If you talk to a Google or search engine engineer, they’ll likely say that schema will not help your page or site rank. I am 100% onboard and in agreement with this from their perspective. Schema is a way to help search engines, machine learning, and algorithms better understand what the content of the page is and who it is for.
Schema can also help a page or site with authority and trust get featured snippets and rich results like carousels and video rankings. These give your website or content more exposure on the page and when done well more traffic to your site or more ads being shown. More ads means more money when you’re a creator.
So why would I say schema absolutely does and will help your site and page rank? Because I work on the publisher and brand side of the aisle. For me schema is a way to get:
- Dev resources involved so they can understand SEO and add it to their processes
- Branding teams on board with using more direct copy and images, as well as topically relevant wording vs. branded phrases
- Content teams to produce the style we need and in the formats that are best for users and search engines
- UX designers to agree to place copy, calls to action, and page features in specific places including video, text, tables, bullets, calls to action, selling points, and headers
Schema may not rank a page on its own, but when it opens the door to other teams by showing how the rich result can work, it is the one of the ways we can get everyone on board. Once everyone is on board, projects get completed and the site can rank. Much like other things in marketing, it is one of the smaller items that combines with others to bring in larger results. Here’s a few real life examples where I use schema to help the site rank.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, we did not stuff a million questions on every page or make every header a question. Instead we show the client or affiliate “people also ask” results in addition to the questions being appended to a standard search result listing. Next we get a list of customer questions or feature requests.
Then I used to demonstrate how when you deploy FAQ schema with the content that matches, it can result in questions being added to your listing in the search results giving you more “brand coverage.” In addition to the coverage you’re letting potential customers know you have solutions for their problems or that your product works for their query. In addition your listing in the search result gained extra visibility by taking up more space in the search result. I’m saying “used to” because FAQ schema is a deprecated library.
Next is “people also ask.” Now that the other teams are interested in SEO, I share how machine learning can interpret the content on the page. By adding answers to the questions (even if they aren’t in actual Q&A or FAQ style but are instead in paragraphs) we meet the needs of the user in the people also ask query. When they see the content on the page or in “people also ask” they know the product, service, or instructions are a solution to their needs, and how machine learning can find this content. In addition they get to see our brand as a solution which may build trust.
Once the machine learning parts of the algorithm know we have accurate and trustworthy information, that is when we see them featuring us in “people also ask” and other search features. We do not stuff questions as headers or FAQs onto the pages. We incorporate the information naturally into the correct sections and use the context of the wording to get the rankings.
Without having this schema library available for SEO I could not have gotten these teams on board as easily. Without the other teams on board, the page would not be developed into a format that can rank as easily. The “people also ask” example still works for branding, content, and UX, but FAQ schema made it easier to get IT and front end developers on board.
Videos
When a query is something that will impact a person’s life, health, or wealth, a video normally shows up in the top results. It could be styling hair, replacing a garbage disposal, or learning how to do a financial calculation with a piece of software. For a long time people would use video object schema and bury the video or put it on YouTube, Vimeo, etc… only.
With clients and affiliates in the programs we manage, I ask about their niches and we look for search results with videos on top. I then explain to them how we can optimize a page and send the right signals to get our video to replace the current one or populate when there isn’t one. Part of this includes nesting the video into the page itself, and in a position where it will help the visitor. Thanks to Google’s guidance, it is now easier to get the video placed predominantly as a feature of the page vs. supplementary. Next I share the schema library and show how it is related.
Schema is a big part in getting the video as a predominant feature on the page because schema is one of the things you can place in the head of a page. For us as marketing practitioners and the IT people reading (I am not one, I’m a wannabe), this one comment can somehow get the sign off from branding and other non-technical teams to keep the video high on the page.
I think it is because the code and markup is in the head so there’s an assumption the video should be up there too. It doesn’t make sense to us since we know that isn’t a thing, but it works to get everyone on board and all the features in the correct place. The end result is following best practices, so I’ll take it.
Carousels
Code is scary, so is adjusting your built in biases about your own capabilities. Schema makes a great bridge to help content creators including reviewers, podcasters, and bloggers to feel confident they can do SEO. Recipe schema is a good example.
When your recipe is in the carousel it builds confidence and gives you a burst of excitement that you can succeed in the cooking niche. The added benefit of recipe schema is that it matches what the person already knows and does when they write a post on their website. They just have to copy and paste the information into the correct places. Here’s Google’s guide to ranking a recipe page and where they give an example of the schema library.
Once the person understands the benefit of deploying recipe schema and seeing how everything flows, I have an easier time helping them give a better UX. I can show them how to modify anchor links and use headers properly so people can thumb through a page. Meta robots for when they share topically irrelevant content, but memories that are important to them and “must be published.”
If recipe schema was overly complicated, the other parts of page structure and UX would be harder to convince the creator to follow through on. Learning this type of markup gets the person ready to follow the best practices for on page SEO which helps get their pages in a better position to rank.
I’ve used area served schema to help small businesses rework the content on their page for better local and national results. The need for a sales description and content on the page for a services company or global brand becomes easy to get pushed through when they see what “branding content” vs. “content for the user” looks like in a description. Breadcrumb schema to get better site structure added visibly on the site.
There are plenty of other ways schema helps to justify making the changes that will help move the needle. Schema on its own will not help your page rank if you ask a search engine engineer. But it may help you get SERP features that can lead to more traffic. If you ask a marketing strategist like me, I will tell you that schema can help a page or a website rank because schema helps make the case as to why you need to create the type of experience that can rank.
