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using schema markup

In building your set of marketing tools, don’t limit yourself to the things that are fast and easy. One of the most misunderstood tools in digital marketing is schema markup. Schema markup for SEO is a powerful marketing tool. I have a couple of theories on why marketers are missing out on this valuable SEO technique.

  1. Marketers are unfamiliar with some of the terms, causing them to feel like it’s a strategy that’s just out of their league.
  2. Marketers feel that setting up schema markup is more of a developer’s job because they’re more familiar with coding.

While it pays to be somewhat familiar with coding, the program at schema.org does most of the work for you as a structured data markup helper. If you’re ready to venture outside the box, schemas can organize your content in an informative way, attracting internet searchers to your site.

What Is Schema Markup and Why Is It Important?

Over 10 million sites use schema markups to enhance their SEO efforts. The top search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex first started collaborating on the development of schema.org in 2011. Now those same search engines are using schema markups to create rich, extensible user experiences. Schema markups give context to the content for non-human readers as in search engines.

Schema markup for SEO is a code that can be used with three systems:

  1. RDFa
  2. Microdata
  3. JSON-LD

Schema markups respond well to machine learning artificial intelligence systems like RankBrain and Hummingbird. Machine learning is a digital process where computers learn what to do next from things that have already happened, rather than people telling computers what to do. RankBrain is part of Google’s overall search algorithm, which sorts through billions of pages and selects the most relevant sites for various searches. Google implemented Hummingbird in 2013 which is also part of their algorithm. Hummingbird is designed to pay attention to each word in a query to get the whole meaning and direct searches to sites in the fastest, most precise way.

When you add schema markups to a webpage, it automatically crafts beautiful, well-organized content in the search results, which is commonly known as a rich snippet. The result will rank well in RankBrain and Hummingbird.

One of the great things about schema markups for marketers is that you don’t need to know coding to use it as part of your overall marketing plan. I have found that it helps to have somewhat of familiarity with what goes into schema markups.

That’s all you need to get started. When you’re ready, go to schema.org and they’ll walk you through the process.

Different Types of Schemas to Enhance Different Types of Products

To better understand schema markups, it helps to put yourself in the internet searcher’s shoes. For example, let’s say you’re looking for a crowd-pleasing salad recipe for your upcoming Fourth of July barbecue. Things that might be important to you are ratings—you want your guests to love it! You’ll want to know what ingredients you’ll need to buy, how long it takes to make, and how easy it is to prepare. Would you choose a recipe that had all that information in the search result over another result that told you very little about the recipe? Of course, you would. That’s how schema markups work.

The first step in setting up a schema markup is to identify the itemtype. Here are some of the most common schema types:

  • Recipes
  • Events
  • People
  • Products
  • Businesses
  • Organizations
  • Reviews
  • Videos

Schema Markup Format

You’ll need a bit of help from a developer if you’re using microdata or RDFa formats. With JSON-LD, you can do it yourself. Copy and paste the markup provided by Google for the correct item type, and then build on it as you like.

Use the markup to update the information with the relevant information about your business or website. After you’ve completed your markup, you’ll want to view it as it will appear in search engines. You can do this by dropping your JSON markup into the Structured Data Tool by  Google. The tool will highlight any errors in the code, so you can fix them before you publish the schema markup on your site.

I can offer you this helpful tip—if you get an error message, it’s almost always related to one of the following three factors:

  1. Missing a comma-(,)
  2. Missing a square bracket-(])
  3. Missing a brace-(})

Use commas for listed items in your markup. You don’t need a comma for the last item in any list.

Braces are those wiggly brackets. Use them when you’re ending or beginning a list. You will also use braces for nested lists of properties like the separate parts of an address. You’ll also use braces to wrap your whole schema in.

Use square brackets to enclose lists of values. A good example of this is if you’re listing your business’ hours of operation. Enclose the days of the week that you’re open in square brackets.

Once you’re sure that your schema markup is complete, you can ask your developer to upload it directly into of the HTML of your site. If you’re using JSON, you can add it yourself using Google Tag Manager.

If you’re not using schema markups, it’s worth stepping out of your comfort zone and giving it a try. Schema markups are sure to take your marketing strategy to the next level.

Web Page Optimization and its importance on SEO
Web Page Optimization is the process of optimizing the web page of a website. It helps in getting pages indexed on Search Engines.
Be aware of the following when you are optimizing Web Page because this things play vital rule for On Page Optimization.

the website content has to be optimized by using:

  1. Title Tags
  2. Meta Descriptions
  3. Meta Keyword
  4. URLs
  5. Optimizing Images
  6. Optimizing Videos
  7. Optimizing News

Web Page Optimizations Steps.
Title Tags

These tags are the elements that define what your page is about. Title Tags contain your main keyword. Furthermore, it will be used for Search Engines to show in SERP. Title Tags talks about your page by using few words. It is also display as a top of the browser, or name of the tap. Title tags are commonly used for social media shares to provide information about the page.

Meta Description
Is the description of the Title Tag. It is shown in the SERPs. Meta Tags give a better idea of the content of the page. Use your keyword in your Meta Description to improve SEO. Meta descriptions have maximum 160 characters. If you write more characters than 160 it will be cut and don’t make sense to people in SERPs. This step is a must for Web Page Optimization.

Meta Keywords,/span>

Is similar to Meta Description. Today, it is not used to optimize content. On the other hand the “Bad Practices” like overstuffing keywords can clearly hurt your ranking. That is called “Black Hat SEO

URLs-
Optimize your web pages URLs for better ranking. An URL rich in keywords related to the content will definitely improve the Content Optimization. It will also help the Search Engine to find better your content. This is very helpful for Web Page Optimization.

Optimizing Images-
Visuals are very attractive for consumers. Many people don’t want to read a long blog, but they can get a huge referral through a image/picture. A good picture talks more than one thousand words. As a consequence, the use of images is a must in a website. The images have to be optimized by using Alt Tags.
As the image above shows it is important to use Alt Tags that are related with the content. The Alt Tag provides not only what about it is the image. It also provides size.
If you don’t use Alt Tags, Search Engines will never find the image because images are difficult to be read. Images are the favorites of consumers; don’t lose the opportunity of ranking your website through your optimized images.

Optimize Videos-
Today; It is easy to reach the audience by using videos.

First, create a video channel; it can be done in YouTube, Vimeo etc. Then embed video in channel and optimized filling with a good title, description, and keywords related to your page content. Check it out this interesting article about Video Optimization for SEO.

Optimizing News-

Last but not least you can optimize news. Submit your blog or press release to Google News. They will review your content and decided if has the requirements. Well written and optimize blogs have a great impact on SEO. Likewise, Pay Press released can increase your visibility in the majors search engines in a significant way.

“Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first.”