In this article, we dive into what Product Schema Markup is, its benefits, and how you can achieve greater visibility and engagement on search by leveraging it on your product web pages.

Expanding on its multiple benefits, adding Product Schema Markup can help your eCommerce website in two ways:

1. Product Schema Markup enhances how your store and products appear on the search engine results page (SERP).

These enhancements, formerly called rich snippets and now known as rich results, can include star ratings, reviews, price, availability, and much more!

You’re probably familiar with star ratings and reviews, as they really stand out in search results as they do in the following example for Ariat. In addition to ratings and reviews, Product rich results can also highlight shipping and return information.

2. Product Schema Markup provides context for the content on your web pages so search engines can better understand and match your products with a user’s search intent.

Schema Markup has benefits that extend beyond achieving rich results for your products and services in search. Through Schema Markup, you can define objects on your web pages as distinct entities with their own properties and relationships to other entities. Once defined, you can connect these entities to a search engine’s knowledge graph, which streamlines your content to be matched with a relevant search query.

For example, if your eCommerce store sells vegan snacks and alternatives, your structured data markup informs Google that these snacks are products for sale and that it’s not, for example, a blog post about the best vegan alternatives to snack on.

Distinguishing Between Product Snippets and Merchant Listings

According to Google, there are two classes of Product rich results: Product snippets and merchant listing experiences.

Merchant listings serve as an extension of the product snippet item, providing more comprehensive search results that consistently feature a price. A carousel may showcase these listings alongside similar products from various sellers or within a knowledge panel in the SERP.

While Product rich results do not appear in the shopping tab, merchant listings do. Notably, they manifest differently within the shopping tab. Incorporating merchant listings allows you to customize your approach as you enhance your target product with additional properties. This is a process that requires the integration of Product markup.

Merchant listings come with a broader set of recommended properties compared to product snippets. These expanded features allow you to segment results based on factors such as seller, brand, pattern, size, and more.

The properties required and recommended for merchant listings are more exhaustive, providing a more detailed and nuanced representation. For example, product snippets don’t require an image, but merchant listings require one.

The effectiveness of merchant listing experiences hinges on specific product data, such as price and availability. It’s important to note that only pages that directly support the product purchases are eligible for merchant listing experiences; pages containing links to other sites selling the product do not meet the criteria.

For reference, see the following example of another Ariat product that achieved an enhanced merchant listing. Notably, it has price listed, a large and clear image of the product, delivery information, ratings, and shipping information.

Product Result Reporting

Each type of rich result—product snippet and merchant listing—comes with distinct enhancements and reporting, each adhering to its own set of requirements and recommendations.

As per an announcement from Google Search Central, they conveyed through a tweet that, “In January 2024, [GSC] will stop reporting the Product results search appearance, both in the Performance report and the API”.

This decision to deprecate Product results aligns logically with the prior split into merchant listings and product snippets. Given that Product results essentially represent a combination of the two, the decision to deprecate it is a move towards more detailed and nuanced reporting for each.

Required and Recommended Properties for Product Structured Data

Google maintains documentation that explains what is required for “Product” structured data.

We’ve captured the most common required and recommended fields below. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the requirements and recommendations may differ between Product Snippets and Merchant Listing eligibility.

For an exhaustive list of requirements and recommendations for both Merchant Listings and Product Snippets, visit the Product Information section in their Structured Data Documentation for Product.

You can see in the example below that you can toggle between the specific properties for “Product Snippets” and “Merchant Listings” exclusively.

You must populate the required properties in order for your content to be eligible for display as a rich result in search. Recommended properties add more information to your structured data, which can provide a better user experience.

Looking for additional guidance implementing Product structured data? Read our article “6 Common Product Rich Result Mistakes You Might be Making” for more tips.

Product

https://schema.org/Product

It’s important to note that Product Structured Data requires only one of the following properties:

• Review
• aggregateRating
• Offers

Once you fulfill one of these requirements, the remaining properties will become recommended rather than required. That being said, it is always best to markup all three properties as they can provide more information in the rich result.

TIP! Add Review, aggregateRating, and Offers properties to provide more information in the rich results.

We created the following visual to help conceptualize the structure of Product Schema Markup. With Product as the starting point, the required properties are used to connect to information in the form of text, URLs, or other data items containing their own properties.

The required and recommended properties for the Review, AggregateRating, and Offer data items are as follows:

Review

https://schema.org/Review

AggregateRating

https://schema.org/AggregateRating

*Note: You must have at least one of ratingCount or reviewCount.
**Note: only required if the rating system is not a 5-point scale (1 = worst rating, 5 = best rating)

Offer

https://schema.org/Offer

TIP! While itemReviewed is required for standalone Review and AggregateRating data items, these should not be used when embedded within the Product template.

FYI: For the most current guidelines on required and recommended fields, reference the Google Developers Reference Guide.

How to Create Product Structured Data

There are two types of pages where you would typically create Product structured data:

1. A product page listing a single product and
2. A shopping aggregate page listing a single product with information from other sellers offering that product.

Learn more in Google’s Product structured data documentation.

To help you get started, we have compiled the fundamental steps for creating Product Structured Data:

Step 1: Add Required Properties for Product Structured Data

Add the required Schema.org properties for Product structured data markup using our reference above. We recommend our own tools, the Schema App Editor and Schema App Highlighter, but there are many different options out there.

