Schema - Has it worked for you?
-
Hi all! For a while now I've been trying to convince the higher ups that Schema (or related semantic markup languages) would be a plus for our sites. Predominantly we're in ecommerce and so far I still haven't noticed any of our competitors really using Schema. So I was asked to hold off on it until other projects had been handled. But now the coder I had been working closely with has moved to another job so I basically need to re-explain all of this to someone else. But that's not really the point of this discussion post.
I recently read Barry Schwartz's post on the Google Structured Data Markup Helper Tool over on Search Engine Land [link] and thought it'd be a good time to bring up Schema to management again. But first, I wanted to ask how Schema has worked for the rest of you. Have you seen any increases in clickthroughs? Have rich snippets in Google made you more visible? Have you seen a decent ROI for the time spent on implementing it? Are you seeing an increase in people implementing it across your verticals? Have you found certain types of semantic data are less useful than others? Any tips, tricks, pointers concerning their use and implementation for those who are considering it? Any good case studies you can share?
Thanks all!
-
I have over 60 pages on my site identified by Google in GWT as having structured data with 4 types listed but overall since employing this to the site I've not seen anything that I can with confidence say that by employing schema it has benefited or hindered the site.
Hoping to reap what I've sown in due course.
Actually can I add though that on the pages where I've been adding adding schema I have noticed that in the SERPs these pages do not serve the information listed in the itemprop e.g. description but it is serving the information listed in the first H1 tag of each page. So at the moment I've been making sure the
text makes relative sense and is optimised for specific search terms. I was not expecting to see this but for others it might be worth looking at your pages in GWT where you have started to use schema, view what Google has on them and export them and review.
Would love to hear from others on this as well.
-
You could always change his name to an alias as a ghost writer for someone important in the company?
-
I was thinking management might be more up to letting me toy with Schema if I chose a product line on one of our sites that has decent but not exemplary sales & traffic to test the Product schema on. Problem being that since we haven't seen competitors do it yet I don't have an adequate way to show them that it will be a good move for us in order to overtake anyone edging us out and they also don't want me giving our competitors any ideas that would inadvertently help them out by copying us.
-
We had considered Rel=Author for our blogs but our regular blogger also does freelance for some sites that we might not want to have tied to our sites (nothing bad just not things that mesh well with the image we want to portray). So that idea was scrapped.
-
Ive had some good results by purely putting a rel author in there linked to my Google+ page. Just having my photo next to the serps entry stands out and encourages more clicks, even though im not top two for the keyword. So far this month ive had more traffic compared to whole of last month.
-
Hi Mike,
I have seen some good results with local business and breadcrumb markup for visibility. The jury is still out on product markup and I have not seen it used much in the search results that I track. That being said, the implementation is usually pretty quick and painless so no real reason not to implement at least the basics.
-
Iv recently (about 20 days ago) updated my website and added scheme for local business but yet to see any effects. In fact, the rankings have dropped for what I entered as business description.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Needs clarification: How "Disallow: /" works?
