What is Schema?

Schema is coding that is placed within your website, this structured data shows search engines information about your website.

Schema.org is a collaborative of search engines such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex (who were also the founders), as well as communities all working together to create structured data.  By implementing schema on your website you are being very clear to search engines, and thus users will see the relevant results when they search.

In summary – Schema.org is a universal language for Search Engines

A good example of this is provided by schema.org, here is the example is taken from the schema.org website-

Most webmasters are familiar with HTML tags on their pages. Usually, HTML tags tell the browser how to display the information included in the tag. For example, <h1>Avatar</h1> tells the browser to display the text string “Avatar” in a heading 1 format. However, the HTML tag doesn’t give any information about what that text string means—”Avatar” could refer to the hugely successful 3D movie, or it could refer to a type of profile picture—and this can make it more difficult for search engines to intelligently display relevant content to a user.

By implementing schema you are making it very clear to the search engine that your webpage is about the film Avatar, or you are just showing a profile picture.

Will Schema increase my ranking?

There is no real evidence that by implementing Schema into your website that you will increase ranking, however, my logical brain tells me that if you are being crystal clear to a search engine as to what your website is about then there is more chance that it will show up in the right searches in front of the right visitors.  Then it is over to you to ensure that you have engaging content on your website which fulfils the visitor’s needs.  By doing this you are delivering a good user experience and this is where you will improve your ranking.

So schema will help you get your website in front of the right visitors, as well as create rich snippets which will help your website appear better on the results page (SERPs). 

Whilst we are talking about a good user experience, one of the many things that search engines, such as Google are looking at is the credibility of the content being shown on a website.  This is where the schema is very handy as you can be clear as to who has created the content for the website, and their credentials.  The great thing with schema is that the developers understand that many website owners have years of knowledge and experience rather than certificates against their name, so the structured data will allow you to show experience if certificates are not available.

Schema for e-commerce websites

As you can see in the image I have gone to Schema.org and typed in ‘product’ into the search, the list of markup available for products is quite substantial, but definitely, something you should be looking into if you are selling products on your website in order for your product to be put in front of your potential visitor.

FAQ Pages

Schema is all set up for your FAQ pages, and it is a great way to get your page onto SERP’s, but remember that you should only use FAQ schema on an FAQ page.

A great way to show up in a speakable search is within the FAQ pages, however at the time of this blog the speakable structure is only available in the US, but worth planning for this when it does come to the UK, which I am certain it will in the not too distant future.