You should add all of the recommended and required properties, but also ensure you are connecting the entities on your site. For example, if the brand of your product on your website is also your organization, you want to make sure that the “brand” property connects back to your organization’s entity.

The Schema App Highlighter is a product of the brand, Schema App. Therefore, we can nest the Schema App Organization markup under the brand property to reflect the connection between the Schema App Highlighter and Schema App.

{
  "@context": "http://schema.org/",
  "@type": "Product",
  "@id": "https://schemaapp.com/highlighter/#Product",
  "name": "Schema App Highlighter",
  "brand": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "@id": "https://schemaapp.com/#Organization",
    "name": "Schema App",
  }
  "aggregateRating": {
    "@type": "AggregateRating",
    "ratingValue": 4.7,
    "reviewCount": 63, 
  }
}

Step 2: Review your Product Structured Data to ensure it follows Google’s Structured Data Guidelines

Google’s Product structured data feature guide has specific technical guidelines as well as content guidelines.

Your structured data and website content have to adhere to all these structured data guidelines to be eligible for a Product rich result. Read our article to learn How to Optimize Your Content to Achieve Google’s Rich Results.

Step 3: Deploy your Product Structured Data to the Relevant Pages

Once you’ve finished authoring your markup and ensuring your content aligns with Google’s guidelines, it’s time to deploy your markup.

Google recommends using JSON-LD, which is also our favourite format for deployment!

Step 4: Validate your pages to make sure the Structured Data is working

To test that your Product structured data is working properly, you should use:

1. The Schema Markup Validator (SMV)
2. Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool

Using the Schema Markup Validator

The Schema Markup Validator (SMV) was modelled after and has officially replaced Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool (SDTT). Many SEOs still prefer the SDTT, as the SMV only validates your schema.org syntax and does not show your eligibility for rich results.

Using the Rich Results Testing Tool

Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool helps you to see which rich results can be generated by the structured data it contains.

If you’ve done everything correctly, you should start achieving Product rich results for your pages. However, it is important to note that eligibility for a rich result doesn’t guarantee that the rich result will be awarded to your page.

Google’s goal is to present users with the most relevant search results. If they do not deem a rich result to be relevant to the searcher’s query, they will likely present your page as a regular search result.

Step 5: Manage your Structured Data on an Ongoing Basis

As mentioned earlier, adding structured data to your site not only allows you to be eligible for rich results, it also enhances the search engine’s understanding of your content. This enables search engines to provide users with more relevant and accurate search results.

Therefore, it is imperative for you to continue managing your structured data on an ongoing basis even after you’ve achieved a rich result. To maintain your rich result eligibility, you’ll need to ensure the content on your page matches the structured data.

As we shift towards AI search, maintaining your structured data can also help you control how AI search engines interpret your brand and content. Thereby futureproofing your organization’s web visibility and contributing to the development of the semantic web.

Having a dynamic Schema Markup solution like the Schema App Highlighter can help you update your markup whenever the content on your page changes. Get in touch with our team to learn more.

Scaling Your Product Schema Markup

At Schema App, we don’t just focus on achieving Product rich results – we’re dedicated to unlocking the full semantic potential of your content.

By applying Schema Markup to your product pages, you not only make them eligible for rich results, but you also provide clarity and contextual understanding to search engines through your content markup. This approach lets you take charge of how your brand appears in search, improving visibility and enhancing relevance in search results.

Through the powerful combination of our Schema Markup expertise and advanced semantic technology, we empower your digital team to be more agile and effective in their SEO strategy and preparation for the future of AI-driven search.

We’ve helped eCommerce brands such as Avid Technology and Keen Footwear become leaders in the online shopping industry by showcasing their unique value in search with structured data.

If you’re struggling to find a scalable solution to enhance your Product rich results and drive performance, Schema App is here to help. Get in touch with us today.

Frequently Asked Questions about Product Schema Markup

What is Product Structured Data?

Product Structured Data, also known as Product Schema Markup, is code you can add to the backend of your website so that search engines can provide additional information about your products in search through enhanced features like product rich results.

Schema Markup is a standardized vocabulary that uses the properties and types defined at Schema.org, a resource for SEOs created by Google, Microsoft, Yandex, and Yahoo back in 2011.

How do you Create Product Structured Data?

1. Add all of the required Product schema.org properties to your individual product pages. Google recommends using JSON-LD, as do we!
2. Validate your structured data markup using Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool.
3. Deploy your structured data markup, and use the Schema Markup Validator to analyze your schema.org syntax for any errors.
4. Request that Google recrawls your newly marked-up web page using Google Search Console.

How do you Fix Product Structured Data Errors?

Product structured data seems complex because of three common errors that appear for this type of structured data: “offers”, “reviews”, and “aggregate rating” showing up as ‘either “offers”, “review”, or “aggregateRating” should be specified’. To fix this error, you’ll need to use these three schemas in your Product markup. Product structured data requires including either “offers”, “reviews”, or “aggregateRating” in your Schema Markup.

Once one of these has been fulfilled, the remaining properties will become recommended rather than required. It is always best to markup all three properties as they can provide more information in the rich result. Learn more about how to tell if your Schema Markup is working in our guide.

