In This Lesson You Will Learn
How Structured Data Works
The purpose of Structured Data is to best optimise your website pages to appear in the Google Search results.
With Google’s ever-changing Search Engine Optimisation protocols, Structured Data is the latest method through which Google uses to best understand your website’s content for ranking and potential for enhanced display.
Structured Data (Modern SEO)
What Is Structured Data?
Structured Data is a set coding layout you can install into your website. This helps Google understand important information on your page.
This process classifies page content within your website for potential to populate special search features and enhanced display for your organic listings.
How Structured Data Works
Structured Data is the use of in-page markup to highlight specific elements of a page you wish optimised for Google Search results.
This code installation then initiates to Google that specified content aligns with the users search query, enabling rich result features to appear in Google Search results.
For example, if a user searches ‘how to tie a tie’, the ‘how to’ indicates a query parameter that Google will typically respond with tutorial Videos, and a ‘People also ask’ (FAQ) feature in the search results.
How My Content Can Appear With Rich Result Features
How these Structured Data snippets alter visibility in the search, varies depending on the type of feature category you apply to a given page.
You will likely have seen these rich result features potentially without realising how they’re populated.
The most commonly seen are Articles, Videos, FAQ, and Recipes, though there are far more categories to choose from and apply.
Once applied, your content can then be grouped within the set feature sections of the search results, either directly in-line with the search results, or off to the right, beside the results. This is commonly referred to as a knowledge panel.
How You Can Use Structured Data To Improve Your Business
The more visibility a user has of your business across the search results page, the better. Businesses with content that caters to Google’s best practices will always outweigh those that don’t.
If you have the content on your website, why not use it to the best of it’s abilities. With Structured Data, your business optimises it’s potential to expand exposure and draw as many users in as possible.
Not all Structured Data categories will be applicable for you, but those that are associated to your business will help your organic ranking a great deal.
If you are having an issue, we can help. Please get in touch.
There are a number of ways you can test this. You can either View Page Source and look for the Schema code, otherwise you can use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.