[[{"@type":["BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/how-to-develop-a-schema-markup-strategy-for-a-website\/#BlogPosting","@context":{"@vocab":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","kg":"http:\/\/g.co\/kg"},"url":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/how-to-develop-a-schema-markup-strategy-for-a-website\/","publisher":[{"@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/#Organization"}],"audience":"https:\/\/schema.org\/PeopleAudience","inLanguage":[{"@type":"Language","@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/how-to-develop-a-schema-markup-strategy-for-a-website\/#BlogPosting_inLanguage_Language","name":"English"}],"dateModified":"2024-08-13T15:22:13+00:00","headline":"How to Develop a Schema Markup Strategy for a Website","datePublished":"2024-08-07T18:00:17+00:00","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/how-to-develop-a-schema-markup-strategy-for-a-website\/#BlogPosting_image_ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/How-to-Develop-a-Schema-Markup-Strategy-1.png"}],"mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.schemaapp.com\/schema-markup\/how-to-develop-a-schema-markup-strategy-for-a-website\/","name":"How to Develop a Schema Markup Strategy for a Website","articleBody":"Implementing Schema Markup on your website is a powerful way to enhance your organization\u2019s online presence. However, to maximize its effectiveness, it\u2019s crucial to develop a comprehensive strategy tailored to your specific business goals.\nBefore diving into implementation, ask yourself: what am I aiming to achieve through Schema Markup? Which key content or business entities do I want to highlight in search results? How can Schema Markup support our overall SEO and content strategy?\nA thoughtful Schema Markup strategy can help you:\n\nTarget the right rich results\nDevelop your content knowledge graph\nIncrease organic traffic and CTR in search\nIdentify gaps in your content and inform your content strategy\n\nIn this article, we outline the steps you can take to create a Schema Markup strategy for your website.\nLet\u2019s get started!\nStep 1: Identify Key Entities in Your Content for Structured Data Opportunities\nThe first step to implementing Schema Markup is identifying the key entities that represent your business and where they are located on your site. This process will help you recognize the structured data opportunities across your website.\n1.1 List the Key Entities That are Relevant to Your Business\nYou can start by creating a list of key entities that make up your business, such as:\n\nBusiness name and contact information\nProducts or services\nKey personnel (e.g., owner, management team)\nLocations (for businesses with multiple branches)\nAuthoritative content about your industry or expertise\n\nFor example, Pizza Palace is a local pizza restaurant owned by Enrico Picolli with over 20 locations across Ontario, Canada. Pizza Palace sells different types of pizzas (i.e. pepperoni, Hawaiian, etc.) and appetizers through their online site. Pizza Palace, along with its products, locations, and owner are key entities related to the business. These entities are also described across their website content.\n1.2 Locate Relevant Web Pages\nOnce you\u2019ve identified your key entities, you can identify which page on your website best describes each entity. This will help you determine which top-level Schema.org type you should use to mark up each page.\nAs per our previous example, the Pizza Palace home page has detailed information (i.e. address, logo, telephone number, etc.) about the organization. Therefore, it should be the entity home for the organization Pizza Palace.\nSimilarly, Pizza Palace has product detail pages for each of its pizzas. Therefore, these product detail pages should be the entity home for each product.\nPro Tip: If you don\u2019t have a page about any of your key entities, this is an opportunity for you to create new content to describe the entity.\n1.3 Map Content to Schema.org Types\nOnce you have your list of entities and where they live on your site, you can identify the corresponding Schema.org type for each entity.\nBack to our example\u2014 \u201cPizza Palace,\u201d being the organization\u2019s name, would best correspond with the Organization type. Therefore, you would mark up the homepage with Organization markup to help search engines clearly understand the key information about the Organization.\nPro Tip: If you\u2019re new to the Schema.org vocabulary and need more clarity on identifying types and properties within your content, we recommend reading our guide to the Schema.org vocabulary.