The post Creating “Product” Schema Markup appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

Schema Markup, also known as structured data, is a code you can add to your site to help search engines better understand the content and entities on your website.

However, Schema Markup is not a one-and-done strategy. As with any SEO initiative, the circumstances around what makes good Schema Markup are constantly changing. Therefore, it is necessary to manage the markup on your site on an ongoing basis to ensure it remains accurate and healthy.

Whether it’s content changes on your page, Google modifying properties for rich result eligibility, or even the evolution of the Schema.org vocabulary, it is critical that your Schema Markup best supports your search objectives, which often requires revisiting the markup across your site.

Let’s dig into some of the strategies our Schema App team uses to manage our customers’ Schema Markup for long-term success.

Verify That Your Markup is Deploying Properly 

Authoring your markup is just the beginning. You need to add it properly to your page and make sure search engines can crawl it for it to take effect.

The good news is that Google provides feedback through triggered emails from Search Console. These emails identify errors or warnings with your structured data that impact rich result eligibility. But why wait for Google to notify you?

If you want to be eligible for a rich result as soon as possible, the best approach would be to test your Schema Markup during the implementation stage – before Google picks up on your new enhancements.

Test your markup using the Rich Results Testing tool and Schema.org Validator

After authoring your markup and gaining access to the JSON-LD, you can paste that code into Google’s Rich Result Test and the Schema.org Validator to ensure your markup is accurate when you deploy it. This proactive approach ensures you don’t miss any opportunities to stand out in search.

Once you’ve added the markup to your page, run your page through those same resources again to identify any initial speed issues or crawlability issues that might impact the benefits offered by Schema Markup.

Request indexing on your priority pages

Assuming everything looks good with deployment and you want to get the benefit as quickly as possible, request indexing on your priority pages so that Google can pick up on any new enhancements.

Ensure Your Schema Markup Aligns With Your Content

Your Schema Markup must be reflective of the content on your page to be effective.

To ensure that it provides the appropriate semantic value, you should author your Schema Markup to support the intent of the page. This will require choosing the most appropriate schema Type and utilizing the associated properties within that schema Type.

For example, are you detailing a service your organization offers? If so, you can utilize Service markup to identify where and when this service is available through the areaServed and hoursAvailable properties.

It’s likely that you will eventually edit or modify the content on these pages in some way. This introduces the risk of Schema Drift, where the content on a page may become misaligned with the values stated in your schema properties.

With the Service markup in the example above, if you change the areaServed or hoursAvailable properties, you will need to revisit the markup to ensure it aligns with the actual content on your page.

By neglecting your markup and not aligning it with your content, you’re likely to miss opportunities to provide more context to Google to better align with user intent. What’s worse, is that you could also be sending mixed signals to Google which may impact performance.

At Schema App, we overcome the issue of content not aligning with markup through our Schema App Highlighter tool. With our Highlighter, users can create a Schema Markup template for similar pages. The markup will then map dynamically to certain elements on the page. Therefore, any changes you make to your content will automatically be reflected in the markup.

Learn how the Schema App Highlighter has made it easy for the CAPREIT team to maintain their markup while dealing with fluctuating prices on their listings.

Optimize Content to Improve Rich Result Eligibility 

The semantic value of Schema Markup cannot be overstated, but it is undeniable that rich results provide a visual element in the SERP that draws user attention and potentially improves CTR.

As defined in our What is a Rich Result article, “a rich result (formerly known as a rich snippet) is an enhanced search result displayed on Google search engine results pages (SERPs) that can be achieved by implementing the appropriate structured data (aka Schema Markup) on your site.”

The key element in that definition above is to implement the appropriate structured data, as each rich result has different requirements. Google’s documentation on Recipe rich results, for example, is essentially a cheat sheet for content ideas and it is worthwhile to review these types of resources to identify missed content opportunities.

Though Google has also changed where and when FAQ rich results will be awarded, FAQ demonstrated another common opportunity where including a single question and answer would show as a valid enhancement. However, Google would only award this rich result to pages where a minimum of two questions and answers were included.

Particularly in blog posts or articles, we would commonly see only a single question and answer included in the content. This presents an opportunity for content teams to optimize the content by introducing an additional question and answer to pursue rich result eligibility. Read Baptist Health’s case study to find out how they were able to improve their rich results eligibility by optimizing their physician page content.

Even though you might have started off your Schema Markup journey authoring markup based on the content on your page, you can also use it as a content opportunity to identify missing content on your page that would make you eligible for a rich result.

Keep Up With Google and Schema.org Documentation Changes

Both Google and Schema.org are constantly changing. An ever-evolving landscape is familiar territory for most SEOs, but making changes to existing Schema Markup can be a challenging task requiring the efforts of additional resources like Development or IT teams.

Nonetheless, when Google makes changes to rich results, it provides an opportunity for you to improve your content for a more enhanced experience in search.

For example, when the Pros and Cons feature was introduced, it was a change that enabled highlighting specific pros and cons of a product directly in the SERP. This provided the opportunity to revisit editorial Product reviews and related markup to ensure there aren’t any missed opportunities for a more enhanced product rich result.

Similar to Google’s constant updates, the Schema.org vocabulary is frequently changing. These changes might impact the various recommended properties for Google’s rich result eligibility.