Hi all, I need clarification on this. I have noticed we have given "Disallow: /" in one of our sub-directory beside homepage. So, how it going to work now? Will this "Disallow: /" at sub-directory level going to disallow only that directory or entire website? If it is going to work for entire website; we have already given one more Disallow: / at homepage level blocking few folders. How it is going to handle with two Disallow: / commands? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Organization name as text vs. as a picture with alt text + Schema.org markup
I'm looking for some feedback to implement best practice for the markup of our header/navigation at the top of our site. Our organization name and a tag line is at the top of every page on the left, then our logo, then our navigation to items like "Topics" "FAQs" "About us" etc is to the right along the top. Our organization name includes the most frequently searched keyword for what we want to rank on, and our organization name is our domain name. A couple other background items: we're a non-profit startup and no code is public yet -- hence, I'll be explaining what we're going for. We're coding in straight html/css, not using Wordpress or anything like that. When we originally DIY coded our draft homepage and a few landing pages, we put the organization name and tag line into the markup as text, to look like this: Organization name | Pretty | Navigation items over here
Web Design | | scienceisrad
Explanatory fun tag line | Cool |
--------------------------------------- | Logo | --------------------------------------------------------- Then we outsourced the markup of two more landing pages to a company that does on-demand orders for responsive markup, based on png's we sent of the designs. The company's code renders a fabulous looking version of our design, and important for usability, it is responsive. The company also did something else I'm not so sure of. They made one big image out of our organization name, tag line and logo ... because? The indenting and different font sizes of the Organization name and tag line was too hard to code in? Or is it just best practice for html standards, SEO, etc. to make it one big logo?? Now, as part of an overall effort I'm working on to reconcile our different code ... I'm mulling right now specifically on reconciling the different approaches we each took and incorporating new best practices for the header ... based on what I'm reading online about headers, including debates about whether to use h1 for your company name, whether using an image for the name is fine, advice about including Schema.org markup for logos, etc. Given all this, which of these two options look better to you? Do they seem equally good to you? What would you change about the one that looks better to you? What do I have wrong in them? Or would you code this entirely differently to hit all best practices? What do you think about using h1 for organization name vs. is there a better tag to use for the organization name to code it in as text? (Note: we have other h1's on our pages for the actual article/content titles of each page, which maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't be having those as h1's?) Option 1 -- using text for our name and tag line: <header id="top" class="brandfont brandcolor">
[# Organization name Explanatory fun tag line](/) Organization name logo {navigation code here}
</header> Option 2 -- name, tag line and logo all as one big png image: <header id="header" class="container"> Organization name tag line {navigation code here}
</header>1 -
How difficult is schema.org markup
We have an e-commerce website and we are looking to get the Schema.org markup on our site, especially for our products to increase CTR and help with rankings as this will help Google understand our pages better. We have had two quotes from separate companies, one £100.00 and the other almost £600.00 I'm just curious how much work is involved as we don't want to get scammed for something that takes less than an hour to implement.
Web Design | | Jseddon920 -
How to write Schema for Before After Results
HI All We are cosmetic surgery clinic. A lot of our business is dependent on Before After results of patients. But We want to tell add structured data for it but didnt find any. There are options of portfolio but that is strictly not what it is. Suggestions please
Web Design | | Aman_1230 -
Schema question
What if an info, like an address, is not visible in my content but I would like Google to know the address through a schema markup like the following sample? Is it ok with Google and their guidelines? , , Here's what Google says from this link https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1093493?hl=en&topic=1724124&ctx=topic though it is quite confusing for me: "In general, Google won't display any content in rich snippets that is not visible to human user. It can be tempting to add all the content relevant for a rich snippet in one place on the page, mark it up, and then hide the entire block of text using techniques like display:none, value-title, css etc. Don't do it! Google will ignore content that isn't visible to human users, so you should mark up the text that visitors will see on your web pages." Is it ok if the content is not visible to users but included in a meta tag? Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | esiow20130 -
Multiple Local Schemas Per Page
I am working on a mid size restaurant groups site. The new site (in development) has a drop down of each of the locations. When you hover over a location in the drop down it shows the businesses info (NAP). Each of the location in the Nav list are using schema.org markup. I think this would be confusing for search robots. Every page has 15 address schemas and individual restaurants pages NAP is at the below all the locations' schema/NAP in the DOM. Have any of you dealt with multiple schemas per page or similar structure?
Web Design | | JoshAM0 -
How to determine if my site map needs work?
I recently spoke to a consultant at a search conference who took a look at my site map and mentioned it looked like google would have a hard time crawling the site and indexing new pages and changes. I am managing an ecommerce site with a bunch of products, however, I am not an XML expert by any means so i'd appreciate any advice on what to look for in the site map that would possibly be affecting googles ability to crawl/index.
Web Design | | GregWhiteStarMedia0 -
How can the Web site designer and the SEO strategist work together peacefully?
The organization I work for has decided to re-design or re-develop the existing company Web site. My part in this project is to come up with new features to add to the site, as well as making the site SEO-friendly (copywriting, link-building, keyword research, etc.). I don’t know a thing about Web site design, coding, format, etc., and I guess I will have to work with a designer on this project. How would I go about finding a Web site designer? Should they have some SEO knowledge? How much designer, coding and site structure knowledge should I have? And how do we not infringe on one another as we work together? (Sorry so many questions.)
Web Design | | Obie0