SEO is changing all the time. Whether you’re just getting into digital marketing or you’re a pro with years of experience, you know that new trends and rules for getting the most out of your SEO strategy are always cropping up. One of those trends is structured data.
So, does structured data help SEO? Let’s take a look and find out more about structured data, how it works, and how it affects SEO.
What is Structured Data?
Structured data is a way of formatting information from your site that makes it easier for search engines to parse and understand. This process involves using a vocabulary search engines understand.
One of the top vocabularies used by search engines like Google and Yandex is Schema.org. This vocabulary works by translating your text and other content into code that is readable by the computer.
How is it Used?
Structured data makes information from your site machine-readable, which allows your site to have more detailed search results that entice users to click. These types of answers include rich snippets.
Rich snippets are more detailed versions of regular search engine results page (SERP) snippets, the short descriptions of results that appear when you search for something.
They include things like pictures, star ratings, and calorie or cooking time for recipes. They can also appear as carousels.
Rich snippets go from being regular snippets to rich ones with the help of structured data. Structured data can give you rich results in the form of purchasing options for books, breadcrumbs, large images, and carousels.
To create these more thorough snippets, you use the search vocabularies, like Schema, to input important details about your page, like prices, images, times, page counts, or other information items.
Benefits of Structured Data
One of the most significant benefits of structured data is with featured snippets. Featured snippets are similar to rich snippets, but they are two different types of search result blocks.
Featured snippets are results featured above regular and rich snippet blocks on search engine pages. This result will typically give a version of the answer with an incentive to click on the link and learn more.
Structured data helps you get better, filled out featured snippets that pull traffic. Featured snippets are also the snippets given to a large section of users searching via voice assistants, like Siri and Alexa.
Tips
- Don’t use unnecessary structured data — search engines can start to reject your structured data input if it looks like you’re spamming the system.
- Look out for updates to the structured data system, and make sure you’re keeping your data updated.
- Thoroughly follow all guidelines for structured data via Schema and Google’s search console.
Final Thoughts
After reading all of this, you might still be asking yourself, “does structured data help SEO?” Yes! Structured data provides users with more information about your site on SERPs and draws users. It also gives you access to voice search users.
Structured data is an absolute necessity in terms of current SEO trends. It not only helps to put your site at the top of search engine pages for relevant results, but it also makes your site more accessible for voice search.
All in all, if you’re not taking advantage of structured data, you’re putting your site and marketing strategy at a disadvantage.
