Why do some pages rank high on Google, whereas some don’t?
When we search for a topic on Google, like “recipe for pizza.” a list of web pages that contain the information you are looking for will appear on your screen. However, these pages don’t all rank equally. Some web pages appear at the top, some lower down, and some even don’t appear on the first or second page of Google search results.
The key to ranking well on Google lies in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). One essential aspect of SEO is Schema Markup. In this post, we will discuss what schema markup is and what role schema markup plays in SEO.
What is Schema Markup for SEO?
In the race to rank your webpage at the top, you are not alone. There are too many competitors out there who are competing for first place. For example, When you search for “Recipe for pizza” on Google.
Notice that out of 507,000,000 search results, only one blog is indexed with the highest rank. Beneath the title and meta description, there are star ratings and time to prepare.
The question is: How did this star rating appear? Why is it appearing on this web page, and why not on every web page on google? It’s because of Schema Markup.
Schema markup is a code, and within that code is the information of our own web page. But the information is coded in such a language that the crawler understands it better.
Let’s understand schema markup with an example.
Suppose you want to learn French and decide to join a French coaching institute. You visited an institute and took a demo, but had difficulty understanding the lesson. Perhaps, the teacher did’t know how to effectively teach French to students.
Then you decided to go to another tutor. At the end, you will join the institute of the tutor who’s teaching you understand well.
This is a similar case with Google crawler and your web page.
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Google Crawler and Ranking
Before indexing your web page on Google, the web crawler will first understand your website and its contents. The web crawler will analyze your web page to understand its content, including the text, images, and videos.
This information is then stored in Google’s index, which is a massive database of all the web pages that Google has crawled.
When a user searches for something on Google, Google uses the index to find the most relevant pages to display in the search results. Therefore, it is important that Google understands your website and its contents to rank your pages appropriately in the search results.
In SEO, 70-80% of the work we do is to make Google understand the content that is on the website in a better way. Schema markup helps largely with that.
By now, we assume you might have understood the concept of schema markup really well. Let us now understand how SEO people can use schema markup to rank their website high on Google.
How to Use Schema Markup for SEO
It’s very easy. In three simple steps, you can create a schema markup for your web page.
Step 1: Open Google, and in the search box, write “Generate schema markup.” Click on the first link.
This is the web page, using which we can create your schema markup. There, we will create a schema markup code, which we will insert to your web page code.
Step 2: This page will appear on your screen. All you have to do is select the type of schema you want.
There are multiple schema markups to choose from. We’ll choose an ‘organization schema. You can choose the schema based on your web page category.
Step 3: Fill the information wherever required.
You can also see a code appearing on the screen. When you fill information in the box, it will automatically be updated in the schema. Once you are done filing your information, copy the code and check whether the code is working correctly or not.
After that, click on the “G” icon in red on the top left corner of the code.
You will see two options: click on the “structured data testing tool” and check your code after verifying the code functionality. You can paste it anywhere in your web page’s code.
Where to Insert Schema Markup
Many people are skeptical about where to insert Schema Markup on the web page. Let’s unlock the answer to this question.
- You need to insert a schema markup in the code and not in your content.
- You can insert schema markup anywhere, in the H1 tag or under the body. Either way is fine.
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Can you use more than one schema on your webpage?
Yes, you can. There are different types of schemas, like Organization schema, Person schema, Article schema, Product schema, etc., which you can use on your web page.
But you cannot use the same type of schema twice on a single web page.
Take away
In this post, we have learned about schema markup for SEO and its importance in ranking a webpage on Google. Implementing schema markup to your web page enhances the visibility of your blog post or web page to your target audience.
Not only that, the likelihood of a user clicking on the link of your webpage also increases. Your blog can outshine in the sea of millions of blog posts on a keyword search.
We also learned about the three simple steps using which you can create a makeup schema for your web page. Once we create a schema markup as per the web page contents, we have to insert that in the web page code. We can add a schema markup anywhere in the code.
Remember, schema markup is an essential part of SEO practices. It immensely contributes to the levelling up of the ranking of your web page on Google.
If Google crawler is easily able to understand the contents of your web page, it will rank high on Google. Makeup schema contains the language that is easily understandable by the Google crawler.
Schema markup tells the Google crawler what your content is all about. And don’t forget you can’t use the same schema markup twice in your blog.
Now, you can proceed to use schema markup for SEO on your webpage to improve its ranking on Google.
About The Author
Amir Waheed, President and Founder of SEO Toronto Experts, heads a Toronto-based digital agency. With a decade in Digital Marketing, Amir specializes in eCommerce SEO elevating online business branding. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.