Google Structured Data Updates Prepare SEO’s for the 2020’s

Updates to Google’s Structured Data Documentation

Updated 11.3.2021

In essence, structured data markup paints a picture of your website’s content. Google structured data updates are not just for search engines.

Schema implementation helps people find your business, while simultaneously, you gain the benefit of optimized content that viewers want and consume, eye-catching visual search results, and increase your click-through rate. Structured snippets are meant to help provide better data for users.

Google’s John Mueller references the possibility that the search engine giant may add structured data markup as a ranking factor. Today, we know that Google plans to add more rich snippet formats to the current list of supported schema formats. They also hope to soon improve the speed with which bots detect and show new rich snippets markup. On September 11, 2015, Mueller stated, “over time, I think it [structured markup] is something that might go into the rankings as well”. Years later, we do see the need for a markup increase.

Before we go further, let’s answer foundational questions about Google structured data.

What is structured data?

Structured data is code added to web pages in a specific format and written so that search engines understand your content better. Search engines read this schema code and use it to render search results in a specific and richer way to better match search intent. Basic structured data code is easy to implement on your website.

What is unstructured data?

Unstructured data, also known as unstructured information, is informational data that either does not have a pre-defined data model or is not well structured in a pre-defined manner. Unstructured data information is commonly text-heavy but typically consists of data such as dates, numbers, and facts.

What is the difference between structured and unstructured data?

The main difference is that structured data consists of clearly defined data types whose pattern makes them easier to interpret and make searchable. In contrast, unstructured data is data that is usually not as readily searchable; it includes data formats such as audio, video, and social media postings.

So, what is Google’s recognition of structured data and rich results mean for your business?

How does Structured Data Help Domination in SERPs?

Curating high-quality content will be as important in the 2020s and years beyond. Schema helps search engines and algorithms that still don’t fully understand the context – to get it better. This mark-up language gives search engines “hints” to better understand and deliver search results that align closer with a searcher’s intent. For example, getting Organization or Local Business schema on your site is vital to remain competitive.

To gain an advantage in competitive niches, staying current with updates means that your business can capitalize on new opportunities in SEO as they emerge.

Primary examples of advancing schema use and possibilities:

• Increasing numbers of public datasets available for Google dataset schema use
• More ways and places that Google is using product carousels
• More ways to structure and markup healthcare-related content.

The best place to start is to identify the closest fit for your business’s industry-specific schema. This offers more visibility for relevant search queries that match your key content to structure and markup healthcare-related content.

The best place to start is to identify the closest fit for your business’s industry-specific schema. This offers more visibility for relevant search queries that match your key services and products. So how fast is this form of SEO being adopted?

As of 1 March 2018, the Open Graph protocol was used by 37% of all websites and by 61.9% of the top 1000 sites”, according to w3techs.com. ****

Google Increases Structured Data Support

On November 1, 2021, JobPosting schema can job seekers better understand your job postings

This is accomplished by including a complete description, which may seem duplicate of the “qualifications” field, but to have better reach in SERPs, it is best to include this as well as required skills and the benefits your offer in this field.

“To make sure users can view the full job description in the jobs experience on Google Search, review the description field and make sure it includes all information that you may have included only in specific fields (like the qualifications property). You don’t need to remove the more specific fields; just make sure that you also include the same information in the description property itself.” – Google

Yesterday, Friday, January 29, Mueller reaffirmed Google’s intent to work more with structured data, saying: “it is very useful for us to understand the content better. It’s SEOs nature to make sure we don’t misunderstand it and get it wrong. So from that point of view, it is useful. The other aspect of course is, the more sites use structured data, the more we can use it and highlight it more in the search results.” Market research can inform you of which structured data types are most effective for other similar businesses. In Friday’s, January 15, 2016, Google Webmaster hangout, his remarks indicated that it is more important to implement schema markup on your website, as this is becoming more important to Google.

Clearly, Google is planning to make structured data even bigger in the 2020s. The end result to better match user search queries to the most relevant and trusted online content that provides answers and solutions.

