Leveraging Structured Data Markup: Enhancing Search Visibility And User Experience

Among the popular SEO trends, structured data continues to attract attention. After investing in changes in COVID-related structured data in 2020, Google made major updates to its structured data documentation in 2022. The year 2023 promises to be no different.

Why is structured data markup critical to business success in 2023? Well, online business owners can no longer depend simply on organic search and paid search advertising to increase their customer reach. As it stands, the structured data markup method can improve SEO performance and brand visibility.

In this blog, we will understand how structured data markup can enhance search visibility and improve the user experience.

What Is Structured Data Markup?

Also known as schema markup, structured data markup is defined as the standard format used to provide search engines with specific information about any website’s content. Predefined tags can help identify and classify various data types, thus making it simpler for search engines to understand and display relevant information in their search results.

Besides appearing more appealing to search engines, structured data can also enhance the user experience. Through “rich snippets” or “rich results,” structured data provides search engine users with precise information in the search results. 

Here are some of the successful case studies of enterprises that have implemented structured data markup:

• Rotten Tomatoes recorded a 25% increase in click-through rate by adding structured data to around 100,000 web pages.
• The Food Network saw a 35% increase in website visits by adding search features to 80% of its pages.
• Rakuten users spent 1.5x more time on pages (with structured data) than on pages without structured data.

How Does Structured Data Markup Improve Brand Visibility?

With structured data, organizations can provide their online users with a more intuitive and engaging browsing experience. They can leverage structured data to target a particular customer segment – and provide the relevant product (or business) information, including approximate price range, product availability, and store location & timings.

For example, an eCommerce store can highlight information like product images, prices, and customer reviews in the search results. This, in turn, can improve page views, repeat visits, and conversions. In the previous section, we spoke about rich snippets, which appear in the form of search cards, carousels, and organic result boxes. Here are some common examples of rich snippets appearing on web pages with structured data markups:

1. Product Offer

This snippet provides all the necessary product information on the search results page. For instance, product offers can include information like product specifications, price, customer ratings, and current availability.

2. Business Events

Google displays business events specifically in its organic search results. Brands participating in events can thus stand apart from the rest of the pack. 

3. Business Location

Business listings are a successful way of promoting any business on Google or Bing. Using location schema, structured data can deliver location-based information, including store address, timings, and contact number.

4. Internal Search Feature

Websites with an internal search feature can use structured data markup to add this feature to the search results. How is this beneficial to the business? Users can directly search and navigate to the specific website area that they are interested in. Besides reducing the click path, this feature delivers the desired content faster to the user.

How Enterprises Can Implement Structured Data Markup

Here are some of the best practices for organizations to implement structured data markup to improve their brand visibility and user experience:

1. Leverage The Schema.org Vocabulary

Structured data utilizes Schema.org as the reference vocabulary to include across web pages. Schema.org provides a collection of schema types to describe the web page content. Some of its common types include:

• JSON-LD: This is the recommended format used to embed JavaScript notations within the <script> tag in the web page head or body. Besides, Google can automatically detect and read JSON-LD data when injected dynamically into web page content.
• Microdata: This recommended HTML specification is useful for nesting structured data within the HTML content. It utilizes HTML tag attributes to label the page properties to be exposed as structured data.
• RDFa: This is an HTML5 extension that introduces HTML tag attributes corresponding to displaying user content on search engines. 

2. Utilize Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper Tool

The structured data markup helper tool helps organizations add structured data markups to their web pages. This tool supports a variety of data types, including events, locations, articles, and products.

3. Test The Structured Data

After adding the structured data to the website, organizations can test & monitor it using Google Search Console and other SEO tools like the Schema Markup Validator. Through comprehensive testing, they can test various markup variations and check their impact on visibility and user experience.

How EnFuse Can Help You With Its Data Services

Be it structured or unstructured data, high-quality data is essential for delivering business results in every industry. At EnFuse Solutions, we understand how quality data is the “fuel” driving business growth. To that end, we offer a variety of data management services for:

• Product data
• Vendor data
• Customer data
• Sales data

With our data-related services, our customers benefit from data profiling, data enrichment, data compliance, and data management. So, are you looking for the right partner for your next data project? We can help. Contact us today!