For example, the version 13.0 Schema.org release introduced additions to e-commerce return policy markup, which was later reflected in Google’s Product markup rich result recommended properties.

Maintaining an awareness of these changes and utilizing the most current Schema.org properties helps organizations win in search by having a more enhanced appearance and richer markup compared to competitors.

Look for Opportunities to be More Semantic

When you implement Schema Markup, you are effectively informing search engines about the entities on your site and improving your semantic SEO. However, you can be even more semantic by linking the entities on your site to other entities on your site and other external authoritative knowledge bases. Doing so will help you develop your very own marketing knowledge graph that you can then reuse for any AI initiatives you have.

By linking entities on your page to other entities on your site

You can link entities on your page to other entities on your site to explain the relationship between both entities.

For example, if you have a blog post on your site, you might want to tell search engines that this blog post is published by your organization. You can explain that relationship by nesting your Organization markup under the publisher property of the BlogPost markup.

This is one of the many ways you can link entities on a page to other entities on your site.

By linking entities on your page to other external authoritative knowledge bases

As you build expertise working with Schema Markup, you can provide further context to your entities by linking to resources like Wikipedia, Wikidata or Google’s own Knowledge Graph. We often use properties such as areaServed, sameAs and knowsAbout to help increase the search engine’s understanding of all the entities mentioned on our customers’ sites – including external entities like cities or other well-known brand names.

Take, for example, Burger King, a global chain of restaurants where, in Australia, it’s known as Hungry Jack’s. Depending on your audience, identifying this relationship through sameAs properties can help search engines clarify the relationship between Burger King and Hungry Jack’s and support performance for a wider range of user queries.

Identifying opportunities to enhance your markup by linking to external entities leads to a more thorough knowledge graph. This, in turn, provides a variety of opportunities, such as enabling search engines to provide users with more accurate responses to their queries.

Download our Guide to Connected Schema Markup eBook to learn how to connect the entities on your site and develop your knowledge graph. 

See What Your Competitors Are Doing

Schema Markup is publicly available information and while comparison can be the thief of joy, it can also be utilized as an opportunity to improve your own Schema Markup strategy. We often perform competitive analysis for our customers to help them understand what their competitors are doing in terms of content and Schema Markup.

This includes identifying net new properties or links to external entities that were not previously considered. Additionally, it can help you discover new rich result opportunities by comparing content.

Sometimes, the ultimate insight from comparing your Schema Markup to that of your competitors is that you’re on the right track. This then allows space for other SEO initiatives to potentially bridge that performance gap.

Review Performance and Make Data-Driven Decisions

One of the benefits of implementing Schema Markup is its positive impact on your organic traffic performance. You can easily monitor the performance of rich results using tools such as Google Search Console and Schema Performance Analytics.

Analyzing Rich Result Performance

Though correct Schema Markup will only have a positive impact on your organic performance, certain rich results might show improved performance or, at times, reduced performance.

There can be a variety of reasons why you might see an overall decline in CTR with certain rich results. For example, is the price of your product outside of most buyers’ budgets? This will allow a user to self-assess and decide whether to click through to your page or not, suggesting a potentially lower volume of clicks.

Outside of the myriad of reasons a certain rich result might reduce CTR, it’s important to determine if those rich results are properly serving the intent of your page.

For a converting page, generating clicks might be your top priority. This presents the opportunity to pivot your rich result strategy and targeting. If the price of your product is too high, consider focusing solely on product reviews.

Alternatively, you can get creative with How-to rich results to demonstrate how that product can help users accomplish a particular task.

Ultimately, it is important to ensure your Schema Markup supports your business objectives, which might mean that the most obvious rich result isn’t always the ideal solution. Therefore, you should always experiment to see which rich results work best for your content and business objectives.

Experiment to See What Works

Implementing markup at scale is a challenge for most companies. There can be a variety of barriers, including access to internal IT development resources. You may need to make a business case to justify access to those resources for sweeping changes to your markup.

In the example above from data-driven decisions, introducing How-to content and markup on a single page, let alone a large volume of pages, could be a daunting task. Starting with a smaller volume of pages might be the best way forward to limit the resources required from Content or Development teams.

You can also consider A/B testing pages where you’ve implemented some of the above recommendations, such as modifying certain rich result targeting or implementing linked entities.

Sometimes an unwelcome change might be introduced by Google, requiring a pivot to maintain consistent performance across certain pagesets. As discussed in our Changes to FAQ & How-to Rich Results from Google article, the good news is that change can spark innovation.

While FAQ may not be as worthwhile for rich result targeting, consider experimenting with linked entities, different rich results, or even just expanded markup. Find a tactic that provides maintained performance on your priority pages.

Manage Your Schema Markup for Success

There’s a lot to consider with managing your Schema Markup. The above strategies are just some of the ways our Customer Success team supports our enterprise customers to remove the complexity of managing and maintaining their structured data.

By working with Schema App, you have access to a dedicated Customer Success Manager who can provide you with the expertise and help you manage your Schema Markup from strategy to results. That way, you can stay current with all the industry trends and Google changes, and receive timely content recommendations to stand out in search.