Here is an time line of additional, significant Google structured data Updates:

• August 2023: FAQs rich results are limited unless questions matched keywords exactly or for healthcare and government sites.
• August 2023: Video must be placed as the main content of the page to achieve a Video rich result.
• August 2023: Google Removes @ID from Site Name Markup,
• August 2023: Google limits howTo structured data to desktop.
• May 2023: Google Site names now support subdomains on mobile devices. You can use structured data on your home page to inform Google what the site name should be for your domain.
• May 2023: Google no longer requires video descriptions for valid structured data. Its documentation moved the “description” property from “required” to “recommended”.
• January 2023: Google Drops 110 Character Limit From Article Headline Structured Data. As well, there are several new Article schema types in pending status.
• October 24, 2022: Clarified how site names are supported at the domain level, and not at subdomain or subdirectory levels. Favicons are supported at both domain and subdomain levels, but not at the subdirectory level.
• October 14, 2022: Google added new ‘site name’ documentation
• October 12, 2022: Support documentation for image credits to the Image Metadata structured data added.
• August 29, 2022: Added full list of academic values now supported for educationalLevel.
• August 10, 2022: August 10: Now includes the gtin12 property to the Product structured data in documentation.
• June 1, 2022: Now includes new author markup best practices to the Article structured data documentation.
• May 10, 2022: Added new details for Education Q&A documentation.
• November 16, 2021: Added a guideline about logos and white backgrounds.
• July 19, 2021: Google offers a new way to enable video key moments in Search.
• June 8, 2021: BackOrder was added as a permitted value for the availability property in Product structured data.
• May 27, 2021: Google announced SeekToAction for video schema at Google I/O.

What is The LiveBlogPosting schema?

LiveBlogPosting markup falls under the Article type of structured data. It lets publishers provide stronger signals to search engines that their content is updated in real-time. This informs search engines of fresh contextual signals of which page entities are receiving frequent refreshes over a specified period of time.

Articles or news articles supported by LiveBlogPosting structured data display often in Google’s Top Stories feature. Look at the top left-hand corner of the thumbnail image, there will be a red “Live” indicator to inform readers that live updates are added to the page.

Structured Data Update Paints a Better Picture of Content for Google Bot

e-Commerce Schema Types continue to expand and emerge.

Google offers methods to win in both earned search and an integrated set of tools and services to best manage paid marketing. Search ranking factors are continually evolving and a competitive advantage requires an agile approach to marketing strategies. Managing and growing online relationships are critical to improving your presence online. Previously, we wondered whether or not structured snippets create an invaluable impact; today we have evidence that it does. As an early adopter of structured data, as of January 11, structured data updates found in client’s Google Search Console confirmed that previous errors have been corrected.

Because search optimization makes up the leading difference in which small business owners succeed, is very rewarding to offer structured data implementation services. Understandably, most business owners center their focus on running their business and find it too vast of a time commitment to understanding how to market on Google and keep up with trends. Your goal is to come up more often in search, look better, rank better in the SERPs, and accrue better online leads. Schema markup will help you. As well, note the recent Google Structured Data Update posted online as of January 13, 2016.

When seeking a trusted Google Small Business digital marketing adviser, I would like to be that consultant.

Using Schema Structured Data to Highlight Job Postings

Google first Introduced the code for job posting URLs on June 26, 2018. Today, the Google Indexing API for Job Postings provides better solutions to former issues.

This form of a schema has already been helping millions of job seekers across the globe learn of relevant job opportunities from third-party providers via the Internet. Keeping the indexing of new job content is critical and challenging because many jobs are quickly filled. Removal of expired URL postings is key because no one what to then find and apply for a great job only to discover it’s no longer accepting applications or the position is filled.

Updated Schema lets you Send your Recipes to the Google Assistant

Back in,2018, Google posted further references for implementing recipe structured data properties. Now, if you want to be included in Google Assistant or Google Home, you need to use the recipeIngredient and recipeInstructions properties. The growth of users relying on voice search means that making updates to your schema code is a worthwhile time investment. No worries about it being eligible within your traditional search results, this applies to Google Assistant.

