7. Semantic SEO (Schema Structured Data)
Essentially, structured data is Google’s way of using logic to find meaning from the keywords and websites in its index.
You may have heard the terms structured data or schema mark-up before and you might be tempted to overlook Schema Structured Markup because at first glance it looks technical and perhaps a little scary, don’t!
Schema structured markup is vital for any company, it enables you to talk to search engines in their own language telling them who you are and what you do. Not only will this potentially help you rank higher in search results but when properly implemented it can enhance your appearance in SERPs. When Google understands entities on a deeper level, it serves better results to searchers. Items like rich cards, rich snippets and the knowledge graph appear on SERPs after gathering information from structured data.
As an example with structured reviews Google can show recipes with the most five star ratings at the top of their results.
Over 50% of Fortune 500 companies do not yet use it. In a competitive ecommerce market-place implementing Schema Structured Data can give you the edge on your competitors.
The good thing is you don’t need to be a developer to implement it, though we would recommend engaging ones services. Many good WordPress and Shopify themes have basic Schema Structure Data built in. In addition plugins such as Yoast SEO (WordPress) can also structure your data.
We mentioned earlier taking advantage of Google’s free tools and it’s no exception in this case. If you don’t have access to your website’s code, or a third party plugin or theme that can assist you then Google Data Highlighter is an alternative option. Though it will only work on Google, other search engines such as Bing do not pick this up. In addition you will be limited to the types of properties you can mark up. If you’re familiar with Google’s Tag manager you can also use this to mark up your website content. Finally Google has a great testing tool to check your Schema Structured Data.