Our Schema App solution also includes access to our tools, like the Schema App Highlighter, which ensures your markup scales dynamically even as your content changes. We also have advanced features like Linked Entity Recognition to ensure that identified entities in your content are reflected in your structured data.

On top of achieving rich results, semantic Schema Markup can help you prepare for the advent of Google’s Generative Search Experience, which makes a focus on managing your Schema Markup all the more necessary.

Need support strategizing, deploying and managing your Schema Markup? Get in touch with our team today to learn about our solution.

The post How to Manage Your Schema Markup appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

Before diving into the rich results that exist and how they can support your business, let’s explore what rich results are exactly.

What is a Rich Result?

A rich result (formerly known as a rich snippet) is an enhanced search result displayed on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) that can be achieved by implementing the appropriate structured data (aka Schema Markup) on your site. Structured data helps search engines better understand the content on your page and display that content with a more detailed appearance on the SERP.

Unlike standard organic search results, rich results offer users additional information beyond the typical page title, URL, and meta description, enhancing their search experience.

Rich results go beyond conventional search results by offering a more informative and decorated appearance, which significantly enhances a page’s visibility in search.

When implemented correctly, rich results provide users with additional information such as ratings, pricing, reviews, job locations, and more, allowing pages to stand out beyond the usual blue links and short previews.

By enriching the user experience, these decorated results not only make the search process more informative but also yield measurable advantages for businesses.

Benefits of Rich Results for Businesses

Stand Out in Search & Gain a Competitive Advantage

For businesses, rich results offer a competitive advantage by presenting content in a more compelling and authoritative manner. Businesses can showcase key information directly in the SERP, informing users that their content is best aligned with their queries, and persuading more qualified traffic to click through for further information.

Reduce Spend on Sponsored Content

With a stronger organic presence through rich results, businesses can save on advertising costs and sponsored content while still effectively reaching their target audience, increasing CTR, and driving valuable traffic to their websites.

Drive Qualified Traffic

A rich result can also drive more qualified traffic to your site. When searchers see elements like pricing on a product they are interested in, or a relevant job description on a job posting, they can self-assess and determine if your content will provide them with an answer to their query.

This self-qualification process can lead to a higher likelihood of getting clicks from users genuinely interested in your listings, leading to a higher chance of converting them to your page.

Delight Your Customers With Answers

Rich results streamline the process of providing customers with relevant information directly on the SERP, ensuring a seamless user experience.

For instance, when users search for specific recipes, rich results promptly showcase essential details like ingredients, cooking duration, and ratings, eliminating the need to visit individual websites for such information.

Similarly, for local businesses, rich results efficiently present vital information such as operating hours, contact details, and customer feedback directly in the search results, facilitating quick access to necessary details.

This approach not only enhances user satisfaction by delivering instant answers but also saves customers time, thereby increasing the likelihood of further engagement with the business.

Build Trust With Your Audience

Some rich results like review snippets can help your brand establish trust, authority, and credibility with new customers at the start of their buyer journey. They enable you to showcase positive reviews and high ratings for your brand, which reflect the trust that other users have placed in your product or service.

By doing so, you can build strong E-E-A-T, which represents the Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness of your brand and can have a strong influence on conversions.

Drive Measurable Results for Your Business

At Schema App, we’ve seen the impact a rich result can have on the click-through rate of a web page. Our customer, Baptist Health saw a 491% increase in the CTR when comparing physician pages with a review snippet to those without.

Implementing Schema Markup to achieve rich results is a strategy that can provide your company with measurable ROI.

Develop Your Content Strategy

Just like how you need to have the necessary content on your page to markup with structured data, you can customize your content to meet the required properties for a specific rich result.

Your Schema Markup strategy is unique to the goals of each page, and which rich results would serve your page’s user queries and intent the best. It’s essential to adhere to content guidelines specific to each structured data type to ensure your content contains the relevant Types and properties for your rich result goal.

Are you looking for more product sales? Be sure to include product images, pricing, and ratings to be eligible for Product rich results.

Looking to get more appointments booked? Include reviews and ratings on your physician pages to build trust and establish credibility with potential patients to encourage them to book.

All in all, being aware of the desired outcomes and rich result goals you have for each page can help drive your content strategy in an actionable way.

See how Sharp HealthCare utilized the schema.org vocabulary to architect their content strategy.

By leveraging rich results effectively, businesses can gain a competitive advantage and enhance their online visibility organically, ultimately offering users a more engaging and informative search experience.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the rich results available on Google.

Rich Result Examples & How They Support Business Objectives

Review Snippets

Review snippets appear in the SERP when a user searches for a product, local business, movie, and other content types. It displays a concise summary of review ratings and other information, such as the average rating and the number of reviews, directly on the SERP.

Review snippets help users make informed decisions before clicking through to a specific website. For businesses, review snippets can significantly impact their online reputation and trustworthiness, as positive reviews can instill confidence and entice potential customers, boosting click-through rates to their website.

Product Rich Result

When a user searches for a specific product, the Product rich result provides detailed information about the product, including its name, price, availability and reviews, directly on the SERP.

This rich result offers users a quick glance at essential product details, allowing them to compare options and make purchasing decisions without needing to visit a specific website.

For instance, if you have a product page, achieving a Product rich result will provide you with an enhanced result that can display product images, pricing, ratings, availability, and even shipping and return details directly on the SERP.

