How to Use Schema Markup for Boosting Local SEO

Whether it’s optimizing your Google My Business profile or asking your customers to submit reviews, business owners are always looking for an edge to outrank the competition and boost their Local SEO.

If you’re new to the marketing world and are just learning about Local SEO, we’ve created a guide explaining some basics. In short, Local SEO is the process of optimizing your online presence to rank higher in local search engine results. When you take the time to invest in your online visibility, your business could see:

Increases in returning customers
Increases in web traffic and conversions
Increases in foot traffic

One way to boost your Local SEO is by including schema markup, also known as structured data or microdata, in your website content. If your business operates in a competitive local market, schema markup can help your website stand out from the crowd and potentially boost your ranking.

This article will explain what schema markup is, show how it can help your Local SEO, and provide some examples of how to implement schema markup.

What is Schema Markup?

Schema markup, also known as structured data, is a semantic language that helps search engines better understand your content. It involves using tags that give search engines more context about your pages or posts.

How to Do Schema Markup for a Local Business?

According to Search Engine Watch, you can follow these tips while implementing schema markups:-

A. Go through Google’s guidelines

B. Brush up on your coding skills. You need not master the coding to implement schema, but a fair understanding of Microdata and JSON-LD will make things easier.

C. Pick a suitable template and stick to it while creating code. Be as descriptive as possible. You can use many elements such as your social profiles, website URL, events, and Google Maps location to enrich your business’s local profile.

Learn how to implement local business schema markup

Read Google’s guidelines before you tinker with schema markups so you have a better idea about what to do and how to do it. Try to learn as much about coding as possible as some languages tend to be problematic, like Microdata. But simpler and more comprehensible options like JSON-LD are also available. Keep in mind that you don’t need to be a pro coder to work with schema markup. Simply follow all the instructions carefully.

Choose the correct template and adhere to it while creating code. But don’t reject the opportunity to be more descriptive and add value. Use elements, like Google Maps location, website URL, and social profiles for the best results.

How to Use Schema Markup for Boosting Local SEO

Use the following five schema markup values across a variety of website types to achieve the desired results:

1. Organization schema markup

Harness the power of organization schema markup to produce brand signals capable of improving your website snippet presence and Knowledge Graph entry in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Do not forget to sign your corporate contact details, social profile links, and logo.

Example (with JSON-LD)

“contact type”: “customer service”
}]
“logo”: “https://www.overthetopseo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/contact-img.jpg”,
“sameAs” : [ “https://www.facebook.com/OverTheTopSEO”,
“https://twitter.com/overthetopseo”,
“https://google.com/+OverTheTopSEO”,
“https://www.youtube.com/c/overthetopseo”,
“https://www.linkedin.com/company/over-the-top-seo-ltd/”,
}

2. Website Schema Markup

You can also boost the schema markup of your website to view the Sitelinks Search Box feature. It helps your website name get featured in the search results (SERPs). However, an existing site search is needed to enable the Sitelinks Search Box element.

Example (with JSON-LD)-

3. Breadcrumbs Markup

A breadcrumb trail indicates a specific web page position in the site hierarchy, making navigation and exploring a better experience website. So, when a user starts from the last breadcrumb, they may go their way up in the site hierarchy, scrolling one level at a time.

The Breadcrumb schema includes rich snippets that you can create for different content available, “ web pages. These snippets will appear on the SERPs.

4. Site navigation schema markup

Use the SiteNavigationElement markup to improve the way search engines understand the structure of your website and boost navigation. Also, use this to influence organic site links.

5. Video Schema Markup

According to a WordStream survey, 87% of online marketers use video content. 51% of marketers mention video as the type of content that produces the best ROI globally.

Needless to say video content is quite important for businesses, and they should find ways to promote video content not only for engagement but also for the bottom of the funnel, i.e., conversion and sales. It also helps to rank in search engines. For many search keywords, video content outranks your site rankings. It is more prominent in the “what is” and “how-to” types of content. You can use the VideoObject schema for hosted or embedded video content. Your efforts are rewarded when you see that the rich snippets from your website show up in the Google video search, and it becomes possible only because of the schema markup you use.

Validate the schema markup

Take your time to perfect the code and when you finally think that it is ready to be deployed, run it through the Structured Data Tool from Google. Chances are that you will find this tool to be immensely helpful and it can be a great resource when you’re quickly trying to validate the code prior to uploading it onto your site. Keep in mind that you are likely to come across numerous tools that exist solely to help you create the necessary code. But the problem is, most of them are not high quality and can feel highly dated. So, it is best if you develop a code that is entirely reliable, like the ones mentioned above, and then alter the elements to fit your requirements as and when you must.

Implement Video Schema Markup.

Here is the process to implement video markup for your website:

Go to Google Tag Manager and create a custom HTML Video Schema tag.
Copy the above format (code) and edit the fields to reflect your video details.
Turn on the preview and debug mode, so you can ensure that it runs on the page containing the video.
Verify that the code is working and publish the video.
Also, try it in the Google Structured Data testing tool.

Maximize the potential of schema markup values

Get richer results and greater benefits from schema by sticking to a few rules. First, list all the schemas that are commonly used. Second, find all the schema types that you think will come in handy to achieve your local SEO goals. There are lots of different categories out there, so be sure to explore the full list and see which markup type fits your business better. Third, always mark up. There is a huge range of item types available, and the more content you mark up, the greater the rewards. But ensure that you mark only the content which is visible to your website visitors; marking up content hidden in page elements like hidden divs will not yield any results.

Upload your schema markup

To simplify the process of uploading your code, always stick to the custom HTML tag from Google Tag Manager. If your business is situated across various locations, it is recommended that you devise codes for each of them and then implement them on your location pages to get the desired results. As soon as the code is set up and ready in the container, all you have to do is hit the publish button and then complete the verification process via the structured data tool from Google by drawing upon the URL of your website. Now, you will notice that the Local business markup is being noticed by search engines.

Find the Markup on the Page.

Make sure that markup exists on the page. Copy and paste the JSON-LD into the page. Right-click on the web page>>View source>>Search for “LD+JSON” within the elements tab to check if the code exists there.

However, it would be convenient for you to use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool (SDTT) if you are doing it with the Schema app to deploy the code. However, soon SDTT will be replaced with the Schema Markup Validator (SMV), which is currently in its beta testing phase.

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