One of the most important concepts in SEO may be one you’ve never heard of: structured markup. It’s something that happens behind the scenes. It doesn’t affect the look of your site but it does affect how Google search engines see your data.
Structured markup is a way to give labels to types of data on your site so Google can get some context. A lot of data is able to be categorized and labeled using structured markup language. For example, if you have an event posted on your site, it can be labeled as an event in structured markup so Google can get smarter about how to show it to searchers. Within the event, you can label the date, time, place, and other characteristics in structured markup to provide context.
Just a few of the categories of data that can be “marked up” on your site include:
- Article
- Blog post
- Event
- Organization
- Person
- Site Navigation
- Video
- Website
A full, very long list of these is available here: https://schema.org/
We use a plugin to mark up your website data, and the extent to which we do it depends on the package(s) you have with us as well as how long you’ve been a client. On the higher packages, we complete Organization, Person, Navigation, and Website as a default. Here’s a sample of what the Organization plugin page looks like.
The plugin generates code for each type. A sample organization and navigation are listed below (I’ve removed some of the script so it won’t work if copied.).
We use structured markup to help Google use your data in a more rich presentation for searchers, and some say it’s a ranking signal too. If you have questions about it and your site, feel free to email us.
<!– Markup (JSON-LD) structured in schema.org ver.4.6.1 START –>
<script type=”application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”: “http://schema.org”,
“@type”: “Organization”,
“name”: “BOOK$ 4-Profits”,
“url”: “https://books4profits.com/”,
“logo”: “https://books4profits.com/Logo.png”,
“contactPoint”: [
{
“@type”: “ContactPoint”,
“telephone”: “(200) 496-7xxx”,
“contactType”: “customer service”,
“email”: “xxx@yahoo.com”,
“areaServed”: [ “US” ],
“availableLanguage”: [ “English” ]
} ], }
</script>
<script type=”application/ld+json”>
{ “@context”: “http://schema.org”,
“@type”: “SiteNavigationElement”,
“name”: [
“Home”,
“Services”,
“Outsourced Controller”,
“Tax Preparation and Planning”,
“Bookkeeping”,
“Payroll”,
“Cloud Accounting”,
“Testimonials”,
“Resources”,
“Blog”,
“About”,
“Contact”
“url”: [
“https://books4profits.com/”,
“https://books4profits.com/services-page/cfo-services/”,
“https://books4profits.com/services-page/cfo-services/”,
“https://books4profits.com/services-page/taxes/”,
https://books4profits.com/services-page/bookkeeping/”,
“https://books4profits.com/services-page/payroll/”,
“https://books4profits.com/testimonials/”,
“https://books4profits.com/resources/”,
“https://books4profits.com/blog/
“https://books4profits.com/about-us/”,
“https://books4profits.com/contact-us/” ] }
</script>