What is Schema Markup and Why It’s Important

Recently, the Embryo SEO team have completed the latest episode of what we call a ‘scrum’ (a set of practices used in agile project management that emphasize daily communication and the flexible reassessment of plans that are carried out in short, iterative phases of work.)

This latest scrum involved completing schema markup implementation for all of our SEO clients. But, what is schema?

What

Schema is a very important area of technical SEO. Schema markup, also known as rich snippets, is a piece of microdata that you can add to the HTML of your website to improve the way search engines read and represent your page in its rankings.

Via Schema.org:

“Most webmasters are familiar with HTML tags on their pages. Usually, HTML tags tell the browser how to display the information included in the tag. For example, <h1>Avatar</h1> tells the browser to display the text string “Avatar” in a heading 1 format. However, the HTML tag doesn’t give any information about what that text string means—” Avatar” could refer to the hugely successful 3D movie, or it could refer to a type of profile picture—and this can make it more difficult for search engines to intelligently display relevant content to a user.”

Why

There is absolutely no evidence that schema markup has a direct effect on organic search rankings.

However, despite this, schema still has a big part to play in SEO. Rich snippets hold two positives:

• More real estate in search engines is taken up.
• The click-through rate from your organic rankings can increase.

For example, you can place local business focused rich snippets on your website, which will, in turn, pull through their online reviews to their search rankings. This can increase your click-through rate due to it being more click-worthy and trustworthy to the user.