Over the past few years a lot of new types of content mark-up has been introduced to structure data in a way that helps search engines understand, categorize and display content in a myriad of new ways.
The technical side of this structured data is discussed at length in the course “Technical Optimization – Step-by-Step, Page Specific and Sitewide Optimization Techniques.” Of course that level of knowledge about technical implementation isn’t necessary for most writers. But, it is very important that a writer understands what type of mark up exists within the page templates so that they can create content that caters to those elements.
While there are many different types of structured data markup, Schema.org has become the most widely used and is the closest to an official standard that currently exists. Popular types of content that utilize Schema.org markup are:
Once the proper Schema.org mark-up has been incorporated into the content fields within a CMS, typically content creators simply need to fill out the proper fields with information such as the name, title, author, location, date published, and description.
The benefits of this type of content mark-up are that it allows Google’s knowledge graph and other technologies like it, to add your content to their next gen databases. Once they have that information they will begin to display it in search results whenever appropriate as “Rich Snippets”. Rich snippet allow search results to feature information that goes way beyond the classic SERP listing the title, URL and description. Rich snippets allow your search results to include images, ratings and additional features that entice users to click on your listing. This separates you in the search results and can have a huge impact on your click through rate.
The Takeaway Here Is To Use Structured Data Markup
Whenever Possible!
Next In the next lesson we will review the positive impact your content can get from search engines by including