How to Speak Search Engine

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Marshall Cox
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How to Speak Search Engine Using Schema.org and Structured Data to Power the Search Results of the Future Want Your Search Results to Look Like This?

1 How to Speak Search Engine Using Schema.org and Structured Data to Power the Search Results of the Future Want Your Search Results to Look Like This? Search engines want to provide more rich data in search results: everything from recipes to events (pictured below), phone numbers, and movie times. Rich content provides consumers the information that they need more quickly and makes them more likely to convert. But in order for search engines to show this content, businesses need to use structured data to tell them what the content represents. Rich snippet with event details in Google SERP resulting from Schema.org markup. Image: Google. One of the fundamental challenges for search engines is how to make search results more relevant to users. To this end, search engines have to determine the semantic meaning (context) of every web page on the internet. This is an enormous challenge, even for the most advanced algorithms. For example: Google might know that there is an image on a web page, but it may not be able to determine what the image represents. Is it the business logo? Is it an image of a storefront? Or, Google might know that a page has content about a brand, but is it a store location? If so, which store location? A page might contain the keyword/phrase tombstone, but what is that in reference to? The city? The movie? The object? The pizza? 1 How to Speak Search Engine: Using Schema.org and Structured Data to Power the Search Results of the Future

2 1 Rather than hoping that search engines can correctly interpret content on a page, webdevelopers can package data/content in a way that provides an explicit meaning to search engines and people who are searching on the web. Schema.org is a collaborative effort between the major search engines to provide a structured framework around which search engines can effectively determine the actual meaning of a page and its underlying content. For example, the search engine might know that a web page represents a place, but what kind of place is it? Additional tags can be used to tell search engines that a page contains information about a local business: What kind of local business is it? A department store. What are the business hours? M-F 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Is there a map to the location? What kind of products and services does your department store provide? Rich snippet showing reviews in Google SERP resulting from Schema.org markup. Image: Google. Despite the clear benefits, few sites make use of Schema to markup their content. A recent study by Searchmetrics showed that while 36.6% of Google s search results included at least one snippet from Schema, only 0.3% of all domains are using Schema markup. Better local content helps pages rank higher and makes their content more relevant to a wider range of search queries, such as where can I buy [product] in Washington? In turn, having this data surfaced on the SERP can help improve click-through rates and conversions Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Domains without Schema Google Search Results integration (99.70%) Containing Schema Snippet (36.6%) Domains with Schema Google Search Results integration (0.30%) Not Containing Schema Snippet (63.4%) Fig. 1 Share of domains with/without schema.org markup. Source: Searchmetrics Fig. 2 Share of Google search results with/without Schema.org data markup. Source: Searchmetrics 2 How to Speak Search Engine: Using Schema.org and Structured Data to Power the Search Results of the Future

3 What You Need to Mark Up with Schema.org The short answer? Everything. But if you can t mark-up everything, our recommendation is to ask yourself the following: What do I want my customers to see on the SERP? What questions do my customers have about my business? What action do I want my customers to perform once a user comes to one of my local store pages? By and large, most users who perform a local search are interested in where the business is located (is it within 5 miles?), whether the business is currently open, and possibly how to contact the business. In the following pages we ve provided sample code for a core set of Schema.org tags that we use on Yext local pages. Additional tags will depend on the business vertical. For example, people who search for restaurants are often interested in the menu, so restaurants will want to make sure to tag menu information on the page. A full hierarchy of Schema terms and sample code is available at Schema.org is the Future of the Web With the backing of Schema.org by Google, Bing, and Yahoo it s likely that Schema will become the de facto vocabulary (lingua franca) for describing data on the web. The web is evolving to a point where search engines are no longer indexing text and keywords, but they are instead indexing data, entities, things, and the relationships between them. Marketers that embrace using structured data and Schema.org now will future-proof their web pages and make more rich content discoverable on the web, in apps, and internet-connected devices. 3 How to Speak Search Engine: Using Schema.org and Structured Data to Power the Search Results of the Future

