Local SEO techniques are constantly evolving thanks to the arrival of new technologies and the evolution of search engines. The markup scheme plays a key role in optimizing websites.
With the advent of voice search and rich snippets from Google, local SEO is gaining more and more importance for small businesses and local businesses. On-page optimization requires intervention on the different technical aspects of a web page as well as its content. In local referencing, one of the most effective techniques is the use and optimization of the markup scheme. These tags which were created by the collaboration of all the search engines allowing them to better understand the content of web pages. A specific markup is used in local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and which allows websites to appear in Google's rich snippets.
The Markup Scheme: What Is It?
Also known as "structured data", schema markup is a language created by Google, Bing and Yahoo to allow webmasters to facilitate the analysis of the content of their websites by search engine robots. The use of the schema markup, which referencers also call by its domain name schema.org, consists in using classes and properties. The operation is compared to a data mapping in order to explain to the search engines what the website is talking about. The schema markup has a vocabulary of 598 Types, 862 Properties and 114 Enumerated Values. Go to the schema.org page to discover the vocabulary used and the different extensions.
What Are The Types Of Markup Schemes?
JSON-LD
The JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data is the method recommended by Google for encoding structured data. JSON-LD allows you to group different data and different fields in a single script. This results in a more readable and lighter code to load.
Microdata
Injected into the HTML code of web pages, the microdata is a specification of the HTML open-community which uses attributes of HTML tags to provide metadata on content to search engines. It facilitates the reading and analysis of the content by the different crawlers. However, it is not recommended because it disperses the data and slows down page loading.
RDFa
Compatible with HTML 5, RDFa makes it possible to describe elements of the content visible to site visitors in order to facilitate their understanding by search engines.
What Is The Advantage Of The Markup Scheme?
Using the markup scheme allows search engines to better understand your site and to include the best sites in rich snippets.
And What Are Rich Snippets?
The translation of the expression rich snippets is rich extracts. It is a part of the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) which highlights enriched extracts from the best web pages. In other words, in addition to the link that contains the meta title and the extract that represents the meta description, Google adds other details such as star rating (reviews), recipes, events, companies, applications, etc. Indeed, these enriched results are fed by the structuring of the data by the markup scheme. This type of display allows the SEO to optimize its referencing by improving in particular the click-through rate (CTR).
The Schema Markup And Local Referencing
Local referencing consists in optimizing a website so that it ranks among the first results on a local query. Examples: "SEO agency near me", "SEO agency Paris", etc. In addition to the usual SEO optimization, the implementation of structured data makes it possible to optimize the natural referencing of the site and multiply its chances of ranking among the first search results.
Some good practices
Use the "Organization" markup scheme:
The implementation of the "Organization" markup scheme makes it possible to indicate to search engines that it is a corporate website. Therefore, it can boost the brand's e-reputation and improve the confidence of algorithms in front of your website.
Implement the "WebSite" markup scheme:
This applies to websites that have their own internal search engines. Inserting the "WebSite" markup allows you to highlight the internal search field of the website in the search results. This improves the clickthrough rate significantly.
The "Breadcrumbs":
The "Breadcrumbs" designates the breadcrumb that displays the different levels of the website. It indicates to the visitor where he is in the hierarchy of the site, in relation to the home page. Very popular with e-commerce sites, this type of markup scheme makes it possible to display product categories and thus enrich search results.
The "SiteNavigationElement":
By implementing the "SiteNavigationElement", the search engines understand the structures of websites much better. This allows them to post more than one link in the SERP of the same website.
The use of video
Video content is an important element for natural SEO. Adding the "VideoObject" markup scheme displays the site's videos in Google's rich snippets. This type accepts many properties such as: Name, Description, ThumbnailUrl, UploadDate, etc.
Choose The Best Schema Markups For Local SEO
In order to integrate the best schema markups and improve local SEO, it is advisable to browse the different categories. Then just select the ones that best match your website. Next, integrate as many markups as possible. In fact, this maximizes the chances of the website being highlighted in rich snippets and boosting its local SEO. That is why it is so important to any digital agency, providing SEO services. Only the content visible to visitors must be marked for the results to be tangible. Marking non-visible elements will have no effect on the local referencing of the website. Google offers a powerful tool called Structured Data Tool which validates the schema markup codes before integrating them into the website code.
Conclusion
The markup scheme has a positive impact on local SEO. However, website SEO specialists do not exploit all of its features. Learning to implement structured data allows you to significantly improve your local referencing. It is thus necessary to recall that this intervention supplements the various techniques of referencing. We must not neglect netlinking, internal networking, content creation and technical optimization. The use of the markup scheme cannot, in any case, produce significant results if it is used alone.
