A Beginner's Guide to Rich Snippets - Unamo

Rich Snippets is the term used to describe structured data markup that site operators can add to their existing HTML, which in turn allow search engines to ... SEOandSocialMediaanalyticaltoolsforonlinemarketingprofessionals TryUnamoSEO TryUnamoSocial General SEO SocialMedia GuestPosts Wanttowriteforus? #Tags FilterbyTags: General SEO SocialMedia GuestPosts Wanttowriteforus? ChrisMeier ABeginner’sGuidetoRichSnippets Featured ChrisMeier 8yearsago,5min read richsnippets 2 RichSnippetsisthetermusedtodescribestructureddatamarkup thatsiteoperatorscanaddtotheirexistingHTML,whichinturnallowsearchenginestobetterunderstandwhatinformationiscontainedoneachwebpage.Whatcontenttypesaresupported? Likethecanonicaltagwerecentlydiscussed,theuseofRichSnippets(orSchema.orgmarkup)isbynomeansmandatory,butitdoesbenefitsearchengines,usersandyes,evensiteoperators.Thebigdifferencethoughisthat,unlikethecanonicaltag,thebenefitismorenoticeabletoallinvolved: Thesearchenginesareabletoreturnmorerelevantresults. Userscandeterminetherelevancyofspecificresultsmoreeasily,oftenontheSERP. Siteoperatorsmaybenefitfromincreasedclick-throughs,andreducedbouncerates,sinceusershaveabetterideaofthesitecontents,andrelevancytotheirquery,beforetheyevenvisitthesite. WhatAreRichSnippets? RichSnippetsisthetermusedtodescribestructureddatamarkup thatsiteoperatorscanaddtotheirexistingHTML,whichinturnallowsearchenginestobetterunderstandwhatinformationiscontainedoneachwebpage.However,themajorsearchengineshavetakenthisastepfurther,andnowusethismarkuptopresentrichersearchresults,enablinguserstomoreeasilyfindtheinformationtheyarelookingfor.   Undernormalcircumstances,whenyourwebsiteshowsuponaSERP,Google,andothersearchengines,displaythesitetitle,URLandwhatevermetadescriptionyouhaveassignedtothepage.WhenRichSnippetsareemployed,Googleisnowabletodisplayabitmoreinformationabouttheactualresult,includingwhetherthisparticularresultisareview,aperson,aproduct,businessandmore.   ThinkofhowaresultforanitemoniTunesorGooglePlayshowsupwithastarrating,thenumberofvotesthatresultedinthatrating,thepriceandtheplatformsupported. WanttolearnmoreaboutGoogle’sSERPFeatures?Checkoutourguide: ADefinitiveGuidetoGoogle’sSERPFeatures   WhatContentTypesAreSupported? Therearethreedifferentmarkupspecificationscurrentlyrecognizedbythemajorsearchengines: Microdata Microformats RDFa withMicrodatabeingthemostwidelysupportedintermsofannotations,specificallytheschemafromSchema.org.OpenGraphtagsandTwitterCardsareaformofstructureddatamarkup,buttheyshouldbeemployedinconjunctiontoRichSnippets,notinsteadof. RichSnippets,orstructureddatamarkup,canbeusedonthefollowingcontenttypes: Reviews–bothindividualandaggregatereviewsaresupported,withdifferentpropertiesusedforeach. People–youmayhavenoticedGoogleandBingnowshowingricherinformationfromLinkedInwhenyousearchforcertain(well-known)people.Similarresultsarepossibleforanywebsitethatincludesprofilesofstaff,teammembersandotherpeoplerelevanttotheorganization.Supportedpropertiesincludename,title,role,professionalaffiliationsandcontactdetails. Products–oneofthesinglemostimportantusesofstructureddatamarkupiswithproductsandspecialoffersofmerchants,particularonlinestores.Propertiesavailableincludename,image,brand,description,identifiers(ISBN,SKU,etc.)andevenreviews,allextendablewithprice,currency,sellerandconditionandquantity.OnlinemarketplaceswhoofferthesameproductfrommultiplemerchantscanuselowPriceandhighPricetoshowthepricerangeforasingleitem. Businesses&Organizations–propertiesavailableincludebusinessname,address(physicalandURL),telephonenumber,geolocation(latitudeandlongitude)andlogo. Recipes–structureddatamarkupforrecipesofferamultitudeofproperties,allowingoperators ofwebsitesrelatedtocookingandrecipecollectionstoincludeeverythingfromthetypeofdish,reviews,andpreparationandcookingtime,throughtonutritionalinformationsuchasservingsize,calories,fatcontentandmore. Events–theusageofstructureddatamarkupwitheventsisintendedonlyforfutureoccurringevents,notpastevents.Itisworthnotingherethatthepropertysummaryisnotintendedforasummaryoftheevent,butfortheevent’sofficialname.Otherpropertiesincludestartandenddate,duration,ticketdetailsandgeolocation. Music–Bingmakesnomentionofanysupportformusic,butGoogledoesmakeprovisionforstructureddatamarkuprelatingtosongsandmusicalbums.Thiscanincludelinkstopreviewsofsongs,anddirectlinkstobuyingindividualtracksorfullalbums. VideoContent–thisappliestoembeddedvideocontentonyourwebsiteandcanbeusedtoindicateduration,license,productioncompanyand/orthecreatorofthevideo,andevenifthecontentiffamilyfriendly. HowtoAddRichSnippetstoYourContent Structureddatamarkupdoesnotneedtobeaddedtoeverysinglecontentproperty,thoughhavingmorecontentmarkedupdoeshelpsearchenginespresentresultsbetter.Itmustalsobenotedthatyoushouldonlymarkupvisiblecontent–hiddenpageelementsandcontentinhiddendiv’sdonotneedtobemarkedup. Structureddatamarkupmakesusofthreeprimaryelements: itemscope–whichspecifiesthattheHTMLcontainedinthe