These details allow potential customers to make quicker purchasing decisions before even visiting your website. This immediate access to essential product information can have a significant influence on buying decisions.

Google recently started awarding rich results even without structured data. Our experience, however, is that they don’t always get it quite right. We’ve seen Google providing Product rich results on non-product pages or even highlighting incorrect prices.

By implementing structured data, you can build trust with your users by taking control of what should be highlighted on your product pages and be reassured the correct details are shared with your users.

Job Posting Rich Result

JobPosting rich results appear when a user searches for job opportunities. It displays relevant job listings directly on the SERP, providing essential details such as job titles, locations, and company names.

This rich result allows job seekers to view and compare job openings without needing to visit individual job boards or company websites. For employers, job-posting rich results can significantly improve their recruitment efforts by increasing the visibility of their job listings and attracting potential candidates.

We have seen our client Baptist Health increase their CTR by 1194% when JobPosting rich results were achieved. You can read the case study here.

These are just a few of the many rich results available on Google. There are, however, other search features on Google that are not considered a rich result. Let’s dig in.

What is NOT a Rich Result?

On top of rich results, there are other visually appealing Google SERP features you can optimize for without using structured data.  While rich results are powered by structured data, there are other formats that can achieve a similar outcome, and it’s important to know the difference.

Knowledge Panel

For instance, a knowledge panel is an information box that appears on the right side of the search engine results page, offering concise details about a specific entity or topic. Though not technically a rich result, it displays relevant data, including images, links, and key facts, making it highly useful to users.

Featured Snippet

Similarly, a featured snippet showcases a summarized answer to a user’s query at the top of the search results, often extracted from a webpage. These features enhance the user experience by providing quick, relevant information in an easily accessible manner, even without structured data markup.

Other Google search results that resemble rich results, but are in fact not rich results, include:

People Also Ask

The “People Also Ask” feature presents a list of related questions that users frequently ask based on their original query. When users click on these questions, additional drop-down answers appear, offering more detailed information.

Though not directly utilizing structured data, this dynamic presentation of information can resemble rich results due to its interactive nature and visually appealing design.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content, which includes paid advertisements and promoted links, can also resemble rich results in appearance. These sponsored listings are often displayed with attractive images, catchy titles, and additional metadata to capture users’ attention.

Even though they are not organically generated through structured data, sponsored content can have a visually rich and distinct format, leading to potential confusion with true rich results by users.

HTML Tables

In the SERP, an HTML table is a structured layout used by search engines to display certain types of information from web pages. It organizes data in rows and columns, making it easier for users to interpret and compare different data points

If a webpage contains a table with data that is relevant to a specific query, search engines may choose to display that table in the search results to provide users with a quick overview of the information they are looking for.

Though the HTML table itself is not a rich result from structured data, it can be utilized in conjunction with rich results like Product to further enhance the user experience.

Rich Results Vs. Other Enhanced Results

While alternative results in the SERP can still be visually engaging and informative, structured data remains the preferred way to achieve enhanced results by achieving a more query-focused presentation of data in the form of rich results.

By leveraging structured data, you ensure that the information displayed aligns precisely with user search intent. Interactive elements present in many rich results further engage users.

The Schema Markup used to generate these results enables better comprehension for search engines, leading to improved rankings, better search performance, enhanced user experience, and even greater preparedness for the future of AI-Generative Search.

Overall, rich results powered by structured data provide a competitive advantage, offering a context-rich experience and greater authority in SERPs, making them a preferred choice for businesses and SEOs aiming to optimize their online presence.

How to Achieve a Rich Result on Google

As mentioned earlier, you can achieve a rich result by implementing the required structured data on your web page. However, there are a few other factors that can affect your eligibility for a rich result. Here are the steps you can take to be eligible for a rich result.

Step 1. Identify which rich result your page could be eligible for

Google currently boasts over 32 different types of rich results, each catering to distinct content intents and page structures. Deciding which rich result is most beneficial for your page hinges on understanding the intent behind your content and optimizing its structure accordingly.

Before deciding what rich result to target, you need to understand:

• Who the target audience is for your page
• What query would best match your content
• What your intent is with your page
• What rich result would convey the information on your web page most effectively

Rich results offer distinct benefits based on the type of content you have on your website, which means that your rich result goals should be page specific.

For example, if you have a product listing page, a product rich result would be most appropriate because it already has information about pricing, shipping, ratings etc.

On the other hand, if you offer a service that receives reviews and ratings, you might consider targeting a review snippet for your page because it promotes credibility and trust to people seeking that service.

Step 2. Ensure the content on your page fulfills the required Schema.org properties

Based on Google’s Structured Data Guidelines, you need to markup your page with the required properties for the specific Schema.org Type that you are using to achieve your targeted rich result.

For example, if you want to target a review snippet for your physician page, you need to add Review structured data markup and include the required properties listed in the guidelines.

You can also include the recommended properties to add more information to your structured data to decorate your rich result with even more information. A good example of this would be the product rich result.

At its basic level, a Product rich result requires at least one of the following three properties in your content: review, aggregate rating, and offer (price). However, by including all three properties or additional ones like price ranges, shipping availability, starting prices, and discounts, you can make the product rich result more informative and compelling.

