The Role of Schema Markup in SEO: Enhancing Search Engine Understanding
Technology, though posing some negative effects when it gets out of hand, has significantly changed the landscape of how small and local businesses work. Who would’ve thought that visibility and accessibility of your business to the right customers would have been so easy within the past few years that it has already been a priority for lots of businesses that thrived because of technological advancements? This also means that search engine optimisation, or SEO, has become essential to anyone who wants to thrive in the online space. And as we’ve mentioned, SEO has greatly evolved as well, and keywords and backlinks are a thing of the past. Schema markup has been helping Impressive SEO agency Melbourne in improving how search engines interpret and present your content.
So, if you are new to SEO as well as schema markup, we’ll help you through the basics so that even us non-tech geeks would be able to use this without breaking a sweat.
What is SEO? A Quick Refresher
As we’ve mentioned, SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the practice of improving your website to increase its visibility when people search for information or products using their preferred search engines. SEO helps both you and your customers at the same time, because when it helps your website to rank higher on search engines, the people searching for information will immediately see your page, much more so if they are locals or tourists who want to travel within your area.
But how does schema markup enter the picture?
What is schema markup?
Schema markup, on the other hand, is a type of code that you add to your website so that search engines can better understand the information on your website, translating it to something that users can see in addition to the link to your page.
To make this a little simpler, you can provide specific details to schema markup, like your opening hours, location of your shop, reviews of the customers who already tried your product, promotional events, and the like.
Why is schema markup important for SEO?
Here are several advantages that make your site more attractive to search engines as well as the users:
Better search engine understanding. Schema markup helps search engines deliver the most accurate results to their users by providing extra context about your content, providing users specific lists instead of general information that might not even be relevant to them.
Improved click-through rates. Click-through rates mean the number of times your link has been clicked organically by users who are particularly interested in your content—and adding not only the information of your business but also some additional visuals can improve these rates, making your website rank higher in the search results.
Enhanced local SEO. Schema markup is particularly valuable for businesses looking to attract local customers by displaying along with the results the directions leading to your store, the contact information, and even your opening hours and menu.
Voice search optimisation. Voice assistants have not only been significantly useful to people who are differently abled, but also to everyone in general, and the great thing about it is if your website is structured to this optimisation, users would be able to easily locate you as long as your website is structured as a voice search result in the search engines.
Adding, Testing, and Validating Your Schema Markup
If you feel intimidated by the idea of adding code to your website, you can always turn to tools like data helpers and blog plugins for help, or better yet, hire a website developer if you can’t find the time to work it in your own time, as this makes sure that it’s error-free.
Keep in mind that regardless if you yourself added in the code or you’ve hired a developer to do it, you can always check if things work the way you want it to through a rich results test, and fix them before your SEO impacts your rankings.
It’s okay to experiment with your content.
In the grand scheme of things, particularly SEO, schema markup makes your website clear and straightforward to users online. This little tweak in your page makes a whole lot of difference, especially if your physical store has a major constraint that makes local users barely see your shop, because after all, SEO is not just about making it to the top of the search engine rankings but about making sure the right people find your content at the right time.