With a higher percentage of the population using Google Home every day, adhering to newly publishing Google schema guidelines means that your web content can provision voice guided user experiences. In this way, your business can receive additional traffic from multiple sources, since shoppers can easily discover your posted recipes through the Google Assistant on Google Home. Additionally, test your markup for AMP landing pages.

What are Structured Snippets?

Schema markup is a microdata set that is produced through the collaborative effort between the major search providers like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex. The goal was to construct a set of code snippets that permits web developers and site owners to identify specific data types. This information is then parsed by search engines and is used to provide improved relevancy in search results. Using data gleaned from indexing and user experience, they can take that information and present it as a separate section within the search results, typically located on the right-hand side of the page.

Schema is a representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model. A schema is a type of scientific reasoning or a conception of what is common to all members of a class; a general or essential type or form. It is – a diagrammatic presentation; broadly: a structured framework or plan: outline.

Structured data for a business typically includes office branches, founders, and social media platforms; while snippets for products carry information about weight, size, color, etc. Not all Google pack results will show structured data. It’s usually only the first one to four that will contain a structured snippet. Given complex algorithms updates, it’s also possible that the second or the third search result is granted this extra information instead of the first one.

Invalid schema markup in your HTML causes big problems.

Yesterday, January 28, John Mueller explained on Twitter* after being questions about the new search guidelines changes, “Invalid HTML causes more problems now than years ago: structured data and mobile come to mind… but for the most part, we just wanted to rephrase it in a .. correct way :).” This underscores the core intent behind structure data, the ability for search engines to correctly interpret web content. By more extensively adding properly formatted service and product structured data markup to content, businesses can go a long way toward achieving this.

Google RankBrain Algorithm Uses Structured Data

Google announced their new machine-learning system identified as RankBrain in 2015. To better accomplish their task of supplying billions of free searches each day, this technology helps robot crawlers better match the intent of searches to site content. Google says that it has been particularly helpful if the search engine finds a query that is new. Sites with structured Schema Metadata have quickly been rewarded as the search engine giant claims that it is the third most significant ranking signal in their algorithm.

This week we see that structured data is an even greater significant factor in 2016. As Google and similar search engines further incorporate machine learning into their algorithms, they are developing a more intuitive algorithm to assess what searchers are looking for and maximize their user experience by displaying the best possible sites.

Brands should ensure that their structured data markup is used throughout their website consistently. By consistent use of keywords in summary and description rich snippet tags, the Google bot finds it easier to match search queries to relevant content.

Implementing Structured MetaData for Earned SEO

On a technical side, SEO experts find increased demand to flow with this development in how Google handles online semantic content. Digital brands must focus on structured data to compete online in today’s world. Structured data markup, like that which is found on schema.org, helps websites communicate with search engines by offering descriptive text that indicates what a web page is about rather than hoping that the search engines can interpret it. Readable text boosts chances for SERP (search engine results pages) results that display your website with increased accuracy.

If your website has missing or inaccurate structured data markup, in the past, it may get by without negative consequences in SERP results or with a minimal impact on your brand’s performance. Going forward, search engines are reading more intelligently, and failure to employ correct and current structured data best practices impact a website’s success.

Semantic Search Marketing Strategies

Provide as much structured data as available for every key web page you have. It is easy to notice e-commerce sites that get yellow stars, prices, or thumbnails that are visible in Google Local Pack Results or Knowledge Graph. That’s the power of structured data at work.

Since structured data is simply a means of tagging the content on your web pages so that search engines can easily understand what they are about. These data elements can be anything from video, pricing, reviews, product and service descriptions, as well as making the subject available to breadcrumbs.

So what exactly does structured data look like in search engine listings? Structured data is the “bonus” information that viewers see next to a website and Meta description. While it is still unclear if or to what extent Google uses structured data for ranking purposes today, B2B marketers should already comprehend essential markup types in organic search visibility and chances to improve click-thru rates.

