Using Ecommerce Microdata or JSON-LD Markup Improves Online Sales

Essential Ecommerce Schema Useful for Shopping Carts

How to Improve e-Commerce sales by Implementing Ecommerce JSON-LD Markup

If your site has a shopping cart or you sell online in the mobile world, prepare your website for e-commerce sales in advance. Read our tips on how to optimize your AdWords account and site’s content to be SEO-friendly with the benefits of schema markup and by using eCommerce microdata.

The Google Shopping tab is becoming more robust and now includes products in your Google Business Profile (GBP). This means it’s time to refine your oeverall digital marketing plan to take advantage of new emerging sales opportunities. Not only are sales opportunites from your GBP exapanding, so is the use of eCommerce schema markup.

This article will help get your business ready for higher profit margins with eCommerce Microdata and JSON-LD. While you may have prioritized your major efforts on Content Marketing this year, it will be important to add schema structure data into both your paid and organic search efforts going forward. For those who previously set aside technical SEO, as Google algorithms continue to evolve and rely on artificial intelligence more, marketers benefit by evolving their strategies, too.

Embellish your product listings in search results with reviews, visuals, ratings, pricing, warranties, and availability is one of the best ways to steal attention from similar product listings and establish trust with potential buyers. The top benefit of eCommerce schema, whether it be Microdata or JSON-LD implementation, it improves online sales. This is especially if you chose the one best suited for your application.

If your business counts on a website for new leads, position your advertising now to take reach prospective buyers shopping on mobile devices next year.

There are multiple SEO-related benefits when your business has Schema Markup code or “microdata” implemented correctly. It plays an important role today for websites and eCommerce businesses that leverage the opportunity of using Microdata and JASON-LD markup to stand out in search results, increases page rank, and (CTR) improve click-through rate. However, you do need to audit regularily to catch schema markup drift and fix it.

What is JSON LD in eCommerce SEO?

JSON-LD is the acronym for JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data, which consists of multi-dimensional arrays (meaning: list of attribute-value pairs). It is an implementation format for structuring data analogous to Microdata and RDFa.

You can decipher which essential pieces of information are most important to display to your potential customers, to demonstrate social proof, answer key consumer questions, build customer confidence, and ultimately improve click-thru-rates to your online shopping cart. By implementing structured data snippets you increase your chances to gain rich results displayed right in Google SERPs for users to immediately be introduced to your brand.

Using eCommerce Microdata and JSON-LD to Nab Buyer Micro-Moments

Make it easy for buyers to find you! In short, Internet users most often rely on mobile devices when wanting to fill a specific and immediate want or to find an immediate answer. This is what comprises “digital micro-moments”.

• I-want-to-know moments

• I-want-to-buy moments

• I-want-to-go moments

• I-want-to-do moments

Such “micro moments” matter to both e-commerce sites, local brick-and-mortar businesses, and are as relevant to B2B as it is to B2C.

“62% of smartphone users are more likely to take action right away toward solving an unexpected problem or new task because they have a smartphone,” according to Think with Google.

The term “micro moments” indicates how clearly the future of digital marketing success is centered on user behavior, wants, and your customer’s journey to a sale. This affects how to make your AdWords campaigns produce revenue over costs and leads your on-page SEO strategies. Having the best content created and using tracking pixels correctly can help your business be ready to garner those impulsive, zero-moment-of-truth decisions means you will nap new leads online rather than lose so many to other sites.

1. Create Newsworthy Content on Single Topics & Use Semantics to Multiply Keyword Reach

We may look back on former days when a heavily optimized page was achieved around a single head keyword by using it repeatedly. Now that same format may be classified as an over-optimized landing page and called “keyword stuffing”. Today, with the proliferation of content, development of new blog posts, landing pages, and news articles involves multiple factors. The topic should be chosen after closely evaluating viewer interests, use a collection of semantic keywords, cover the subject adequately, and be compelling in nature.