This way, a more dynamic and detailed result will appear on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

That said, you should only mark up content that exists on your page and is visible to the readers of the page. If you mark up content that is not present on your page, it will result in schema drift and you will not be awarded the rich result.

Here are some additional tips on how you can optimize your content to achieve a rich result.

Step 3. Author the structured data markup for your page

Once you’ve ensured that your page has the content needed to fulfill the required properties, you can go ahead and author your structured data markup.

To be eligible for a rich result, Google requires you to markup your web page using one of the three supported formats: JSON-LD, microdata, or RDFa. However, Google prefers JSON-LD as its markup format.

You can manually write the JSON-LD code or you can use tools like the Schema App Editor to generate the JSON-LD code for you. Before adding the JSON-LD code to your web page, you should also check to ensure your markup follows Google’s structured data guidelines and content guidelines.

Step 4. Add the JSON-LD structured data markup to your web page

There are a few ways to add the JSON-LD code to your web page. You can manually paste the JSON-LD structured data to the HTML of your web page. However, if you make any changes to the content on your site, you will need to manually update the structured data to prevent schema drift.

Alternatively, you can use the Schema App Editor to generate and deploy the JSON-LD code to your web page. This method is less complicated and allows you to easily manage and update your structured data without having to do any coding.

Once you’ve added the structured data to your page, you can use Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool or the Schema.org Validator to test that your structured data is working properly.

It is important to know that adding structured data to your web page does not guarantee that it will appear as a rich result, despite rich results being powered by structured data. Google tailors the search results to provide users with the best search experience. If they do not deem a specific rich result to be appropriate for the query, they will not award you the rich result.

Make Your Content Eligible for Rich Results

Rich results are a valuable asset for businesses aiming to enhance their online visibility, organic traffic, and user experience. Utilizing Schema Markup is key to achieving these results, as it allows search engines to understand and present content in a more contextual, visually appealing and informative way.

While adding structured data to your pages doesn’t guarantee a rich result with Google, you can increase your chances by ensuring high-quality content, expertly implemented markup and alignment with Google’s structured data and content guidelines.

To see how Schema App can help your organization leverage quality content to execute an effective Schema Markup strategy and drive measurable results, contact Schema App today.

The post What is a Rich Result? appeared first on Schema App Solutions.

Assuming you want to know both, this article breaks down which tools to use, and how to use them.

Schema Markup doesn’t stop with deployment. By properly defining entities in your content through structured data like Schema Markup, these entities can be linked to a search engine’s knowledge graph. Knowledge graphs connect information from all across the web, and structured data helps search engines like Google contextualize your content to better match your site with search queries.

Your content can also be eligible for rich results in search, which can help your brand stand out from the competition.

For example, for two eCommerce stores selling the same product, if one displays the price, customer ratings, and reviews and the other does not, our eyes are typically drawn to the differences. This additional information can all be included in your Schema Markup as long as you follow Google’s structured data guidelines.

Test that your Schema Markup is working using the following methods so that your website doesn’t miss out on the opportunities of structured data.

Has my Schema Markup Been Successfully Deployed?

The first step is to make sure that your markup is on the page.

If you are copying and pasting the JSON-LD into the page, you can simply right-click on the web page, view the source and search within the elements tab for “LD+JSON” to see if the code is there.

If you are using Schema App or Google Tag Manager to deploy your code, it’s easier to use Google’s Rich Result Testing Tool for rich result eligibility and the Schema Markup Validator (SMV) for any errors in your Schema Markup syntax.

Alternatively, you can wait and check within Google Search Console to report on the rich results or features tied to certain structured data. This could take anywhere from a few days up to a month, depending on how regularly Google crawls your site.

For websites that populate the Schema Markup dynamically, e.g. using JavaScript, then only the Schema Markup Validator will show these results.

Dynamic Schema Markup requires the structured data testing tool to load the HTML and process JavaScript, something Google has supported for a couple of years.

If you create Schema Markup using inline HTML (e.g. microdata, RDFa) or the JSON-LD is created Server side, all tools should work.

Are There Any Errors in the Implementation?

It’s very important that you check your Schema Markup to ensure it is working hard behind the scenes for your website. While you are waiting for the Google Search Console results to appear, there are a variety of tools that allow you to check for any errors or warnings that your markup may be generating.

Schema Markup Validator (SMV)

The Schema Markup Validator went live May 2021, and officially replaced Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool on August 9th, 2021. Google originally intended the Rich Results Testing Tool to replace the SDTT, but following backlash about this change Google decided to incorporate validation tooling into Schema.Org to support SEOs as they test their structured data markup.

The Schema Markup Validator is based on the Google Structured Data Testing Tool and is essentially a Schema Markup checker. The service, provided by Google for the Schema.Org community, can validate Schema.Org based structured data embedded in web pages, otherwise known as Schema Markup.

The SMV has the ability to extract JSON-LD, RDFa, and Microdata markup, display a summary of the extracted structured data, and identify syntax mistakes in the markup.

Rich Results Testing Tool (RRTT)

The Rich Results Testing Tool supports all rich result features, and is most closely aligned with Google Search Console. This tool lists all the rich results one page may be eligible for, and—in some instances—shows you a preview of how your rich result could appear in the SERP.