Companies and individuals should familiarize themselves with how to customize their own data in the ‘Google Knowledge Graph’ through structured data markup.

Schema And Structured Data SEO

Here is a visual example of the personalization of data when using the latest Google structured data.

Search is becoming savvier by refocusing on intent and becoming more of an interface that interacts with structured data; your business can takes advantage of its various new functionality and opportunities. We think it is especially import to keep your business review markup current. Ultimately, search will more accurately predict the searcher’s needs and offer more amazing results in SERPs.

The skill that developers must use to build results that achieve this goal starts with the marriage of structured data and mobile applications. Radical steps forward have progressed. We are covering here some of the methods that SEOs can currently use to integrate structured data information into websites and beyond – into mobile and the Google Knowledge Graph.

Google Now Cards

Individuals and businesses can also implement structured data mark up to personalize Google Now cards. Google can read your Gmail, especially powerful is Google for Work; from that material Google may recognize that you have a flight reservation and for which date and time. Google can then product related results when you’re using a search box. Depending on your business niche, for example a website’s data structure for a medical business, there are unique opportunities to use specific schema.

6 Ways to Customize Your Google Knowledge Graph with Structured Data

Currently, you can customize the following types of Google structured data to better introduce your website in the Knowledge Graph:

3 Primary Ways to Use Structured Schema Markup

Here are the three that I find most businesses start with:

1. Product reviews

2. Local business pages

3. Website news articles

The Google Knowledge Graph is the search giant’s tactic of categorizing and displaying information on recognized entities. Examples are people, places, events, and organizations. In this section on your screen, Google merges information from multiple data sources such as websites, Wikipedia, social networks, and probably much more than we are aware of. If Google trusts you as the authority on specific content, Google can use the structured data on your website as factual and display it through the Knowledge Graph.

Google Includes Structured Data for Q & A Pages

Google announced December 3, 2018, its newly supported structured data format named Q&A pages. This assists Google with the question and answers formatted snippets carousel and web pages that are dedicated to answering one important question.

The “best answer carousel snippets” have been visible for nearly a year already, but now it has published official structured data markup for use. Web content that embodies a question and its answers, can include markup from the schema.org QAPage, Question, and Answer types.

In turn, your business may gain a rich result displayed right in search results pages. This favored and highly visible display helps businesses reach the right users on Google Search. Its intended use is for social news sites, topic expert forums, and help and support message boards.

Using Dynamic Structured Snippets in AdWords

In Google AdWords, Marketers are offered dynamic structured snippets, which some advertisers utilize to automate more and more. If managing massive mobile SEO campaigns, automation with dynamically structured snippets lightens management time; however, I prefer the granular ability to customize as we see fit. In 2015, Google gave us more structured data options in our ads. We anticipate the use of structured data snippets to grow and permit more relevant messaging, to enhance site attributes for mobile users, and to make AdWords even better.

Copy, Swap, and Paste from Schema Code Examples

Each instance of your implemented schema will be reported in your Google Search Console, where its new Index report will help you keep tabs on errors. When its’ structured data markup tool detects markup errors the SERPs will not show any of the visual schematic results that have an error. As long as you don’t have a site-wide penalty, warnings will still populate the other schema tags you have correctly in place.

Your Search Console provides new useful debugging and monitoring reports and tools to test rendering, how it looks on a smartphone, availability, and structured data indexing.

Many examples of schema code can be found online. Webmasters are encouraged to begin by copy, swap, and paste method boring code directly from examples provided by Google, Schema.org, or another trusted source. However, that isn’t an end-all. If you have arrived on this page from one of the many forums where coders can ask schema questions, you may be one of the many who wonders why an error or warning appears in your Search Console, and yet the code tests are correct. This is where a full schema audit comes in.

Ensure that your Business Implements Essential Schema Formats

Prioritize the most important opportunities as schema types expand and grow.

