Structured Data and SEO with @richiesnippets #vcbuzz

In SEO there are things you can control and things that are out of your control.

Structured data is one of those aspects of SEO that you can fully control and have better chances to generate rich snippets and improve your organic CTR.

And yet, not many businesses take full advantage of structured data. Let’s discuss!

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About @richiesnippets

Richie Lauridsen @richiesnippets is a Search Engine Optimization specialist at Plaid.

Connect to Richie on Linkedin

Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you become a digital marketer? Please share your career story!

I started my career in digital marketing about 11 years ago at a small agency focused on SEO for SMBs in San Diego. Working at a small agency gave me insight and an opportunity to learn a lot of different areas of digital marketing.

I was a Director of Digital Strategy and then a Sr. Technical SEO at a couple of different agencies before going in-house at Plaid. The breadth of experience was really useful to understand the complexities of working in-house.

A1. It totally aligned with my interests, market needs, and skill sets identified by my career consultant. #vcbuzz
— Jeannie Hill (@essentialskill) September 13, 2022

Q2 What is structured data and how does it help SEO?

Structured data is an agreed set of vocabulary to mark up content that already exists on your site so that search engines can better understand the content and its relationship to different entities on the internet.

The shared/standardized vocabulary helps webmasters get more bang for their buck regarding the content they produce. There’s a TON of different mark up available that can help everyone from local businesses to enterprise sites. More at https://schema.org

#vcbuzz A2.1;so if it already exists then why do you need to input it again, doesn’t this cause a touch of spam to the page[s].
— Lui Slauco – SEO ???? (@continuityseo) September 13, 2022

In this case, structured data helps search engines understand and map relationships with the content you’re publishing to entities on the Internet. It’s benevolent and generous, rather than spammy! Think products, articles, FAQs and more.

A2 Structured data is useful not only for your web content, but for your internal Knowledge Management systems (CMS, LMS, etc.). It helps to quickly sort, index, and even create new content. #vcbuzz
— Amy.M.Anderson (@snippetsbyAmy) September 13, 2022

Could you point us to the most efficient source for non-technical people to learn to add structured data to their sites, please? #vcbuzz https://t.co/6nd783WBDS
— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) September 13, 2022

I’d lean on Google Developers and the folks at @Merkle have a great tool at technicalseo.com

Q3 What are some common structured data myths and mistakes out there?

Common myths and mistakes: I think the biggest mistake is often not taking advantage of valid structured data that would help enrich search results. It’s an additional step to add structured data, but it can go a long way to improve visibility and CTR

Thanks for sharing @GrowMap ?!

Here is an article I published to help SEO's know when to use LocalBusiness schema and when Organization #StructuredData is the better choice. ?https://t.co/xe7lSHL4qG #vcbuzz https://t.co/1gMyPjDQyH pic.twitter.com/kiNHNrteMd
— Jeannie Hill (@essentialskill) September 13, 2022

Like with all things, it’s important to follow the guidelines. Only use structured data for pages where it’s relevant, and be mindful not to include spammy mark up. The biggest mistake I regularly see is brands that use review snippets across every page…

#vcbuzz A3; my biggest mistake;I inputted one part of with visitor review feedbacks but didnt know at the time what I had implemented,after a while Google got wind of it and asked for removal, so removed to keep within guidelines.
— Lui Slauco – SEO ???? (@continuityseo) September 13, 2022

I’m not sure I have specific examples of spammy markup on hand, but I think the idea of adding review markup to pages with no reviews is a clear example: Webmasters may do this to get star rating on nearly every page, but this is against guidelines

Q4 What are the most important structured data types we need to be aware of?

My favorite type of structured data at the moment is FAQ markup. I’ve been able to add modules to pages that have helped improve CTR and even win featured snippets for valuable questions (though this is not a guarantee!)

A4. Important Schema Markup Types (depends on the niche):
⚡️TechArticle, NewsArticle, & ScholarlyArticle
⚡️Event
⚡️Products and Offers – includes services
⚡️Person
⚡️Organization or Local Businesses
⚡️Reviews
⚡️Author
⚡️Breadcrumbs
⚡️FactCheck#vcbuzz
— Jeannie Hill (@essentialskill) September 13, 2022

Google’s developer resources provide an extensive list of all structured data types that Google currently supports with rich snippets.

A4 I've seen my personal Knowledge Panel change to "author" after I implemented author schema. Pretty cool #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) September 13, 2022

I’ve seen incredibly helpful results after implementing Article, Event, Job Posting, and Review structured data, but Breadcrumb structured data offers a really useful signal to the hierarchy and architecture of a site as well.

A4. Each type has its own importance, so the more you are aware of their usage the more opportunities you will have.
Some of the most common types are: Product, Local business, FAQ, article, Organization schema markup.#vcbuzz
— Amal Ghosh (@AmalGhosh3) September 13, 2022

Q5 What are your favorite SEO and structured data tools?

Personally, I don’t use a lot of tools with structured data these days as it’s easy enough to just write out the appropriate mark up using JSON. But! The resources I would lean on include: @Merkle‘s tool I mentioned earlier.

@screamingfrog can help with validation, Google’s Rich Results testing tool can also help with ensuring your code is correct… and a JSON-LD playground is useful to spot-check for errors.

A5 This helpful Google Chrome extension helps you preview Schema used on any page, in seconds https://t.co/ww2PRJMggC #vcbuzz
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) September 13, 2022