How to Use Schema as Your Insurance During Site Migrations

Schema markup which is also known as schemas or structured data is an advanced SEO approach as it gives search engines context of the website content (as it is semantic vocabulary categorized on Schema.org), and in turn, paves way for the content to be displayed as rich results on SERPs. In 2011, the Big Four search engines at that point – Google, Yahoo, Bing and Yandex – collaborated to create Schema.org in order to classify and categorize entities online in the form of microdata or tags which came to be known as schema markup.

Schemas are basically a set of types, and each type has its set of properties. As defined by search engines Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex, schema types are arranged in a hierarchical structure and till date, there are 818 Types, 1326 Properties, and 289 Enumeration values in the schema dictionary or vocabulary. Some of the common schema types are:

• Person
• Event
• Health
• Action
• Organization
• Review, Aggregate Rating
• Product, Offer, Aggregate Offer
• Place, Local Business, Restaurant

To give search engine bots context of the content when indexing the web page, the schema is implemented in the code in the form of schema attributes which help the search engine bots identify the entities and their relationships. Schema attributes are basically information in the website code that make up the schema property. While the attribute is simplistic, the combination of attributes is complex and helps define the schema property and its relationship. There are generally two types of attributes – Default attribute and Fixed Attributes. As the name suggests, a default attribute is what it is and cannot be changed while a fixed attribute is one which has a fixed value and cannot be changed. Examples:

The schema attributes can be implemented in the website’s HTML code using either JSON-LD or RDFA syntaxes. However, Over the last few years, JSON-LD has become the most preferred structured data. Why? JSON-LD is well-implemented. It can be embedded in “script” tags in the head of a document (moving out of the HTML body), separated from the data it describes. This makes JSON-LD a format that can be templated, easily implemented and a great option for adding, deleting, or updating purposes.

Other formats like Microdata or RDFa are neither that flexible nor easy to use options for adding, deleting, or updating purposes. RDFa are inline markups applied to HTML documents and define attributes that are added to the HTML.

Above all, search engines love and prefer JSON-LD and thus JSON-LDs are more picked up. Here is what Google has to say – “Google recommends using JSON-LD for structured data whenever possible”. Period.

Once the schema code is implemented in the HTML using a Schema Generator, the schema code has to be validated for any errors or warnings using a schema testing tool. If the schema code has errors in case you have included a deprecated schema property, it has an incorrect structuring of the file, or due to other reasons, there will be no point publishing the schema on your website. Instead, rectify the errors and warnings before publishing it on your website.

To see how your content would look as a rich result on SERPs, run the JSON-LD block that contains the schema code on Google’s Rich Result Testing tool.

Many businesses often assume that the job is done once the schemas are published on the website – error and warning free. However, this is not the case as the schemas implemented on the website need to be monitored closely for errors or warnings that pop up – which can happen if there are any website content changes or Schema.Org changes or updates their vocabulary. Deprecated schema properties will be flagged as an error and for the content to be indexed and displayed on SERPs as a rich result, it should be error-free. Having a system in place to monitor published schema and having impact reporting for your business to assess the difference schemas are making on your website in terms of rich result growth and SERP saturation is as important as taking the first step of publishing schemas on your website.

With the roll-out of BERT and the previous algorithms by Google, they made a clear indication that rather than index keywords, they were moving towards indexing entities, in short, entity optimization – as entities are language agnostic, and hold universal significance. Schemas are essential for a website’s SEO as they play an important role in entity recognition, as they give search engine bots a clear context of the website content, thereby enabling the content to be indexed as a rich result on SERPs.

In addition, with quality content a key factor for websites to rank on search, Google rolled out the E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) framework for SEO and it has since become the guidelines for experts around the world to ensure their pages rank on search and schemas play a vital role in showing that the website meets E-A-T and the Quality Rater’s Guidelines. In the words of Google, schema mark-up offers clues of the relationship of entities of the website and as it helps search engine bots understand the context of the content. In short, schemas help Google’s EAT scoring process easier as they help the search engine reduce ambiguities between entities, create connections between them and provide additional information about an entity that Google might not have picked up when indexing a page.

Establishing that schemas do give search engines clear context of the website content which help them retrieve the content as a relevant answer for a query online, and that it helps a website meet E-A-T and the Quality Rater’s Guidelines, schemas have in fact proved to boost the revenue of a business. How? You have to now consider Google as your homepage of your business, irrespective of whether you have a dedicated website or just a GMB profile. By giving the search engine the surety of your website content – it’s entities and relationships – you’re allowing the search engine to display your content as rich results on SERPs.

This in turn paves way for higher clicks, impressions and click-through rate as the relevant information displayed on SERPs and its attractive nature prompts users to take an action. Thereby, not only improving your visibility online but increasing the chances of a conversion and your business’s revenue.

Schema should make it easier for your sites to achieve rich results, improved ranking, and attract more people to your page. It should also help the search engines understand the content you have on your page. Therefore, the best way to see results from your Schema markup is to monitor your site before and after implementation.

1. Make sure your schema has been constructed properly. You can do this using Google’s Schema markup tool.
2. Get a baseline for your site performance. Look at your traffic rates, engagement rates, rankings on the SERP, and conversion rates.
3. Once you implement your schema, see how your rates change. Look for progress in each of these KPIs, indicating that the search engines and customers have responded positively to your markup.
4. Look at how your site appears on the SERPs. See if you have captured any additional rich features, such as the highlighting of the start and end time of an event.