Search bots now better understand the content on a web page. They are less dependent on a page’s basic Metadata like H1 heading, link anchor text, or repetitive use of its main keyword phrase. AdWords topic targeting permits your ads to qualify for being display on any pages on the Google Display Network that have content related to your selected topics. This can be achieved by using topics that are relevant for your ads.

2. Use Schema Markup

This chart shows the number of websites using Microdata by BuiltWith. As an example, the page www.ebay.com/bhp/grandma-sweater ranks #3 for the query “buy grandmother a wool cardigan”, yet the phrase “wool cardigan” is not in the page title, URL, or description tag. The page makes use of schema RDF for products, which helps search engines understand what is on the page.

Google is able to interpret collectively everything on a page and then match it to terms that are typically used in similar discussions of the topic.

Today you have a chance to take a lead over competitive online shops that are still scrambling to get Schema and machine-readable markup on their pages. Frequently, a shopping cart set-up can assist your search marketing strategies by building it into available templates so it auto-fills for each product.

Google is dedicated to advancing machine learning as we can learn from its research blog. Its latest announcement says: “All sizes and shapes, and composed of heterogeneous, multimodal data like graphs composed of text, image, and video inputs, or various representations of these data “data representations” like image pixels and chat responses to photo reply in Allo; Data can be relational or structured data, as well as unstructured, sparse or dense representations extracted from raw data.” You can use your data to increase sales.

We like what Aleh Barysevich said on Moz:

“Using Google’s rich snippets in your e-commerce store is one of the best tactics for increasing the visibility of your products, enhancing your click-through rates (CTR), and driving more revenue. This tactic is not only effective, but quick and easy to implement as well.”

So here is an example of JASON-LD markup for a product:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Product",
"aggregateRating": {
"@type": "AggregateRating",
"bestRating": "100",
"ratingCount": "24",
"ratingValue": "87"
},
"image": "marines-red-hoodie-1.jpg",
"name": "Mens Marines Red Hoodie",
"offers": {
"@type": "AggregateOffer",
"highPrice": "$3895",
"lowPrice": "$4250",
"offerCount": "8",
"offers": [
{
"@type": "Offer",
"url": "/product//usmc-mens-clothing/marines-red-hoodie/"
},
{
"@type": "Offer",
"url": "marines-hoodie-offer/"
}
]
}
}
</script>

You can use schema for IndividualProduct to separately identify similar products by serial number.

Another specific type available is SpecificProduts. It is derived from the GoodRelations Vocabulary for E-Commerce, created by Martin Hepp. This is a data model for created sharing e-commerce data on the Web that can be expressed in multiple syntax formats; for example: RDFa and HTML5 Microdata.

3. Create Landing Pages / Product Pages for Users

A web page that was primarily optimized to be search-friendly without first focusing on being user-friendly isn’t that hard to spot. It should be both visually engaging and easy to reach additional information or related content. After your content is simple to find in your site’s structure and is readable by humans (not search bots), then consider how to mark it up.

Here is a sampling of additional ways to use additional schema for items in your shopping cart:

 

4. Make use of how Ontology is Extensible

Schema is vastly useful as it is extensible to support the needs of diverse data modalities.

For example, to extend your reach with Google medical searches, medical items for purchase may use MedicalEnumeration, MedicalTrialDesign, and PhysicalActivityCategory. More are sure to follow.

The increasing use of extensible markup language (XML) and Dublin metadata standards has transformed the way web-based information is machine-understandable and machine-readable. Understand how to prepare evergreen content to make it easy for search engines to match your product pages to relevant buyer queries showing purchase intent.

5. Move on to Accelerated Mobile Pages

Product pages optimized for mobile device users provide buyers with a better user experience on mobile devices. The AMP format eliminates much of the surrounding content that impedes a quick-loading page. Examples of what may be stripped are sidebars, footer content, lead capture forms, and comment sections. We find that typical demands for mobile page load time are faster than its corresponding HTML desktop version..

Schema was written with moblile search results and eCommerce in mind.

