In today’s article, we will stop to define and analyze everything related to structured data and how they can help us improve our SEO positioning.
What is structured data?
When we talk about structured data, we must know that it is a series of standardized tags or markups that provide detailed information about our website’s content to facilitate the entire classification process for search engines and help them interpret and organize all our information in the best way. This is made possible through the use of rich snippets.
In other words, structured data allows our website to communicate with search engines in their language, thus providing the information they need easily and efficiently. Understanding how search engines work, this communication is carried out through Schema.org, which is used to structure the metadata of our website and make it easier for search engines to understand the content we publish.
Once the search engine has classified and analyzed our content using structured data, it can use this data to create rich snippets that give us much more visibility and, at the same time, improve the user experience.
Differences between structured and unstructured data
To create structured data, a predefined schema is required. This schema is usually organized in the form of a table, and each field contains a value that the search engine uses to define our website.
This schema can be seen as a summary in which search engines organize and read our data as values . The format of this schema makes the data coherent and computable for search engines.
Then, we have unstructured data, including all the less technical contributions we make to the network, from our website to emails, blogs, social media posts, etc. It is estimated that around 80% of the data contained on a website needs to be more structured.
The issue with unstructured data is that it’s designed for users rather than for search engines. Despite all its advances, Google still needs help knowing exactly what your website is about and what information you provide to users.
That’s why structured data is the best way to get Google and other search engines to understand what we’re talking about and, hopefully, show our website among the top search results.
Utility of structured data
As we have seen earlier in the article, structured data effectively transmits the information search engines need from a web page to search engines.
In short, the structured data we incorporate into our website favours search engines, and since they are very grateful to those pages that make their work easier, they reward them with the so-called rich results.
These rich results are featured snippets that typically rank high among search results and dramatically improve the visibility of the content in question.
There are different types of structured data; the most important and most likely to increase are featured snippets within an answer box at the beginning of every search:
Another type of structured data is the information panel al, also known as the Knowledge Panel, which provides information about a specific search through its file, known as Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) in the case of a commercial company:
Finally, we have the so-called event fragments, which are structured data capable of extracting information from an event and reflecting the extract with the necessary information directly in the search results, which makes users associate the brand with a specific event:
How to convert unstructured data to structured Golang?
There are three different ways to generate and add structured data to our website:
Adding the code manually
Of course, to add the code manually, you need to have prior coding knowledge. In that case, you will already know how to create and add structured data to your website without the help of third parties.
Through the use of WordPress plugins
If, on the other hand, we need to gain technical coding knowledge and use external tools such as WordPress to create our website, we will have different plugins capable of creating schema markup at our disposal. In my opinion, the one that has given me the best results is “Schema App Structured Data”:
This plugin generates a schema markup for our entire website quickly and easily. You have to download it and upload it to your website through the “Plugins > Add New” field, then click on “Choose File” and select the compressed plugin file that you have downloaded.
These plugins do not require coding knowledge, but you do need to have a minimum of SEO knowledge to focus the structured data where it really matters.
Using the Google Structured Data Markup Helper
Suppose you don’t use WordPress or have any coding knowledge. In that case, you will have no choice but to define the structured data using Google’s Assistant for this purpose.
This method works in all cases, regardless of where the hosting is or what type of website it is. So, it is a useful solution for helping webmasters add schema markup to their web pages without too much hassle.
Including structured data on our website
It is important to know that structured data uses the Schema.org language and can be included in web pages using the means above, such as the Google Structured Data Markup Helper, WordPress plugins or by directly adding the code to our website.
We can likely use different formats, such as JSON-LD, Microdata, or RDFacon, to help us add the necessary information for search engines to our web content.
If you use WordPress, a plugin that gives very good results is WordLift, which helps us mark up content with schema.org without requiring any technical knowledge. Thanks to its natural language processing, this plugin can do it automatically.
Once we have the structured data included in our website, we can find out if it is correctly created through the Schema Markup Validator tool:
Google’s use of structured data
Google employs structured data to comprehend a page’s content and collect information about the web and broader context. Google collects this information about all kinds of people, places, and things, building a so-called Knowledge Graph, which creates much more accurate and relevant search results for users.
This graph is what Google uses to better understand its users’ searches and information. It helps it connect both concepts in an organized and intelligent way, increasing the domain authority of those who meet its expectations.
What is the JSON-LD format, and how does it relate to structured data?
To finish the article, we will analyze and define one of the three formats to add structured data through schema.org, which we mentioned above.
This is JSON-LD, which has some unique advantages over other formats:
- Its inclusion does not affect the structure and HTML tags already created.
- It can be loaded asynchronously, ensuring it does not impact the website’s performance.
- It makes use of JSON syntax so that web developers can reuse it without any problem
- Makes use of linked data, facilitating its insertion.
Google encourages website owners to use JSON-LD, so it can be a good option if you want Google to approve and rank your structured data. This is because the JSON-LD format allows you to link different entities, which every search engine appreciates.