\n1.4 Create an Entity Mapping Table\nNext up, it\u2019s time to organize your findings in a table format for clarity. Here\u2019s an example continuing with our hypothetical local pizza business:\n\n\n \n\n\nEntity\nSchema.org Type\nRelevant Web Page for Entity\n\n\n\n\nPizza Palace\nOrganization\nHomepage\n\n\nPepperoni Pizza\nProduct\nProduct Detail Page\n\n\nEnrico Picolli (Owner)\nPerson\nFounder Page\n\n\nDowntown Location\nLocalBusiness\nDowntown Locations Page\n\n\n\nBy completing this step, you\u2019ll have a clear overview of your key entities and where they appear on your website, setting the foundation for your Schema Markup strategy.\nAlthough you could jump into creating the Schema Markup without completing this step, creating an Entity Mapping Table will help you track your progress and facilitate collaboration with others on your Schema Markup strategy.\n\nStep 2: Review Eligible Rich Results for Your Pages\nOnce you\u2019ve identified your key entities, the next step is determining which rich results are available and relevant to your content. This will help you prioritize your Schema Markup efforts for maximum visibility in the search results.\n2.1 Understand Available Rich Results\nBefore you dive into rich results, we recommend familiarizing yourself with the types of rich results offered by Google. Google has over 30 rich results, some more applicable than others. The most common types of rich results include:\n\nReview Snippet\nLocal Business\nProduct\nJob Posting\n\nWithin Google\u2019s structured data guidelines, you can see which Schema.org properties are required and recommended to achieve your target rich results. If your page does not have the content for the required properties, you must add the content to your site before you markup the required property.\n2.2 Match Your Content to Eligible Rich Results\nYou can review your key content identified in Step 1 and determine which rich results each page might be eligible for.\nFor example, Pizza Palace has 25 product detail pages (PDPs), each with reviews and ratings related to the relevant product. Since the PDPs have the right content, they should be eligible for a review snippet-rich result when we add AggregateRating and Review markup.\nWhen you\u2019ve identified the rich results each page could be eligible for, you can add it to the previous table you\u2019ve created. Here\u2019s an example continuing with the table we created for the pizza business in Step 1:\n\n\n \n\n\nEntity\nSchema.org Type\nRelevant Web Page for Entity\nCurrent Content\nEligible Rich Results\n\n\n\n\nPizza Palace\nOrganization\nHomepage\nBusiness info, featured pizzas\nN\/A\n\n\nPepperoni Pizza\nProduct\nProduct Detail Page\nPrice, Reviews, Ratings and Description of the pizza\n\nProduct\nReview Snippet\n\n\n\nEnrico Picolli (Owner)\nPerson\nFounder Page\nProfile info, links to social media profile\nN\/A\n\n\nDowntown Location\nLocalBusiness\nDowntown Locations Page\nAddress, hours, contact info\nLocal Business\n\n\n\nNot every Schema.org type is eligible for a rich result. However, you can nest relevant markup within your pages if you have the appropriate content and achieve a rich result.\n\n\nFor example, on a product detail page, you would typically use product markup. Within this product markup, you can nest reviews and aggregate ratings for the product to generate review snippets in search results.\n\n2.3 Ensure Your Content Aligns With the Structured Data Requirements for Each Rich Result\nBefore implementing Schema Markup, it\u2019s crucial to verify that your content meets the requirements for each desired rich result if that is your goal. This step helps ensure your markup efforts are effective and compliant with search engine guidelines.\nOther actions to consider in this step include:\nReview Google\u2019s guidelines: Check the requirements for each rich result type you\u2019re targeting. These requirements may be content-related (e.g. Aggregate Ratings require the reviewCount), but they also may be more general guidelines (e.g. There should only be one Product or ProductGroup per page). Google provides detailed documentation for each rich result in their structured data documentation.\nAudit your content: Compare your existing content against the requirements. Look for any gaps or missing elements.\nUpdate content if necessary: If your content doesn\u2019t fully meet the requirements, now is the time to update it. This might involve adding more detailed information, reorganizing content, or creating new page sections.