How to use Schema Markup for Local SEO
Appearing in local search results is one of the best ways to gain traffic to your site and to your physical location. While Google My Business Listings have made life easier for many businesses, there is still information which can be added to your site to help with local searches.
Schema markup joins the gaps between your website and the searches that users perform. This can be on search engines traditionally, on map listings or through voice searches.
What is Schema.org Markup?
It is a coding markup vocabulary that has been created and recognized by leading search engines to help them better understand the information on your website.
While it exists in different encodings, it shows the same information regarding your business, location, product or page. It basically lets you highlight the most important aspects of your website and puts this in a uniform layout to be used by search engines in rich snippets, show reviews on third party sites or return accurate information on voice searches.
What Can Be Included?
Almost every part of a website can benefit from some form of Schema Markup. As well as information about your business and products, you can markup events, ‘how to’ steps, movies, job postings and more.
We’ll focus on the local SEO and local business aspects for now, but a full list of Schema types can be found at Schema.org.
NAP (Name, Address & Phone)
The basics of helping your customers find you, adding your name, address & phone number through organization Schema is crucial to all websites.
You should have your contact information available easily on your website anyway, but with different designs and interactive elements the crawlers might not always know where to look. Adding Schema markup for your contact information and business details will ensure people see the right information and are satisfied with their search results.
You can also submit this through Google My Business listings, but these can be taken down or not always show the relevant information if filled out incorrectly.
Testimonials & Reviews
These can help persuade users to buy, so it is often a good idea to get them to feed through to search results. It used to be the exception to see a review or testimonial, but now they are prevalent you don’t want to be missing out on the potential of increased click through rates.
If you are gathering reviews yourself then you will need to make sure this information is correct. Third party review services often pull through this data by default to include in search results, but it is still worth checking that all the information that is needed is there – even the big review services sometimes get it wrong! Make sure to check your Search Console property for verification.
Enhance Your Search Results
Whatever your business goals are you should make sure that you have Schema markup for at least your contact information (NAP). As well as giving users an easy route to get in touch with you, it can help edge out the competition and future-proof your website for voice and non-traditional search methods.
Implementing Schema can be daunting for some, so get in touch with us to help with local SEO or further Schema markup.
Useful Tools
Google can help you generate the information through their Structured Data Markup Helper tool as well as making sure everything is correct once implemented with their Structured Data Testing Tool.
Leave a Reply