When it comes to being found on search engines, knowing all of the intricacies of each algorithm can sometimes feel like you’re solving the riddle of the Sphinx. At Onsharp, we aim to create strategies and provide the best resources to help your business be found. One of the best ways to display data from your website in a search engine friendly manner is to use Schema.org markup in your HTML. Let’s start at the beginning.
What is Schema.org Markup?
Schema.org is a collaboration between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex to create a consistent vocabulary to categorize data. When a person arrives on your website, they have the ability to understand the context of your page. Schema.org provides a great example through the lens of Avatar:
If your website contains the header text of<h1>Avatar</h1> viewers can typically understand that you’re referencing the movie rather than a profile photo based on the other content on the page. Search engines aren’t quite as perceptive. Schema.org markup allows you to tell search engines that you are, in fact, referencing a movie.
Here’s an example of what you would add to make sure search engines interpret your content in the correct way:
<div itemscope itemtype ="http://schema.org/Movie">
<h1 itemprop="name">Avatar</h1>
</div>
Simple enough, right?
Why is Schema.org Markup Important?
Search engines have made significant shifts in the way they display information. Rather than relying on raw keywords, the algorithms work to identify the intent of the searcher to provide them with the most valuable information. By focusing on the intent of a searcher, the context of your content becomes extremely important.
Adding Schema Markup to your pages will help your website rank higher, appear more prominently in a search engine results page, and lend to higher clickthrough rates. A recent Searchmetrics study found that less than 1% of websites use Schema.org Markup, and those that do rank better by an average of four positions when compared to pages without. Knowing these statistics, it’s clear that this kind of markup is untapped potential for an enormous number of websites. By utilizing this language, websites get an immediate leg up on their competition.
How Can You Add Schema.org Markup On Your Website?
Schema.org is highly user friendly – rather than having to learn a new coding language, it simply taps into existing HTML tags that are already present on your website. Google Structured Data Markup Helper can assist you in identifying and tagging your content, which can then be applied directly into your website CMS.
If any of that happens to make your head spin, we would love to help! Get in touch with Onsharp today.
