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Why schema needs to be part
of your digital strategy
Beth Barnham
@bethbarnham
• Introduction to Schema
• How it appears in search
• Using it in your digital strategy
• What can be learned for digital
Agenda
@bethbarnham
Introduction To Schema
Schema refers to a framework that helps
organise and interpret information.
It can take the form of a featured snippet to show
more relevant, rich results for the search intent.
What is Schema?
@bethbarnham
@bethbarnham
@bethbarnham
• Converts HTML from unstructured mess to
something easier to understand for the
search engine
• Can be in various coding forms RDFa,
microdata or JSON-LD
• Search engines are intuitive and intelligent
@bethbarnham
What is Schema?
Most Popular Types of Information (Things)
Used in tandem with properties within the "Thing"
Event – with types covering anything from a theatreEvent,
comedyEvent, Hackathon, BusinessEvent. A new property was added
considering the pandemic: eventattendanceMode
Place – physical extension, address, amenityFeature, branchCode,
geo, hasDriveThroughService, CovidTestingFacility. Can also appear
as a value; jobLocation, serviceLocation
Person – representing a person of any description including fictional.
Types include:
additionalName, award, birthPlace
Event
Place
Person
@bethbarnham
Most Popular Types of Information (Things)
Recipe – Food recipe listing
JobPosting – A listing to describe a job opening
CreativeWork – generic creative work including books, films,
streaming, music, creativeWorkStatus for a new series, editor,
learningResourceType, translationOfWork
Organization – Organization, MedicalOrganization,
LocalBusiness
Recipe
JobPosting
CreativeWork
Organization
@bethbarnham
Used in tandem with properties within the "Thing"
Schema Hierarchy
Event
@bethbarnham
Schema Hierarchy
Event
Textual property values
@bethbarnham
Schema Hierarchy
Event
BusinessEvent
Textual property values
@bethbarnham
Schema Hierarchy
Event
BusinessEvent Things that they describe
Textual property values
@bethbarnham
Schema Hierarchy
Event
BusinessEvent
FoodEvent
Things that they describe
Textual property values
@bethbarnham
Schema Hierarchy
Event
BusinessEvent
FoodEvent
PublicationEvent
Things that they describe
Textual property values
@bethbarnham
Schema Hierarchy
Event
BusinessEvent
FoodEvent
PublicationEvent
Things that they describe
Things that they describe
Textual property values
@bethbarnham
Schema Hierarchy
Event
BusinessEvent
FoodEvent
PublicationEvent
Things that they describe
BroadcastEvent
Textual property values
@bethbarnham
Things that they describe
Schema Hierarchy
Event
BusinessEvent
FoodEvent
PublicationEvent
Things that they describe
BroadcastEvent
Things that they describe
Textual property values
OnDemandEvent
@bethbarnham
Beth Barnham - Including schema in your digital marketing strategy - Figaro Digital October 2021
How does it appear
within search?
JobPosting
@bethbarnham
Event
@bethbarnham
Recipe
Carousels
@bethbarnham
Google’s
Knowledge
Graph
@bethbarnham
Relevancy to you
as a marketer
Knowing the best schema for your website
• Look at search trends in your niche
• Look at what’s happening in the world
• What are competitors doing?
• How creative can you get?
• What cool pages do you have? FAQ
pages, content or blog pages?
@bethbarnham
Recipe Site
Trends
@bethbarnham
suitableForDiet
Can include lowFat if qualifies for a healthy diet; diabetic, halal,
vegan, or vegetarian
aggregateRating
Highlight reviews from across the web for this recipe
recipeCategory
Cakes, slow cooked recipes, baking, traybakes, curries, pressure
cooker recipes
recipeYield
Important for phrases with a number in; ‘cakes to feed five people’
for example
Recipe
@bethbarnham
Local Business &
Physical Stores
LocalBusiness
geo
Enables precise location. Make sure this is consistent with your website
OnlineOnly
Not open physically now? Try the OnlineOnly property
sameAs
Link to Google My Business Listing or other business listing on the web -
entity
Hotel
Lodging, hotels, amenities, numberOfRooms, petsAllowed
AmusementPark
openingHours, address, same as Organization
@bethbarnham
Ecommerce
Product schema is the best for ecommerce as you can clearly indicate the stock levels, availability, full product descriptions of
each individual product
AggregateRating
Includes a rating for the product from reviews across the web or integrated platforms on your page
brand
Explains what the user/reader should do. Can be used instead of or alongside
Award
Is it an award winning product?
Color, Category, size, sku, productID
For product variations
businessFunction
Sell, lease, i.e. car rental is a product but not in the traditional sense
Product
ProductCollection, ProductGroup, IndividualProduct
@bethbarnham
@bethbarnham
Finance / Saas
FinancialProduct
@bethbarnham
Trends
@bethbarnham
Longtail Content
Depending on the type of HowTo content there are many
different properties to utilise. This is an example for a “How to
help during Covid’’ blog.
HowToStep
Explains what the step is in the process or article that you are
referencing
HowToDirection
Explains what the user/reader should do. Can be used instead of or
alongside
HowToSection
@bethbarnham
Informational & Authoritative
announcementLocation
Example is of a school announcement in Cardiff and the context for why it was
closed
webFeed
Lets you include additional information through a URL for when that specific
webpage is updated. Good for closures/openings, medical openings, face mask
announcements
dateFeed
Highlight the date range for the feed and when it is valid for
schoolClosuresInfo
The information surrounding the school closures such as school name, date, time,
status
SpecialAnnouncement
@bethbarnham
Beth Barnham - Including schema in your digital marketing strategy - Figaro Digital October 2021
How does it impact your
strategy?
News & Trends
@bethbarnham
Evergreen Content
Machine Learning
Brand Awareness
What can we learn for
business strategy?
• Schema doesn’t need to be maintained. Simply write, check,
implement and leave to work its magic. Continuous improvements.
Google Search Gallery Beta
• Set targets that are achievable and actionable. Even if that means
adapting your digital strategy to react
• Adaptable and customisable. It doesn’t matter what your niche is,
there’s a type that will suit your audience
• It’s easy to implement even without the help of a developer. Lots of
learning resources to aid whilst you write your own or generators
• Can be added via a custom tag on Google Tag Manager
Benefits
@bethbarnham
What does it achieve?
Visibility
Conversions
Authority & Trust
blogPosting, Article, HowTo,
Recipe
Event, JobPosting, Product
Organization, sameAs, Website,
Logo, Image LocalBusiness
Keyword strategy
Meeting Google’s search gallery
guidelines
Wiki, Social and directories
throughout the web
@bethbarnham
• Reactive and proactive with its versatility
• Builds relationships between your content, context & entities
• How can we position the business differently to other
businesses?
• Support E-A-T principles and content strategy
• Schema.org found that over 10 million websites use schema (just
1%). 8% of respondents said they work on their markup once (SEW)
• Studies suggest 3x CTR increase
• Preparing your site for volatility or changes in the SERPs with a widely
researched strategy is important
• More accessible
Yeah, but why should I care?
@bethbarnham
https://schema.org/
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structured-data/search-gallery
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data
https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_json_syntax.asp
Research Resource List
@bethbarnham
https://json-ld.org/playground/
https://validator.schema.org/
https://search.google.com/test/rich-results
https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/u/0/
https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg
https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_json_syntax.asp
https://technicalseo.com/tools/schema-markup-generator/
Implementation & Testing Resource List
@bethbarnham
Thank you!
Any questions?
@bethbarnham @_libertydigital

