Structured Data and Schema.org Microdata

Structured data are tools that allow sites to provide information to search engines in a structured way. Using Schema.org markup, you can help search engines better understand your site's content.

These tools allow for better interaction between the site and the search engine. It can increase the site's visibility in search engine results. Moreover, proper markup of data on site pages can improve the site's functionality. You will be able to attract more potential customers.

But, structured data and markup can take time to understand and implement. It can be difficult for those just beginning their SEO and web development journey. To help you master these tools, we'll break down why you need to mark up data on website pages in the first place. You'll learn what types of data you can markup and what fields you can use for markup.

After reading this article, you will have all the knowledge you need. You can use structured data and markup to improve your site's visibility in search engines.

Why Do You Need to Mark up Data on the Site’s Pages?

Structured data is information organized in a way that can be easily processed and interpreted. In the context of web development, this means that structured data is a way of describing content on a web page in a format that search engines can understand.

When a search engine robot visits a web page and tries to analyze its content, it does not always understand what type of data a particular piece of content belongs to. Markup data is better and more accurately perceived by search engines, which results in faster indexing of the site and the construction of enhanced snippets in the rendering.

Data markup helps search engines understand what information should be highlighted as key. It allows search engines to build more accurate search results and better-looking snippets. 

For example, when we search for a movie, we see a bright and colorful picture with the movie's cover art, rating, length, etc. While the search robot sees tags and scripts such as img and video, titles, lists, links, clicks and other elements that help it better understand the page content and index it for search results.

Our way of viewing the page is:

A robot's view of the page is:

Types of Data

Structured data can include different types of information. The most common data types include home page, articles, news, contacts, etc.

All of this and more can be marked up with micro-partitioning and Schema.org. By doing so, you may assist search engines in better understanding the information on the page and providing more informative results in your results. 

Product markup, for example, can comprise information such as price, product description, photographs, and so on. Event markup can include details such as the date, time, location, organizers, and so on. In general, structured data enables sites to deliver structured information about content. It assists search engines in providing more informative search results.

It is important to understand that each page type may require different data types to achieve the best search engine results. Therefore, depending on its content, you should choose the appropriate data types for each page.

There are types of data that should be placed on different types of pages:

Common Types of Markup

Home Page

Product Catalog Page and Product Cards

Services Catalog Page and Specific Service

Article Pages

News Page

Contacts Page

Instructional Articles

Events Pages

Important note: If you mark up a page on your website, it does not mean that you will build an extended snippet for that page or that your page will be included in any additional rendering blocks; this means that it will be much easier for the robot to read the data on the page.

List of Markup Fields

To understand what fields can and should be used in the markups, you need to read the documentation of each markup, and you can also look at your competitors to see what fields they use in structured data. In fact, you can mark up every block on the page, but the question arises whether it makes sense.

There are two types of data that can be pulled into the markup field: static and dynamic. 

If we need to implement markup for one page (for example, for the main page), you can choose any fields you want, but it is vital that they coincide with reality and do not confuse search robots. The programmer will simply add a piece of code to the page, and it will not be affected by changes on the page. However, it is crucial to understand that it is best to use only those types of structured data whose elements are on the pages of your site. Google can impose sanctions on your site if you use micro markup that does not match the content. If this happens, the site will not be able to get an extended snippet (which is what the micro-layout is for) until it gets out from under the sanctions.

An Example of Static Data Markup

Suppose you want to add Organization markup to the main page, but you don't have information about the organization address, phone number, mail, etc., on the main page or in thorough blocks, while all this information is present on the Contacts page. In this case, you can mark up the fields of Organization with static data, which will be manually filled in by the programmer, instead of referring to any elements in the code - this layout will not be considered an error, and you won't receive any complaints from the search engine.

If you want to implement markup on many similar pages (e.g., product cards), you must pull dynamic values into the fields, such as title tags, description, h1, page URL, price, rating, etc. With this approach, the data inside the block with micro markup will change along with page changes.

An Example of Dynamic Data Markup

We have a service listing; we need to mark up each service so that the search engine can better understand the list of services provided on the page and what parameters those services have (name, price, etc.). Let's take the page https://www.webshare.io/proxy-servers  and mark up the fields for it. To begin with, we need to determine what elements are present on the page and decide what types of micro markup we will need after analyzing them. On this page, there is a listing of services (ItemList), a specific service (in this case, we need the markup Product because we sell access to training materials), the image (ImageObject, but apparently forgot to implement :)), price (Offer). In the output, we have the following markup: 

The data are pulled from the elements of the page respectively; with the change of these elements, the data in the markup will also change.

Where to Check Markup

There are four services to check the markup

1. Google Search Console tool
2. https://validator.schema.org/
3. https://search.google.com/test/rich-results?hl=en 

We usually check the markup on the schema's site, i.e. here https://validator.schema.org/, but also, after the page is indexed/reindexed, you should use the services of Google Search Console to make sure that the pages get an extended snippet. In GSC, just in the page report.

A List of Markups With Which Google Can Build a Nice Snippet in the Output

We have prepared for you a list of markups that can help build a beautiful snippet in the search engine results:

There are many more types of markup which can build a beautiful snippet; if you need ideas for beautiful snippets - you just need to view extradition for the requested page to be promoted, in extradition you can find new ideas from competitors and implement them on your site.

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