In large, we focus on using JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) for two reasons. JSON-LD is the recommended method for adding schema by Google:

• JSON-LD is the easiest method for most webmasters to add schema to content.
• JSON-LD is the easiest method for most webmasters to add schema to content.

Testing Structured Data with Google Tools

Google offers two key tools for integrating structured data markup into your website’s content, as do the other search engines. However, some of these code updates are complex and will probably require the assistance of an SEO / SEM expert and your developers. Based on the benefits of structured data markup language, it is a worthwhile investment that helps search engines and viewers consume your web content more easily.

When using structured data, brands should take advantage of the Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools), which offers assistance to ensure structured markup is correct. (1) Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool (will be moving) makes it a simpler task for brands to test and determine if they have added the code accurately. (2) Additionally, use the Google Structured Data Markup Helper tool.

Digital branding requires structured markup that highlights optimized web content consistently — particularly for highly sought-after content, such as reviews and videos on your website. Structured data markup will increase your chances that rich snippets appear whenever viable in search results. To help a page display more rich snippets, add structured data, such as product information, organization, reviews, events, and software applications. Be sure to use technically correct markup to indicate your content for better changes that search engines will trust your site.

If you have been waiting for a clear prompt, it is time to implement organization schema markup on your website. The schema.org vocabulary and JSON-LD markup format are an open standard available to anyone for embedding structured data in web pages.

Search Console Warning: Incorrect Structured Data Might Remove Rich Snippets

Notice may be sent to your site’s Webmaster, saying something like this: “Google has detected structured markup on some of your pages that we believe violates our structured data guidelines. Because incorrect information lowers the quality of search results for users, rich snippets will not appear in Google Search results for pages with incorrectly structured data markup. We suggest you update the incorrect structured data and file a reconsideration request once you have fixed your site. After we determine that you have complied with our guidelines, we will remove this manual action.”

When testing vocabularies and structured data schemas, it is important to note error messages from validators and know that they may be related to usage requirements. As schema markup continues to expand, validation errors pertaining to some required fields or required properties have exact requirements. Implementing structured data means watching for updates and building a report of trust with the search engines that your website’s code is clean and correct.

Information from structured data markup provides insight into what factors of a web page you deem important. The Google Search Console lets you see how which pages Google views as quality, those in question, and where it finds errors. Fix these errors as quickly as possible to eliminate a risk that incorrect use of rich snippet code blocks the rest of your on-page markup from being read.

When using NewsArticle structured data, the publisher’s logo is required. One example of a strict guideline to note is that Google specifies a logo’s maximum height. It states, “Logos should be no wider than 600px, and no taller than 60px.” I received an error because my logo was 480 by 65 until I corrected the image size. If you are tempted to do a quick fix, pay attention to the additional guideline for Google developers, “Always retain the original aspect ratio of the logo when resizing”.

While Google offers a validator for both JSON-LD and microdata, the search giant’s preference seems to be to implement structured data via the JSON-LD method. Regardless of the method you choose, it provides properties for each entity and specific error messages for invalid input.

Insights on Structured Data and Rich Snippets

Some of my favorite structured data updates explained by John Mueller during English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangouts*** are:

– They do mark up the last node of breadcrumbs. It is not something that should affect search ranking.

– We try to use structured data as a way to understand more about this page. It leads to more visible search results and a nicer-looking snippet. When sites go off and implement structured data, it makes it easier to understand the context.

– Structured data instructs Google how you prefer to show your content.

– Check out NewsArticle markup in particular.

– Double-check to see that it is implemented in a way that is compliant with our policy.

– We recognize it fairly quickly, so usually within one or two crawls, depending on the type of (schema) markup. The aspect of it being shown in search results is separate from that. Like is it used in the right way. It kinda depends more on the site itself. Make sure it is a high-quality website.

– Marked-up structured data may not be displayed if the Google bot doesn’t believe that it is representative of the main content of the page or is potentially misleading.