More Related Content

Beth Barnham - Including schema in your digital marketing strategy - Figaro Digital October 2021

Editor's Notes

  1. Featured snippet for question, answers question without need for click through
  2. Sitelinks which direct the user to a product page Product search query is entered
  3. Tidying up the content you serve on your website so users can find it – think Marie Kondo RDFA, Microdata are advanced versions of HTML – HTML5 JSON-LD JavaScript Object Notation AI – Machine learning, continuous improvement
  4. Types of informations are within a property – these are called ‘Things’ As described by the main open-source library schema.org
  5. Schema hierarchy where information is nested within other information types Think Russian doll effect
  6. An example for Figaro Digital could be Explain each type here
  7. Liberty’s PPC job listing on their careers job listing pages Consistent with what’s on the job description but require a couple of elements such as JD, company name, location
  8. Digital marketing events Showing me events in Swansea, but also showing me events online elsewhere
  9. How to cook pork steak Searcher intent is to cook a pork steak, they’ve already got that in their fridge but they want to know what style Ingredients are marked up so you’re serving the user the information they need without them clicking through
  10. Vans are a well-known skateboarding retailer and they’re known on social, Wikipedia, they have events subsidiarized to them, all of this is communicated to Google as the sameAs entity.
  11. Fashion brands – tv shows, Married at First Sight, Love Island, I’m a Celeb, twitter trends, anything interesting you can create content on that might be around for a while and have concentrated search volumes?
  12. If you were a recipe site, you may decide
  13. 2020 pandemic hit, people wanted quick easy comfort baking with minimal ingredients
  14. Fictional banana bread to display how we can quickly mark up a recipe Applies to all types of recipe, diets, etc.
  15. LocalBusiness reinforces the content on your contact page is correct and Google can read that and understand that your business is in the correct place
  16. Whatever your product, it can be displayed here. This is a branded search but equally works with non-branded queries
  17. Opportunity spotting in the industry relevant to you Big piece of news Big bit of legislation etc.
  18. Longer tail queries relevant at the time to your business. This is an example a charity could use for a blog during the pandemic
  19. Useful for schools, universities, health boards, public sector and businesses with big authority in a specific field
  20. Keeping up to date with the news and trends, what can you use in your industry?
  21. Are there ‘evergreen’ topics that occur consistently in the news? What longtail phrases can be adapted for FAQs or QAs?
  22. Machine learning is consistent, staying ahead, keeping up to date with trends in the schema search gallery, looking at things in Beta It won’t boost your rankings or give instant ranking changes but it will increase visibility, context and reinforce your brand throughout the whole web
  23. It’s an excellent metric for brand awareness especially as algorithms are continually updating their machine learning processes If you answer a question in a rich snippet – on that occasion you won’t get a click through but next time you might as well as a conversion
  24. How to use the correct schema to meet your goal, and how to identify it
  25. https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2017/04/18/the-state-of-schema-org-what-are-the-biggest-challenges-surrounding-schema-markup/ Expertise Authoritativeness Trust