Schema.org markup is a well-known, advanced search technique, universally recognised across the industry as important, but its take-up is surprisingly low.

The highest estimate of Schema.org adoption comes in at less than a third of all websites globally. (Search Engine Watch 18 April 2017)

It’s widely agreed to be beneficial from an SEO perspective.

Using schema.org markup will allow searches engines to pull through rich snippets and rich data across factors like reviews, opening hours and images, making your site more appealing in the SERPs and resulting hopefully in higher click through rates.

What is schema.org markup? Simply put its code that you put onto your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users. Its structured data formatted in such a way that it can be universally understood.

With the meteoric rise of voice search, scheme.org markup plays an even more essential role that acts in a sense like a signpost that highlights to digital assistant’s information that will return an accurate answer to a person’s voice query. Schema markup brings context to what might be a long-winded page of text.

Search Engine Land identified some of the challenges faced around schema markup and unsurprisingly, they are around implementation. It’s easier said than done.

Understanding schema markup vocabulary and where to implement it was a key concern. There are many guides that exist on how to use Schema.org markup, but resources available are still considered limited in their ability to help with the process of implementing schema.org on site,

Maintaining the health of schema markup in the event Google makes changes was another concern arising from the survey.

Those challenges aside, businesses who do implement schema are either embarking upon it manually or relying on tools like Yoast, a WordPress plug in or for Magento, the Rich Snippets Extension – Google Schema tags.

By using schema tags, you can communicate to search engines a lot more useful information about your products.  The different types of schema tags that can be shown as part of search results include; name, breadcrumbs, SKU, URL, image, description, price, currency, status, brand and its product attribute, product colour and its attribute, product weight and its attribute, reviews.

If you’re interested in taking advantage of Schema.org markup on your Magento website, contact the Williams Commerce Marketing team on 0116 326 1116, or email [email protected] for more information.