– Plan to display structured data-rich snippets for both search engines and the reader; Google will not show content from hidden div’s in Rich Snippets.

PageRank and Structured Data

PageRank is much more about a clean site. You want to send a message that you have clean code and can be trusted for content that is high quality and easy for mobile readers. Page rank is interpreted much differently. Additionally, on-page keywords ranking is now more contextual structured data in UX design is on the threshold of changing the landscape of the SEO game.

Stay current on Google’s guidelines for rich snippets, as they have been substantially expanded just as Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) debut. A more detailed examination of structured data updates provides us, I think, with better insights on the direction Google is taking in their display, distribution, and earned search of articles moving forward. It very much substantiates our proposition that these changes are important to embrace for an online competitive edge. WordPress is also onboard with structured data updates and announced that it’s developing a plugin for the AMP standard to help WordPress users.

Applications requiring access to the structured data underlying Web pages had to build custom extractors to convert plain HTML into structured data markup. These efforts were often laborious, and the scrapers were fragile and error-prone, breaking every time a site changed its layout. The recent proliferation of digital communication devices with widely varying form factors has dramatically increased the number of challenges websites have.

Web experts shouldn’t assume that using structured data markup will make your site jump up in rankings automatically. John Mueller statement was, Google will “ try to distinguish between a site that is done technically well and a site that actually has good content.

Examples of 3 Basic Applications For Structured Data

In order for Google to find and render rich snippets on Google, a website must be properly marked up with correct structured data types. Below are three examples of properties that offer code that your web developer can customize to fit your content. Find more examples at schema.org.

 

Ecommerce Sites Benefit from Using Microdata for Google Shopping

When it comes to eCommerce, you must handle your code with Google’s product-specific guidelines and policies.

The reason to use a product-rich snippet is to offer potential buyers information about a specific product. The information might include the cost of the product, availability, reviewer ratings, and accompanying comments. Google provides the following three guidelines when using product snippets:

1. Product markup should be used for a specific product, not a category of products or a list of products. For example, “shoes in our shop” is not a specific product. See also our structured data policies for multiple entities on the same page.

2. Adult-related products are not supported.

3. If the product has been reviewed by a single reviewer, the reviewer’s name needs to be a valid name for a Person (e.g. “James Smith”) or Team/Organization (e.g. “CNET Reviewers”). For example, “50% off on Black Friday” is not a valid name.

Video Schema Structured Data

A site with embedded or hosted video content can make this form of content easy for GoogleBot to identify when VideoObject schema is added. While Google predominantly presents video-rich snippets for YouTube videos, cases have been reported where video-rich snippets showed up for other video formats from web pages in Google Video Search. With a few correct properties added that include additional required information, video content can be more readily interpreted and enhanced in search results with a visual thumbnail image.

Google encourages webmasters to “Add schema.org markup directly to the HTML of your video page. The markup will not be visible to users and will not affect how your page looks. When Google crawls your page, we’ll use this information to index your video.”

Schema Rating Markup as Needed for Products

The Rating schema is intended for e-commerce sites to help prospective buyers learn how satisfied previous individuals who made the same purchase were. With modification, it can be used for your local business sites, such as a car repair service or pup. When a product has gained numerous ratings that have been aggregated together to come up with an overall summary rating, make use of the AggregateRating schema. Its use is particularly in high demand for healthcare sites needing proof from aggregate reviews.

By default, Google attributes that you are using a five-point scale, with 1 being terrible and 5 being excellent. If you use something besides the standard 1–5 scale, indicate the highest possible rating with the “bestRating” property. These structured data markups are what is behind the highly sought-after gold star rating rich snippets in SERPs.

Enlist the Services of a Google Structured Data Specialist and SEO Consultant

In the end, using structured data correctly may give you a new online marketing advantage, a stronger keyword profile, improved organic search results, and more competitive confidence. You can span gaps between keyword rankings and organic traffic and where you want to be. As the use of structured web data evolves, you need an SEO expert who is trained, proven, and has the discipline to remain current in best practices.