It’s important to remember that the Rich Results Testing Tool only validates schema.org Types that are eligible for rich results in search. If you’re using Types that aren’t eligible for rich results, view the “raw” JSON-LD, to ensure it’s being crawled, but that’s it.

If you want a comprehensive view of all markup on a page, rather than only the types that are eligible for rich results, this tool is best used in tandem with other structured data testing tools.

Schema App’s Analyzer

The Schema App Analyzer validates markup site-wide, for up to 10K pages. Run the Analyzer on any site and discover JSON-LD, RDFa and microdata, even when loaded dynamically.

Once the site has been crawled, the Analyzer provides a comprehensive health report in the form of data visualization and a list of “Items Analyzed” by Type. Clicking “Show Details” for a specific item presents a list of each URL containing that item and a breakdown of any errors or warnings.

Since this tool validates schema.org syntax, it follows more stringent rules. These can guide your Schema Markup beyond just the requirements of Google features.

The Schema App Analyzer identifies markup that Google won’t be able to read as a result of site speed issues. If you see errors or warnings about “missing” properties that definitely exist on your page, you should investigate site speed to ensure all your markup is visible to search engine crawlers.

Ultimately, this tool provides a micro and macro view of the overall health of your markup, pointing out what to revisit for enhanced performance.

The Analyzer is available to all Schema App subscribers from Pro through to Enterprise.

Note: Be on the lookout for imminent changes to the Analyzer, as we are readying reports to provide new ways of understanding your Schema Markup:

• Schema Markup by Type
• Schema Markup by Error / Warning
• Schema Markup by Page Path
• Schema Markup by Google Feature

Moreover, an updated user flow and historical view of your data will show how your markup is trending over time.

Schema App’s Structured Data Tester 

The Schema App Structured Data Tester can be found in the “Maintenance” tab in Schema App. Enter any URL, and this tool will display the Schema Markup found on that page. It is the only testing tool that displays dynamic schema.org data and does not cache the results.

Having a testing tool integrated within Schema App improves your markup workflow so you don’t always have to go to another site to check your markup.

We recommend getting into the habit of using at least one of these tools when authoring your markup. It not only confirms whether it’s deployed correctly but also gives you an idea of the scope of your markup, allowing you to assess its accuracy.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is an excellent tool for monitoring both whether your markup is valid, and the impact it’s having on site performance. For more information about using Google Search Console, check out our article How to Measure the Impact of Structured Data.

Frequently Asked Questions About Testing Schema Markup

How do I know if my site has Schema Markup?

There are several tools you can use to know if your site has Schema Markup.

Google Search Console provides insights into how Googlebot views your website. Within Google Search Console, you can check the “Enhancements” section to see if Google has detected and processed your structured data.

Schema.org Validator allows you to input a URL and check for Schema Markup. It provides a detailed report of the structured data found on your webpage.

Rich Results Testing Tool is another valuable tool provided by Google for checking and validating structured data on a webpage, specifically focusing on how it may impact search results. This tool will state whether the markup is valid to create an eligible rich result and whether any opportunities exist to improve the item’s appearance. From there, it also states whether there are any errors in the markup to identify what needs to be addressed to create a valid instance. This is particularly useful for websites looking to visually enhance their appearance in search using structured data.

Before you add custom schema markup to your website, it is important to review your site for any existing markup. Many SEO plugins like Yoast tend to automatically inject Schema Markup on your site. Though convenient, the markup added by these plugins tends to be generic and less customizable.

Therefore, we recommend checking to see if your site has any existing Schema Markup before you go ahead and implement custom Schema Markup that accurately describes your website content. That way, you can remove any existing markup added by any plugins and prevent duplicate markup issues.

Where do I start with Schema Markup?

When you decide to implement Schema Markup on a website, first identify what pages you want to optimize. From there, decide what part of the schema.org vocabulary will achieve the best organic search results and most Google rich results. Start with developing your schema strategy using our guide: How to Develop a Schema Markup Strategy for a Website.

Then, move to authoring and deployment. Schema App makes Schema Markup implementation and validation easy. Our expert tools help you mark up your content with structured data—no coding required on your part! Validate your Schema Markup using the tips and tools we mentioned in this article.

How do I find errors in my Schema Markup?

The first step is to make sure that your markup is on the page using the Schema Markup Validator (SMV). You can also use Google Search Console to report on the rich results or features tied to certain structured data. Another powerful tool is Schema App’s Analyzer, which validates markup side-wide for up to 10K pages.

What is the purpose of Schema Markup?

Adding Schema Markup to existing pages helps search engines find information and present it to users through engaging rich results. Schema Markup is code added to your website that translates content into a language search engines understand. This advanced SEO strategy can increase your E-E-A-T, improve your brand findability, and help your online business drive more quality organic traffic to your website.

There are plenty of helpful tools out there to gauge whether your markup is working. We have experience with testing Schema Markup for enterprise organizations and have created testing tools for testing at scale. We help you go beyond the fundamentals of search engine optimization, leveraging structured data to showcase your unique value in search.

In a rapidly changing SEO environment, we introduce agility to your digital team, saving you time and resources for managing other aspects of your business. We deliver your online business goals using our structured data expertise and advanced technology.

The post Schema Markup Checker: How to Test If Your Schema Markup Works appeared first on Schema App Solutions.