The Best Schema Markup To Improve Your Website’s SEO

Schema markup is a form of structured data that search engines like Google use to gain a better understanding of a website’s content.

Essentially, Schema is a form of microdata that helps search engines understand the context and relevance of certain page elements. For example, if you used a table to present information on your website, you could use Schema to tell Google this element is a table and should be treated accordingly.

The great thing is, so few websites use schema markup that by implementing some simple elements you could gain a real competitive advantage within search results.

Below we’ll look at some of the most powerful schema types you can add to your website today.

FAQ Schema

If your website has an FAQ page or uses FAQ sections at the bottom of your products/articles, you could see some real benefit from FAQ schema. This type of schema will simply tell search engines that a specific section/element of this page is presented in question and answer format.

The main benefit of FAQ schema is that it can actually be pulled through directly to the search results. This means that your FAQs could begin displaying below your usual Google search result, taking up more real estate, attracting more clicks and driving up your click-through rate.

So, without any SEO updates or ranking movements, you can generate new traffic from organic results. There are a few different ways of adding schema to your website, this article is a good place to start.

Aggregate Rating Schema

Have you ever been browsing Google search results and noticed a star rating appear under a particular result? That feature is generated by aggregate rating schema. Once again, this schema is pulled directly through to search results (when relevant) and results in a larger search listing and more traffic.

If you have received reviews for any products or services that your website offers, you are eligible to display this schema. It’s also another great reason to generate reviews for your products.

Whether you’re using TrustPilot or reviews that are submitted directly to your site, simply add a small snippet of schema that defines a product’s aggregate rating and you’re good to go!

Breadcrumb Schema

For large sites that are already using breadcrumbs to help users and search engines to understand their structure, implementing breadcrumb schema should be a top priority. Breadcrumbs tell a user exactly where they are in a site’s hierarchy and search engines use them to understand the makeup of a website.

This schema is very simple and it just ponts out exactly where the breadcrumbs are and labels them so search engines can easily process the data. While this schema doesn’t result in any new features directly within results, it can be incredibly valuable for large ecommerce sites or sites that are experiencing indexing issues.

Industry-Specific Schema

Depending on your industry, there’s probably some specific schema markup that’s been developed specifically for sites in your niche. This is particularly valuable for more sensitive industries such as medical and pharma, where Google needs a clear display of authority and trust for page one rankings.

Many websites in the medical space were hit by Google’s August 2018 algorithm update. This update was focused on expertise, authority and trust (EAT). Google wanted to ensure that only legitimate websites that deserve to be found online are appearing in results for potentially sensitive search terms.

A great way to display your expertise and trust (and this goes for any industry) is to include industry-specific schema on your website. You may need to do a little research to discover which markups are available for you but implementing these can be a real competitive advantage. For example, there are specific schema markups that allow a website to point out the ingredients, side effects and dosage information for a medication.

Authorship Schema

This is another form of schema that became really popular amongst SEOs after the 2018 update. Authorship allows you to tell Google who a page/article was written by, provide details on the background of the author and indicate key data for the page itself such as first published and last updated dates.

This is another way to showcase that your content is up to date, regularly updated and written by a professional in your industry. If you can link off to a specific author page for a writer that includes qualifications, accreditations etc. then even better!

These are just some examples of how schema can improve your SEO performance. Schema is always evolving and there are so many more markups to discover, it’s certainly worth some further research!