Structured Data is the name given to a markup schema that you can integrate into your website. This data helps improve search engines’ understanding of your site, by providing relevant data they want to know in a format that they understand. Using Structured Data can enhance visibility and boost search ranking for your website.
What is Structured Data?
Structured Data is a markup schema, similar to meta tags in HTML. It consists of tags that get added to your website’s code that feature relevant data about the page, such as its title, the main image, the type of page it is and other relevant data on the page.
Why add Structured Data?
Properly integrating Structured Data into your website means pedantically categorising and labelling all relevant information on your website. Initially, it is a laborious job if you’re not already using it, but the benefits can be significant.
Generally, information is placed on websites in a way that makes sense for a human, but not to a machine. For instance, if your business has a number in the header or footer of your site, people will understand it’s the phone number for your business. Machines can make a guess from the number format. However, if a page on your website features an article with a different phone number in it (maybe a regional office or a third-party service provider), a human will understand that number’s meaning through context.
A machine may recognise two numbers on a page but not understand the context. Adding Structured Data to information lets you specify that the number in the header of your website is your phone number. Search engines like Google can then use that information in search listings for your business.
How to add Structured Data
There are several ways of adding Structured Data to your website. Despite it being added within the code, it’s not hard to learn how to use Structured Data. Once you understand how it works, it’s easy for non-programmers to add to their website.
itemscope, itemtype and itemprop
There are other methods of adding Structured Data, but the itemscope, itemtype and itemprop attributes are the easiest for non-programmers.
itemscope wraps around a code block, like a product listing, to define a context. itemtype categorises the data, like a movie or product. itemprop then specifies tags like name and rating.
