I once wrote an entry about how important it is to speak Polish on a Polish-language website . Carefully prepared content should effectively reach users – but will it also reach computer programs, including Google robots?
While search engines are certainly getting better at understanding content, we can help them a lot. Thanks to four giants—Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex—schema.org was created , a standard for describing information on a website and in an email. Computer programs—including email clients and search engines—can use this information to understand what the words on the page mean . In this way, Gmail “understands” that you’ve just received a confirmation for a flight reservation from city A to city B, and not just a message with a string of words. In the same way, Google can understand that the page you’re on is a blog post. And also who wrote the article and when, who owns the site, and where you can find the company’s headquarters.
In this way, data that is obvious to the user will also become obvious to various computer programs . Google services will be able to send a reminder about a flight. And the date of publication of an article or its rating may appear in the search engine.
In a similar way, Facebook learns which image should be used as a link preview. I encourage you to read the introduction to the Open Graph protocol.
Benefits of implementing structured data
What do we gain by using structured data on a website ?
A few years ago, we talked about rich snippets , sometimes known in Polish terminology as “enriched elements”. Currently, Google uses the term rich results , in Polish – results with extended elements . These are above-standard results in the Google search engine. They include, among others:
Product as extended result
Product Information
Event
Event Information
Recipe as an extended search result
Cooking recipe
Frequently Asked Questions on Google
Questions and Answers
Data structured on AMP page
An AMP page doesn’t need to contain structured data to pass validation for mobile Accelerated Pages (AMP). However, implementing correct (!) structured data can have many benefits. According to Google, AMP pages that contain hong kong telemarketing data structured data are much more likely to appear in a variety of rich results , including carousels (shown below).
Merry-go-round
Carousel Top Stories .
Sources of knowledge about structured data
To begin with, just two sources of knowledge will be enough to enrich the website with structured data .
Since we are most likely interested in improving Google search results , it is worth checking what expectations Google sets . On the developer page, Google describes the individual types of structured data. It points out which elements are required (you absolutely have to adapt to this), which are recommended (it is worth including them if possible), and also indicates the data format and other important information.
If Google doesn’t answer all your questions, you can (and should!) reach for the treasure trove of knowledge – the official schema.org website . However, I don’t recommend making decisions about which elements will be “ordered” based on it. The schema dictionary currently contains over 800 data types, so it’s worth reaching for this website only when necessary and familiarizing yourself with the most popular types according to it. The Google developer website described above also refers to this website.
There are three ways to record structured data:
Validating a structured data page
With Google's structured data testing tools, you can quickly verify that your entries are visible to robots and do not contain errors. You can verify the entire page by entering its address or validate a pasted code snippet.
Structured Data Tester
Validating subpage. This way you can check what information is visible to the search engine. And also see the competition
Go to Google's structured data testing tool .
The Search Console will also inform you about errors in the data structured on your website:
Search console - structured data
Job Ad Warnings: There was no mistake made in this case, the job ads posted simply did not contain the parameters recommended (though not required) by Google.
Summary
Google gives us such a solution, thanks to which our website will be better promoted in search results. On Google pages there are detailed examples, applications, and also benefits of using structured data . We also get friendly tools for testing and information about errors directly in Search Console .
I assume that most websites contain elements such as posts, events, or contact information that owners would like to better promote. Implementing structured data will not replace other important SEO activities, but it can help achieve even better results.
As I write this article, Google is seeing new types of structured data being added almost daily. I think it’s worth at least familiarizing yourself with them – and their potential benefits – and implementing those that look promising for specific projects.