Site_Schema

Schema: A representation or outline of an object.

A schema is a blueprint of an object which tells the search engines what your data means thereby adding relevancy to the information. This way, search engines understand the objects better, in turn enabling them to better return the search results.

The schema added to a website then gets crawled by search engine bots and helps engines identify what to display in the results. The users will then be shown this information when they come across the result. 

This additional value that can enhance the search results is what makes schema valuable to Google. Google was, after all, one of the founders of Schema.org in 2011 along with Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo. Together, they are developing a global standard vocabulary to help them better understand the content on the web.

The concept of schema is based around ‘things, not strings’, which means dividing a website into different parts (things) instead of strings of data.

There are many other names for schema or variations thereof, including rich snippets, structured data, rich results, microdata, and semantic markup.

Schema is a set of ‘types’ with each type being associated with a set of properties. There are many types of schema markup that a site can use, including the following:

• Small or Local business schema
• Organization schema
• Website schema

Hundreds of other schema types exist, such as product schema, reviews schema, breadcrumbs, article schema, video schema, event schema, etc.

However, the three listed are the most commonly used for local and small businesses. For Map Pack rankings, the local business schema is the most important. 

Schema is a great way to improve your website’s authority. To implement schema on a site, certain vocabulary and tags (microdata) are added to the HTML code on the site. Schema markup is entered on the backend of the website.

The schema formats that are currently supported are:

• JSON-LD (Google recommended)
• Microdata
• RDFa

The common methods to embed the generated schema on the website are manually inserting the code, through plugins, or by using Google Tag Manager.

Schematic markup shows up in the search results along with your meta tags and can entice otherwise-uninterested users to click and visit your site, so be sure to make use of it.

DigitalBull GO Tip: Use schema markup with care when using it across the website. Incorrect use of the markup can cause Google to misunderstand the objects and objectives of the page.