4 breadcrumb A set of links that can help a user understand and navigate a website hierarchy. Locations > NY > New York > 1 Madison Ave <a itemprop= url href= html > <span itemprop= title >Locations</span> </a> > <a itemprop= url href= > <span itemprop= title >NY</span> </a> > <a itemprop= url href= > <span itemprop= title >New York</span> </a> > <a itemprop= url href= > <span itemprop= title >1 Madison Ave</span> </a> LocalBusiness (Postal Address) The mailing address. Yext 1 Madison Ave, 5th Floor New York, NY (888) <div itemscope itemtype= > <h1 itemprop= name >Yext</h1> <div itemprop= address itemscope itemtype= PostalAddress > <div itemprop= streetaddress >1 Madison Ave, 5th Floor <span itemprop= addresslocality >New York, </span> <span itemprop= addressregion >NY</span> <span itemprop= postalcode >10010</span> <div itemprop= telephone >(888) How to Speak Search Engine: Using Schema.org and Structured Data to Power the Search Results of the Future

5 Event An event happening at a certain time and location, such as a concert, lecture, or festival. Bagel Friday Bagel Friday Starts: 06/05/ :00AM Ends: 06/05/ :00AM Duration: 02:00 1 Madison Ave, 5th Floor New York, NY <h1 id= location-name itemprop= name >Yext</h1> <div itemscope itemtype= itemref= schemalocation > <div itemprop= name ><strong>bagel Friday</strong> <div itemprop= description >Free Bagels in the Kitchen! <div><meta itemprop= startdate content= T09:00 >Starts: 06/05/ :00AM <div><meta itemprop= enddate content= T11:00 >Ends: 06/05/ :00AM <meta itemprop= duration content= T02:00 >Duration: 02:00 <div id= schema-location itemprop= location itemscope itemtype= itemref= address locationname > <span class= coordinates itemprop= geo itemscope itemtype= > <meta itemprop= latitude content= > <meta itemprop= longitude content= > </span> <div id= address itemprop= address itemscope itemtype= > <div> <div itemprop= streetaddress >1 Madison Ave, 5th Floor</ div> <div> <span itemprop= addresslocality >New York, </ span> <span itemprop= addressregion >NY</span> <span itemprop= postalcode >10010</span> GeoCoordinates The geographic coordinates of a place or event. Latitude: 40 deg 44 min sec N Longitude: 73 deg 59 min dec W <div itemprop= geo itemscope itemtype= > <meta itemprop= latitude content= > <meta itemprop= longitude content= > 5 How to Speak Search Engine: Using Schema.org and Structured Data to Power the Search Results of the Future

6 AggregateRating The average rating based on multiple ratings or reviews. Super Book Ultra interesting. Super impressive. Book rating: 88 out of 100 with 20 ratings <div itemscope itemtype= > <h2 itemprop= name > Super Book </h2> <div itemprop= description >Ultra interesting. Super impressive. <div itemprop= aggregaterating itemscope itemtype= > <div>book rating: <span itemprop= ratingvalue >88</span> out of <span itemprop= bestrating >100</span> with <span itemprop= ratingcount >20</span> ratings openinghours The opening hours for a business. Mon - Fri: 9:30am - 6:00pm Sat: 12:00pm - 5:00pm Sun: Closed <div itemscope itemprop= Restaurant itemtype= Restaurant > <meta itemprop= openinghours content= Mo - Fr 09:30-18:00 > <meta itemprop= openinghours content= Sa 12:00-17:00 > <meta itemprop= openinghours content= Su CLOSED > 6 How to Speak Search Engine: Using Schema.org and Structured Data to Power the Search Results of the Future

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SCHEMA- SET UP GUIDE SCHEMA- SET UP GUIDE SCHEMA- SET UP GUIDE Hi Virtual Assistant, I would like you to set up Schema codes for our client. Please follow the step-by-step procedure below. Here is the