Initially we saw AMP largely used for content-heavy sites and news publishers, but that is changing. Initially more e-Commerce sites and other industries were “AMPing” up their websites to leverage the advantages found by using them. Today, AMP mobile pages no longer carry value in long-term SEO. They may have been a stepping stone to get developers, web designers, and SEOs to care more about the user experience. After all, what shoppers want is a frictionless shopping experience, meaning they don’t want to wait while a page’s elements load or shift around as supporting files load.

6. Use Reviews and Add Schema Markup to Gain Stars in SERPs

How to Build and Protect Your Online Reputation

In addition to winning more clicks to your online store; rich features snippets offer a unique opportunity to build and sustain your brand’s reputation. Google may pull in consumer reviews and ratings which work like free advertising to potential consumers. It allows them to know what other users have experienced after purchasing the particular product that is for sale. Review markup provides a signal that you are trustworthy in your niche, advertising with accuracy, and deliver products on time to paying customers. Many online consumers make a purchase decision once they can read positive reviews associated with their pending purchase.

Check what happens when I put “Cole Haan women’s boots” in a Google query box. Items with reviews jump out to the shoppers’ eye and instantly affirm which items are more popular with previous buyers. The gold stars pop out on the page and engage warm prospects, which in turn increases your CTRs.

Sidecar’s eCommerce Marketing Blog states it well: “Google wants to improve the shopping experience for its users, and increase the returns for retailers and other advertisers. One way to do this is by giving shoppers more choices and retailers more ad inventory.”***

A scrolling carousel of product offerings is even more commonly displayed to mobile buyers. Review stars and ratings offer an immediate signal of a product’s value.

7. Improves Your PPC Chances to Earn Revenue

Google paid search gives you added incentives with new ways to gain numerous rich snippets that impress shoppers. That is done by getting their attention; this is where it must all start. From there it will improve the performance of your text ads and ultimately mean more money in the bank.

Using schema on your shopping cart pages aids PPC spends by picking up location and displaying contact information as well as your opening hours. This can drive both online and offline sales. Such eye-catching visuals can be the differentiating factor that makes your products stand out from competing in text-based listings at all stages of the customer journey.

You can manage extensions using the extension setting services in the AdWords API to sort your feed’s schema and data, so you won’t have to keep up with the store location changes. It will synchronize information from your Google My Business Listing. AdWords will automatically maintain its location extensions because it is synchronized to the latest information updates you make within your GMB details.

8. Use E-Commerce Microdata for “Offer”

Provide shopping cart visitors with more useful information about the cost of your product and inventory levels using the Schema.org offer vocabulary.

Research Shows eCommerce Purchases Online are Increasing

The eCommerce niche is a giant that includes all retail shopping activities that occur on the Internet. According to data studied and released from eMarketer**, Forrester Research1 and RetailMeNot2, ECommerce sales in the United States tallied over 350 billion US Dollars for the year 2016. So far into 2017, those watching the numbers see it increasing.

If your business relies on a shopping cart, you can follow the recent growth and quickly see why investing in eCommerce marketing can help your revenue margins reach new potential. When it comes to money in the bank, both on and offline sales add up to selling as many products as possible. And as a 2016 poll in the Wall Street Journal discovered, for the first time ever, over half of all buying in the US happens on the Internet. Many are already engaging ways to improve mobile e-commerce sales by implementing schema-rich content.

Where Microdata and JASON-LD are Today and What it Means to You

Currently 10 archetypes of schema that can be divided into thousands of subtypes are at your disposal. Schema.org’s investment in expanding markup is robust. Many dedicated professionals are behind its pioneering ways to progressively include a greater range of e-commerce products and services markup that align with what more businesses provide. Click through the assorted schemas on Schema.org, and you will be sure to discover something that fits your business.

Basic Schema isn’t Sufficient for Product Differentiation

In the past, it has worked sufficiently to implement just the basic site-wide schema that applies to every page on that the particular website. Yes, that is easy, and certainly, should be done. But as winning in search means being the best answer, this method of giving search engines business-specific information is only elementary.

Providing search engines with more detailed information as to what each page is about can only benefit you. Improve your copy if your product descriptions are nearly duplicated and then add product schema for your e-commerce items. The more “product accurate” each page’s schema markup that you provide is, the more you are likely to gain visits from individuals ready to buy exactly that product.

