SEO – Structured Data & Schema Markup
Structured Data is a standard code format that Google can easily understand. It is also known as Schema Markup. You can also call it the language of search engines.
In 2012, Google along with other major search engines (such as Bing, and Yahoo) agreed to support standard markup. This code structure is a little complex than traditional HTML but easier to crawl for search engines.
Benefits of Structure data for SEO:
Structure data or Schema Markup is a powerful and advanced tool for SEO professionals to improve their search engine visibility.
Mostly, we use HTML tags to display or structure website content. For example, <h1>apple</h1>
tells the browser to display the text “Apple” as a heading. However, the HTML tag doesn’t provide much information about “Apple” as this could refer to the Apple company or Apple fruit. In these scenarios, search engines look for other content on the webpage to figure out the relevance. This process can make it difficult for search engines to display relevant content to a user.
Structure data make it easy for search engines to understand the type of content. If your website has Structured Data, your content can be presented in an attractive way in Search Engine Result list.
Schema Markup Format:
Currently, there are three formats supported by Schema.org are Microdata, RDFa and JSON-LD markups.
Format | Description |
---|---|
JSON-LD | JSON-LD stands for JavaScript Object Notation for Linking Data. This is JavaScript-based code embedded in a <script> tag in the page head or body. |
Microdata | HTML Microdata code includes new HTML attributes to embed simple machine-readable data in HTML documents. |
RDFa | RDFa is an extension to HTML5 that provides a markup structure for different types of data such as Places, Events, Recipes, and Reviews. RDFa can be used in both the head and body sections of the HTML page. |
Google recommends using JSON-LD for structured data as compare to RDFa and Microdata.
Supported Content Types by SCHEMA
There are many types of content supported by Schema markup. Here are some of the most popular schema types:
- Events
- Recipes
- Products
- Review
- Article
- People
- Books
- Breadcrumbs
- Local Business
Example of Schema Markup & their presentation:
Organizational Schema:
This is useful for an organization such as a school, NGO, club, corporation etc. Here you can provide company name, website, address, contact and other details.
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "http://schema.org/",
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Café Coffee Day",
"url": "http://www.cafecoffeeday.com/",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"addressLocality": "Paris, France",
"postalCode": "F-75002",
"streetAddress": "38 avenue de l'Opera"
},
"email": "contact@company.com",
"telephone": "( 33 1) 42 68 53 00"
}
</script>
Here is the sample presentation of the Organization schema presentation in Google.

Rating or Review schema presentation:

Events schema presentation:

List of Schema Generator & Testing Tools:
As a Digital Marketing or SEO guy, it is not easy to code structure data for your website if you do not have programming knowledge. However, if you are familiar with basic HTML page structure, you can use the following tools to generate Schema, and use it for your website.
- Schema Markup Generator (JSON-LD)
- JSON-LD Schema Generator For SEO
- Structured Data Testing Tool
- WP SEO Structured Data Schema
List of Popular WordPress Schema Plugins:
If you are using WordPress (Most popular CMS for website), you can check the following plugins that allow us to create Schema content easily.
- Schema – All In One Schema Rich Snippets
- Schema
- Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP
- WP SEO Structured Data Schema
Important Links:
Here are some of the useful Tutorials to learn more about Structured Data & Schema Markup:
- Understand how structured data works
- What Is Schema Markup & Why It’s Important for SEO
- How to Boost Your SEO by Using Schema Markup
- Schema.org Markup
- Schema Markup Best Practices – Json-LD Vs Microdata
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