As marketing and digital competitiveness become more multifaceted, most businesses need a specialist to manage their structured data and SEO. By doing so, your time as a business owner is better spent growing your business rather than trying to decipher methods to implement structured data on your website. The search consultant who understands how this affects your SEO efforts will guide you in creating a winning strategy to stay highly competitive as changes to Google’s algorithms come about.

Google’s improved machine-learning capabilities through updated structured data can tell whether a page has sufficient information to satisfy the searcher’s query. Though too many competing for structured data elements could lower your traffic potential, there’s the opportunity to significantly increase your web traffic — if you can get your evergreen content into one or more relevant structured data properties.

You need an SEO Consultant who has enough experience working with code to be able to guide you in your site’s application of structured data and rich snippets.

Google Developer Guidelines for structure Data

To be more intuitive and increased use of structured data, we anticipate more properties will be added and new updates to the Developer Guidelines for adding Google’s structured data markup on your website. The examples offered here fit the latest update we found. You will find that Google notes this on the bottom of the page: “Last updated January 13, 2016”. So if you keep an eye on this, you will know if you need to update your website’s structured data code. If you want the advantages of better rankings in SERP’s, comply whenever you can with structured data best practices.

Look under the “Additional Information” section for each property. Examples of what we find today:

– “Product markup should be used for a specific product, not a category of products or a list of products.”

– “Your product snippet may not display if the priceValidUntil property indicates a past date.”

– “Since Event rich snippets are not meant for marking up e-commerce sales and advertising purposes, your event name should not contain any promotional elements such as the price of the event…”

 

Schema Markup SEO and Artificial Intelligence

Accomplished by robots but is useful to humans that need a product or service.

AI helps connect the consumer with the humans selling them. For businesses seeking to be leaders in sales and resolving consumer concerns, it is necessary to position content to perform optimally for the potential influence of Artificial Intelligence in SEO.

How to understand Google’s Updated Structured Data Guidelines and stay positioned well for future advancements:

• Craft content that is crawlable and that your site visitors will engage with: It is imperative to stay current with a thorough knowledge of Google’s Webmaster Blog, its schema markup guidelines for current best practices. This is a vastly expanding area of SEO and any additional instructions that include AI are worth knowing sooner versus later. Engage new forms of structured data markup where possible to provide site visitors with the most optimized search result. They can find and utilize your site’s related content better when this extra work has been performed.

• Comprehend what content is user-centric and create quality pages that are data-informed: Speculation exists as to what the next-generation keyword tool might be in view of RankBrain’s influence on search results. Markup needs to work correctly on mobile search and AMP pages as they are in demand. Web content teams who are fluid in their approach to organic search see schema.org as a vehicle to match popular searches and the routes to digital success change.

• Make data-driven content a top priority: Google is committed to gleaning and follow at user signals or popularity of content to sift out spam and elevate quality. It’s an integral part of their core philosophy that has been articulated all along. While the company expands into new areas, this one seems solid. Schema markup makes showing up in People Also Ask boxes and visually appealing mobile product carousels more likely. Since popular content is a huge task to match every moment of every day, consider formalizing a schema implementation strategy that helps search engines understand your content as much and as often as possible.

• Even Google’s engineers cannot explain how it works all the time: It continues to appear that AI’s growing role will continue to shape search results and may become the dormant driver for organic SERPs. What SEO professionals can expect is that it will significantly revise search engine optimization routines and tactics. More than ever, it seems that a fluid and active approach is vital to deciphering what aspects are behind ranking changes. AI’s sophisticated is a tad scary to some, maybe largely because what is behind its algorithm is an astonishing complexity.

• Experiment more with JSON-LD: JSON-LD continues to expand as SEO’s first preference and Google has been recommending the use of it more and more, indicating when there is a current application. But knowing how to properly implement JSON-LD markups isn’t everyone’s skill set. Relying on automatically extracting values from code such as PHP and incorporating them into the block of JSON-LD is very challenging for the average web developer. While the percentage is shrinking, Google does not support all rich snippet types for JSON-LD, particularly product-rich snippets. There is a great deal of chatter and teamwork on GitHub to offer more If the only current option is to use microdata, we use it and enjoy the more granular control of marking up the content in-line.

