich Snippetts most often used in online sales.
This rich fragment allows you to include basic data about the product, such as its name, brand, description, unique code (SKU), price, availability information, photos and the previously mentioned stars, i.e. ratings.
A detailed diagram for rich snippets for products can be found here, for example
I am a necessary element because visual impressions are an important factor in the purchasing process. Even the best-constructed description and tags do not evoke the same reaction as images. Visual stimuli are processed faster, interpreting language requires more energy and concentration, this mechanism is responsible for always seeing the image faster.
In the case of some products, such as electronic ones, technical data is very important, so when creating product cards, you should definitely add them.
It is a very important factor influencing the purchase decision. For many companies, pricing strategy is the main way to expand their markets. Search engine algorithms are also programmed to check whether the price has been added to the product card.
Structured data also allows you to add information about delivery details, which is important from the customer's perspective, especially now, when there are many options for delivering goods and, therefore, user preferences for them. Where free delivery is available, we may include information about free delivery and the area to which it applies using tags. It is certainly worth taking advantage of this, because the possibility of free delivery is important information for many users and certainly influences the decision to purchase.
On the Google Search Center website [https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structured-data/product] you will find information that the availability status of a given product is a recommended feature. This is not surprising, because in the case of shopping, visiting a website that has the desired item on offer, but it is not available, means that you cannot buy it, i.e. your needs are not met. And as is commonly known (at least among SEO specialists and people involved in internet marketing), meeting the needs of users is the purpose of the search engine.
All information that you should mark on the product card is important for potential customers, tagging them according to the scheme will also allow the data to be properly read by the algorithms. Using the product card tag results in a change in the appearance of the page in the search results, pages marked with this extended fragment appear on the SERP as follows:
Structured data influences the position of the website in search results and allows it to be optimized in accordance with traditional and voice searches, you can read about the latter and the Voice Search trend in general in our text here.
In this article, I'll focus on how to check if you have rich snippets implemented in your page's code, and if not, how to implement them there. But from the beginning.
One of the most important advantages of using rich snippets in your website's code is the ability to stand out in search results. Nowadays, in the abundance of various information, when every website owner constantly strives for this valuable attention of Internet users, the ability to focus it on our website even for fractions of seconds is already a success. After all, the chance that a person potentially interested in our offer will click on our link increases, and this is the first step to turning him or her into a sales lead.
Thanks to Rich Snippets, the search engine can include various additional information directly in the search results. Thanks to them, the Internet user, already at this stage, can initially assess whether the website meets his needs and intentions, which translates into clicks on links by people who are actually interested in what we do, which in turn increases the CTR. And this factor is already assessed by algorithms and affects the position of the website on the SERP.
According to Search Engine Land data, the use of tags can increase CTR by up to 30%, so there is certainly no need to convince them of the advantages of this solution.
In some cases, the search engine generates structured data itself, based on the semantics of the code, but usually you have to add it yourself. Before you take any action, let's start by checking whether rich snippets haven't already been added to your page.
You can implement structured data on the website by:
No matter how technically advanced you are, you will certainly be able to find a way to add tags, but if you don't feel up to it or are concerned about doing it correctly, you can outsource this task to professionals.
In this case, it is recommended to enter data using one method of marking the page content (microdata, microformats, RDF).
It is necessary to use appropriate markings; if you use them contrary to the guidelines, Google may penalize you, e.g. by imposing a filter. Excessive saturation with unnatural SEO phrases may also have the same consequences as introducing an inappropriate data structure.
All data labels are available on Schema.org, you need to choose the ones that suit your site, its primary goals, and type of activity.
During implementation, validation of structured data is necessary to check whether rich fragments have been implemented correctly.
Google's Data Testing Tool allows you to quickly check whether your rich snippets implementation is correct. In addition to the proposal of the giant from Cupertino, you can find other proposals, both free and paid, varied in terms of the scope of functions, but allowing to achieve the assumed goal of validating structured data.
Online stores, regardless of the CMS they use, have an easier time implementing structured data because all you need is an appropriate plug-in that allows you to add appropriate tags.
In the case of PrestaShop CMS, there is an SEO Structured Data Schema Markup & Rich Snippet plugin, which is a quick module for automatically adding structured data in the recommended JSON-LD format.
In the case of stores based on WooCommerce from Wordpress, there are several tools that will deal with the implementation of rich fragments. Among the best plugins, it is certainly worth mentioning Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP, VW Reviev Pro or Schema Pro.
Data Marker in Google Search Console is one of the main tools that allows you to organize structured data without having to interfere with the website's source code. It was created to facilitate the data categorization procedure.
Data Marke supports 8 data types:
You can operate it from the dashboard in Google Search Console, after logging in, in the left side menu you must select the Search engine appearance tab, then the Data Marker tool and the Start highlighting command.
After providing the details of the page (including its URL), you can proceed to the next step, which is selecting the appropriate structured data. After adding specific elements, the tool itself will start suggesting the addition of additional and similar pages and subpages.
Increasing the readability of a website may influence its evaluation by search engine algorithms.
It is a project created in 2011 to unify structured data schemas, in which 4 of the largest search engines, i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex, joined forces.
It is a kind of structured data dictionary, where we can find rich fragment diagrams in RDF, JSON-LD and Microdata formats.
The Schema.org project has had 13 updates so far, the last one taking place in July 2021.
Schema design has three benefits: first, it helps search engines evaluate the content of pages more precisely. From the website aspect, it ensures the correct use of structured data and therefore the semantics of the entire code. Thanks to extended fragments, the user receives more visually attractive search results and detailed information about the website directly on the SERP.
This three-way benefit supports the use of appropriate data tags that facilitate page indexing.
Structural data influences the position of a website in search results and allows it to be optimized in accordance with traditional and voice searches in Google.
Also check:
- Wordpress site optimization. How to speed up your site. Cache plugins.
- Google Search Console - what is it?
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