Audit and check for new more developments for using schema. Don’t create it and forget it. Keep a view on what changes in both your existing code and new opportunities will benefit you. If you’re repositioning a product in your market, update your shopping cart’s schema.

Increased use of JSON-LD by Google Assistant

Are more people use voice-activated search in the home and the automobile, it is more important than ever to add schema to your product lines. If you aren’t using structured data, a competitor is and you can expect them to take the lead.

According to w3techs.com, JSON-LD is used by 26.3% of all the websites as of September 20, 2019. Comparing to Roger Montti’s July 31, 2019 Why You Should Add JSON-LD Structured Data Right Now article, he stated that “only 25.1% of websites use JSON-LD structured data”. Only two months later, that percentage is up 1.2%.

A data structure for your eCommerce site is a kind of repository that organizes information and images that help your products get found by prospective buyers. In the product digital database that’s generated by schema, each field is discrete and its information can be retrieved either separately or along with data combined along with other fields, in an array of combinations. The value of this data is your ability to make data-influenced content and marketing decisions as it is rich with useful information.

NOTE: JSON-LD markup for AMP pages requires a valid image size.

Product Rich Snippets Earn More Traffic with Strong Buyer Intent

It is worth the effort of getting your product’s data in search results with Product Rich Snippets by Google.

Consider the shopper who is seeking a specific shoe in Google. If they see a list of 10 sites all selling the same product but one of them has the price listed for less, says it’s in stock, and there are 53 5-star reviews, how do you think that impacts their choice? Generally, that’s the URL that wins the click. Serious buyers who enter your site and who already know the price and see favorable reviews, are much more likely to straight-up buy it.

Shopify if one platform that makes it easier to create product pages that function well search results while letting your customers see visually enhanced pages and rich cards. Include your product’s price, availability, similar products, images with variations, as well as product reviews for it. JSON-LD for e-Commerce SEO is the wildly effective way to get Rich Snippets for your products.

Services Implementing Microdata or JASON-LD to Increase Sales

We can help you audit and optimize your E-Commerce website for Google featured snippet so that your products and services are clicked on to meet a user query and appear on top in SERPs. For services starting at $1,500.00 (Offer ends 31 July 2024). Call Hill Web Creations at 651-206-24510

Both Google’s Knowledge Graph and rich snippets draw upon e-Commerce schema markup with populating. They have become essential schema formats for empowering entity-based search and present a commanding opportunity for e-commerce sites to sell more products. While Google has stated multiple times that rich snippets do not directly influence higher rankings, they can indirectly do so by enabling its’ bot to better understand the content they crawl. And certainly, viewers favor the visual appeal they produce.

SEO is an essential part of every business’s online marketing. The implementation of Schema.org in your search strategy, even if complicated and tedious, is well worth the effort. Structured data, which adds semantic meaning to your content and pages are essential for both B2B and B2C digital strategies.

It can help search engines make sense of what you are trying to do online. Every local storefront can benefit from Local Business schema implementation. Although it is important to share as much information about your site as possible, it is recommended to stick to the Schema.org elements that will truly benefit your eCommerce business.

SUMMARY

If you own or manage an e-Commerce store with a shopping cart and would like to enjoy increased visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs), implementing the latest structured markup could give you the cutting-edge that sets you apart.

When implementing Microdata or JASON-LD on your site becomes challenging for technical reasons, try the Structured Data Start Guide by Google**** or simply call us for correctly formatted tags. After reading our tips for using E-commerce Microdata for shopping cart optimization and to improve online sales volumes, you want more guidance; call 651-206-2410.

Jeannie Hill and team can help with your Minneapolis local search marketing. If your website isn’t getting the number of visitors and conversions you want, check out our Professional Lead Gen Services

 

 

* http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/123895-SEO-Structured-Data-Markup-for-Ecommerce-Product-Pages

** https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/type/charts-data/

*** https://discover.getsidecar.com/ready-to-ride-the-google-shopping-carousel/

**** https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structured-data/intro-structured-data