• Keep voice search top of mind: The percentage of smart speakers is growing and expectations for the coming holiday anticipate shoppers will use mobile devices more for gifts purchases and more voice shopping as well. Schema is key to voice search. “The Smart Audio Report” provides data results based on a survey of 800 people who use at least one smart speaker and a similar number of individuals who didn’t. Greg Sterling’s Sept 9th Report: 57% of smart speaker owners have bought something with their voice says, “Of the largest single group is the coveted 18 to 34 cohort (45 percent) followed by those 35 to 54 (39 percent). Among those over 55, 16 percent of owners had made a purchase.”

How RankBrain impacts search ranking signals and your site merits ongoing exploration and implementing new structured data markup as often as you can.

“Websites that use schema markup will rank better in the SERP’s than companies without markup. One study determined that websites with markup rank an average of four positions higher in the SERP’s than those without schema markup.” – Neil Patel*

“There are millions of websites missing out on a huge source of SEO potential. If you use schema markup, you’ll automatically have a leg up on the vast majority of your competition.” – Kiss Metrics

“Improving search. We don’t name all updates (structured data). Some of them end up being noticed by external search trackers, some don’t.” – John Mueller shared publicly, Jan 11, 2016

Google Structured Data Updates and Gaining Featured Rich Snippets Services

Practice problems markup

We have added a post to cover how to overcome challenges implementing structured data. To underscore its commitment to learning and education features, in March 2021, Google rolls out Structured data and debugging tools for practice problems and multi-choice math solver search results. This will help people right in immediate rich results by giving them a preview of learning content found on a website. Here are some guidelines from Google:

• Add a Quiz property for each practice problem that you want to be featured. The structured data must appear on the same page as the practice problem a user can interact with on your web page.
• Your web page must include all required structured data properties as described under required Quiz properties.
• You must mark up a minimum of two practice problems per concept (for example, two practice problems for the concept “quadratic equation”). Focus on marking up the concepts and problems that you want to be eligible to appear in the Practice problems rich result. They can be on separate pages.

Avoid Out-dated Schema and Structure Data Errors

It is too easy for any website to end up facing schema markup dirft issues.

Using schema structured data markup embedded in your business website is more important in the coming year. Additionally, by adding structured data to your Google Knowledge Panel, you can prominently display your customer service phone number and other key details. We offer guidance to render rich snippets with just the right amount of simplification without drifting into inaccuracy.

As SEO/SEM strategists, we dive into the detailed work of creating structured data that indexes your web content, helps users find it, and gets you found by Google and the other top search engines. We anticipate more integration between Google Posts and reports in Search.

Adhering to structured data updates produces rich snippets that offer “rich answers”. For the search engines, it’s about answering searchers’ questions and intent accurately. For you, it’s also about having your business site become THE answer to more search queries that are about YOUR products with increasing frequency. Whoever shows up at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), generally wins the click to their web content.

If you are working with datatypes for CssSelector and XPath, it appears for Speakable markup, you need to reference the tag which contains the text rather than the text itself.

SUMMARY of Google Structured Data Updates and Timelines

Stay tuned on social networks. We will be providing compelling new ways to use structured data on your website and beyond. Earned search is evolving in many exciting ways. More details coming on how to track the effectiveness of structured markup after implementation. We are an unrelenting force behind innovative marketing campaigns and strategies for our clients.

If you would like to know more about my achievements in structured data implementation, let’s talk further about your option to enlist our Optimization Services for Lead Generation

 

 

* quicksprout.com/2015/09/11/how-to-skyrocket-your-rankings-overnight-by-implementing-schema-markup/

** https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/692807022664929280

*** https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/office-hours

**** https://w3techs.com/technologies/breakdown/da-opengraph/ranking