As you’re hopefully aware, SEO is kind of a big deal. The large majority of todays web traffic is directed through search engines; i.e. Google, Yahoo, Bing etc (but predominantly Google). Within these search engines is an endless supply of web pages feeding for the attention of internet users. If we want to rise to the top of the rankings strong SEO strategies are a must. Google is without a doubt, the top search engine. It’s constantly evolving and requires our strategies to evolve if we want to stay on top. So what’s on tap lately Google?
STRUCTURED DATA
Structured data seems to be a trending favourite as of late and it should be. The tool categorizes data for Google and takes away the guesswork when bots crawl your website. I’ll use an example to explain what exactly happens when you add structured data to your site. Let’s say you search “how to change a tire”, Google wants to show you the most relevant pages that’ll help you get that old tire off and the new one on. When there’s no structured data, Google sees all your content but can’t tell what it means. Structured data can categorize it as so:
Page type: Blog
Title: How to Change a Tire
Organization: Here we list the name of the organization that posted the article
Author: First and last name of author
Description: a well laid out description with lots of keywords Content: might seem like a lot, but yes the entire body of the article can be identified here
Image: use a link of the main image
Date Posted: 2020 - 11 - 17
This could go on for a while but I think you get the idea.
This takes the guessing out of Google’s bots. All your information is categorized in the same way your brain would categorize a magazine article. We don’t see an authors name as two random words on a page, we likely recognize these words as a name and identify them as the author. Structured data allows Google to easily do the same.
Structured data goes well beyond blog pages, it can be used to identify your organiztion (resturant, barber, mechanic), videos, events, the list goes on.
Adding structured data can be tricky, Blueprint usually gets the job done with some basic HTML but if you fancy giving it a go yourself there’s a few tools that can help. Schema.org is the blueprint for creating structured data and once you have it on a page you can run a test through Google’s own structured data testing tool. Many platforms like Shopify or WordPress has a marketplace with apps/plugins that make the process a little more user friendly (think of Yoest SEO).
If you’d like to learn more about structured data and how it can help the SEO of your website, office or contact us to setup a chat.
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