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Structured data for better SEO – The guide to rich snippets

strucutered data

With structured data on your page, you give Google explicit clues about the importance and content of your website. They are also a prerequisite for rich snippets in search results and potentially ensure higher click-through rates.

You’ll learn what exactly structured data is, what it is, and what impact it can have on your website’s ranking throughout this post.

What is structured data?

When talking about structured data, in most cases it means a data format that makes the content of a web page readable for crawlers. They have a standardized format that you use to specify information about a page and classify the page contents.

Google uses such data to more easily capture and classify the content of a page. In addition, data structuring is used to represent particular search result functions and improvements. These are the so-called rich snippets or rich results and also the Google Knowledge Graph.

The schema.org system is used for this purpose. Schema.org is a joint initiative of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex with the aim of creating, maintaining and promoting schemas for structured data on the Internet, on websites, in e-mails and beyond.

The Schema.org vocabulary can be used with many different encodings, including RDFa, Microdata, and JSON-LD. These vocabularies include entities, relationships between entities, and actions, and can easily be expanded through a well-documented model.

Over 10 million websites use Schema.org to tag their web pages and email messages. Many applications from Google, Microsoft, Pinterest, Yandex, and others use this vocabulary to provide richer user experiences.

Is the ranking influenced by structured data?

The rankings of a website in search results are not directly influenced by structured data. However, Google “rewards” the use of structured data with the so-called “rich results”.

These are search results that are prepared or enriched with structured data and thus highlighted for the user. This has a noticeable effect on the click-through rate (CTR).

The small yellow rating stars are the most common form of rich snippets, but there are many other formats.

What structured data is there?

On Schema.org there are hundreds of types for structured data. However, not all of them are supported by Google. For a complete list of supported structured data, see the Webmaster Guidelines.

However, there is some structured data that is very commonly used and will give you more visibility and attention in search results. Good examples are rating stars, sitelinks or breadcrumbs.

We have compiled some more useful types of structured data for you here:

Products

Data on a product (price, availability and ratings) can be stored here, which can then be displayed in the search. This markup is used on product detail pages and shopping aggregator pages.

If you add this markup to your product pages, Google can provide detailed product information in rich search results (including Google Images). In this way, users can see price, availability and the rating results directly in the search results.

This markup can be used to display rich product results to attract potential buyers who are looking for items to buy on Google or images with the items you offer. Your product information must always be correct and up-to-date so that users can see relevant and up-to-date articles.

strukturierte Daten Produkt Rich Snippet

Events

If you are hosting an event, it is helpful if users can already see when and where your event is taking place in the search.

Markup your organized events so that users can discover them in Google search results and other Google products such as Google Maps.

Events of all kinds can be marked with markup – from performances by famous artists to salsa classes two streets away. By adding markup to your events, it makes it easier for users to discover them in search results.

strukturierte Daten Event Rich Snippet 2

FAQs

A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page contains a list of questions and answers on a specific topic. FAQs are a relatively new format that is attracting a lot of attention in search results.

strukturierte Daten FAQs Rich Snippet 1

Courses

Give educational courses or workshops that are on a provider-specific list, you can award them as well. The courses can include the course title, provider, and a brief description.

Job advertisements

Interactive rich search result that job seekers can use to find work. In the job search on Google there is the option to display the company logo, reviews, ratings and job details

What are the advantages of structured data?

  • With the help of structured data, Google provides rich snippets in search results that attract more attention
  • Structured data ensures that you show up in video search or your information is displayed in a Knowledge Graph
  • The displays of the search results attract the attention of the users and thus lead to higher click-through rates
  • You make important information directly accessible to users and create trust in your brand

How does the implementation of structured data work?

Google currently supports the introduction of structured data via RDFa, Microdata or JSON-LD. Some features are already only available when using JSON-LD.

In the medium to long term, it is quite possible that Google will stop supporting RDFa and Microdata. The integration of structured data with the help of JSON-LD is therefore recommended.

What does JSON-LD mean?

JSON-LD stands for JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data. It is a JavaScript notation embedded in a script tag in the page header or text. The markup does not overlap with the text that is visible to the user.

Nested data elements such as the country of a postal address (PostalAddress) of a music venue (MusicVenue) of an event can therefore be expressed more easily. In addition, Google can read JSON-LD data when it is dynamically inserted into the content of the page, for example, through JavaScript code or embedded widgets in your content management system.

Tools for creating JSON-LD markups

As in other areas, there are a number of tools for structured data that can help you set up and check your own awards. Google’s Codelab is also suitable for beginners and can above all help to get started quickly.

There are some schema markup generator that are suitable for beginners as well as advanced users. With these you can generate a valid markup with a few mouse clicks.

However, one must also mention the many plug-in solutions for CMS at this point. A look at the plugin store can be particularly worthwhile for more complex shop systems.

Test tools for structured data & rich snippets

In addition to tools for creating markups, there are also tools for validating this data. These can also be used to test third-party websites for structured data.

Google’s rich snippet test tool shows which rich search result types were found on your website. It also lists errors or suggestions for your structured data.

If errors or warnings are found, you can maximize the individual elements and view details. Click the description to open the Code Explorer for the appropriate area. Explorer uses the rendered source code.

Another tool for validating structured data is schema.org’s Schema Markup Validator. Nevertheless, you should always check again with Google’s tool whether the implemented markup can also be read by the search engine.

Structured data in the Search Console

In Google Search Console, you can see if Google recognizes your awards. The recognized structured data are listed under the item “Improvements”.

The item lists all types of structured data found on your website. There you can also see again if there are any problems with the markups on their website and what the problems are.

Conclusion: More traffic with markups

Markups give your website more space in search results thanks to rich results. With such an entry, users will hardly pass your website and the click-through rate will increase significantly compared to results without rich snippet.

The additional and useful information, such as the product price and availability or quick answers to questions, provide users with no small amount of added value.

However, it is important to know that these are not always displayed in the search, even if you have implemented the structured data correctly. Google reserves the right to decide when rich snippets are displayed and what their scope is.

Structured data FAQs?

What is structured data?

With structured data, the Google bot can be provided with further information on the content of a website.

Why should I use structured data?

This makes it easier for the search engine to classify the web pages in terms of content and thus play them more appropriately for certain search queries. The structured data therefore helps Google to better understand data.

What are the advantages of structured data?

With structured data, you give Google more context to understand what the website is about. This can be helpful for online shops, for example, when the product descriptions are rather short and the search engine indexing is therefore imprecise.

Using structured data, additional content can also be displayed in the search results (so-called rich snippets). For example, customer reviews can be displayed in the form of asterisks or event dates. This has no immediate advantage in ranking, but increases the click rate in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). The additional information makes your search results stand out from those of competitors without structured data and thus attract more attention.

How can I test my structured data?

Mit Googles Testtool für strukturierte Daten können sie herausfinden, ob die ausgezeichneten Inhalte Ihrer Seite richtig implementiert sind und Google diese korrekt auslesen kann.

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