\nStep 3: Assess Implementation Methods for Ease and Coverage\nAfter identifying your key entities and desired rich results, it\u2019s time to consider how to implement your Schema Markup strategy effectively. This step focuses on balancing high-value opportunities with practical and manageable implementation methods.\n3.1 Analyze Pages for Individual or Repeating Content\nThe implementation strategy for one-off or individual pages will likely be different than highly templated or repeating page types. For this reason, we recommend determining whether your content follows single or recurring patterns:\n\nIndividual Page: Unique content, generally dissimilar to other pages on the website (e.g. About Us or Contact Information pages)\nRecurring Pages: Pages with a similar content structure repeated across multiple URLs (e.g. product detail or location pages)\n\n3.2 Assess Existing Capabilities\nFrom here, evaluate your current technical setup:\n\nCheck if your Content Management System (CMS) has built-in Schema Markup functionality\nIf it does, determine whether it meets your requirements or needs enhancement from other methods or sources\n\n3.3 Consider Implementation Methods\nThere are many ways to implement Schema Markup. We recommend exploring the different available approaches to implementing Schema Markup to decide what best suits your organization\u2019s needs and capabilities:\n\nManual Implementation: You can author your markup for each page manually and add it directly into the HTML of the page\nPlugin or SEO Tool Implementation: You can use Schema Markup plugins designed to generate Schema Markup (these can be limited in their capabilities)\nFull-Service Schema Markup Solution Providers: You can also hire an end-to-end Schema Markup solution Schema App to help you author, implement and manage your Schema Markup on an ongoing basis\n\n3.4 Assess Automation Possibilities\nImplementing Schema Markup manually can be tedious, complex, and time-consuming. This is especially true for large organizations managing thousands of content pages or even multiple domains.\nThis is when it becomes crucial to identify and leverage opportunities to automate your Schema Markup implementation:\n\nFor recurring content patterns, consider templated solutions like the Schema App Highlighter\nExplore API integrations for dynamic content\nInvestigate tools and plugins that can generate and update markup automatically and dynamically\n\nSchema App automatically deploys Schema Markup to your website at scale, so you can save time, make updates faster, and reduce delays caused by waiting for IT\/developers. It works with all website platforms because of our integrations with Tag Manager, JavaScript, or our custom add-ons for WordPress, Shopify, BigCommerce, Drupal, etc. Explore our integration options.\n3.5 Plan for Scalability\nA common goal for most organizations is to grow. Therefore, planning for scalability is a must!\nEnsure your implementation strategy can grow with your business:\n\nChoose methods that can easily accommodate new content or site sections\nConsider future rich result types you may wish to target\n\nBy completing this step, you\u2019ll have a clear understanding of how to implement your Schema Markup strategy efficiently and at scale, taking into account your current capabilities and future business needs.\nLearn the basics of Schema Markup and how to build an effective Schema Markup strategy.Enroll in our Course\nBest Practices for Schema Markup\nHere are some things to keep in mind as you develop your Schema Markup strategy and evaluate your site content.\n\nUse JSON-LD (rather than microdata or RDFa), as recommended by Google\nUse the most specific Type possible\nOnly markup content that is visible on the page\nIdentify one key page for each business concept\nInclude an @id attribute to the entities in your Schema Markup\nNest the entities in your Schema Markup to accurately showcase their relationships on a page\n\nSo now you know how to identify which pages you should optimize and how to determine the best approach depending on the page type.\nAt Schema App, we help you go beyond the fundamentals of SEO, leveraging structured data to showcase your unique value in search. In a rapidly changing SEO landscape, we introduce agility to your digital team, saving you time and resources for managing other aspects of your business portfolio.\nSee how our end-to-end Schema Markup and knowledge graph solution can help your website stand out in search.\nStart reaching your online business goals with Schema Markup.Let\u2019s Talk\n ","description":"When adding Schema Markup to a website, the first step is to figure out what pages to optimize and how. 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