What is Structured Data in SEO? Explain with Examples

Do you know that the Search Engines find it difficult to understand the content of a webpage?

However, you can make their Journey of understanding the webpage’s content by adding Structured Data.

But what is Structured Data and How does it help search engines to easily understand the webpage’s content?

Well, let’s find out the answer to the same in detail.

What is Structured Data?

Structured Data is an organized piece of Information in the form of code about the webpage.

To help you understand it better, here is a sample structured data of a contact page in JSON-LD format.

Give it a read.

{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "ContactPage",
  "mainEntity": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Your Company Name",
    "url": "http://www.yourcompany.com",
    "contactPoint": {
      "@type": "ContactPoint",
      "telephone": "+1-123-456-7890",
      "contactType": "customer service"
    },
    "address": {
      "@type": "PostalAddress",
      "streetAddress": "123 Main Street",
      "addressLocality": "Cityville",
      "addressRegion": "Stateville",
      "postalCode": "12345",
      "addressCountry": "Countryland"
    }
  }
}

After reading the above code, you may get some idea of what information we are mentioning in the contact page structured data.

More or less, we add similar information in other different types of page’s structured data as well. It depends on what the page is about. For example, In the receipe page’s structured data we mention details like, ingredients, cooking time, temperature, calories and more. In service page, we mention details about the service, cost, rating, and other things.

Now, you might think that, how can I write such a complicated code and implement it on my website.

Well, don’t worry, below I have explained you about some tools through which you can easily create structured data.

However, here your first concern should be to understand, How structured data is made? Who decides it’s rules and standard?

How Structured Data was Invented?

Well, back in 2011, three giant search engines “Google, Bing, and Yahoo”, collabs with each other and formed an organization called Schema.org.

The main aim of creating this organization is to create a standard computing language that describes the content of a webpage in an organized manner. So that, it becomes easy for search engines to understand the content present in the webpage.

And finally the three search giants developed the standard computing language for webpage called Schema Markup.

Schema Markup is a hierarchical system made of 2 categories.

• Types
• Properties

Each types can have more than one types (also called sub-types). And, we describe each type or sub-type with some details which we call Properties.

Let’s take an example to understand Types and Properties better.

Suppose, we want to create an organization structured data for my company page. So, first we collate the data we have.

Now, how do we write this information in the form of structured data?

With the type markup we define the type of structured data we are creating and then with different properties markup we define other details of this structured data.

So, here is how the organization structured data of my company looks.

"@type":"Organization",
      "url":"https://sketchweb.net",
      "name":"Sketchweb",
      "logo":{
        "@type":"ImageObject",
        "url":"https://sketchweb.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Sketchweb-Logo-Dark.png",
        "width":"700px",
        "height":"235px"

Right now, there are hundreds of Types and Properties present that you can easily check from Schema.org.

Structured Data Formats

There are three major structured data formats:

• JSON-LD
• Microdata
• RDFa

Let me give you a quick overview of these three structured data formats.

JSON-LD

JSON-LD stands for Javascript Object Notation for Linked Data.

It is the most popular structured data format for the below few reasons.

• You can add it to your website in a block of code without messing up with the other HTML of your website.
• You can add this code simply in your website header or body wherever it is necessary.
• JSON-LD keeps your website’s code clean and structured.

Microdata

Just opposite to JSON-LD, Microdata are tags that we add at different places in the page’s HTML.

Similiar to JSON-LD, we define Microdata using two things:

• Types: which is marked by itemtype
• Properties: which is marked by itemprop

The main limitation resides with Microdata is, we have mark each entity individually on the HTML page. While in JSON-LD we define the markup in one block of code.

So, if the website is not that large, then defining markup using Microdata is not troublesome. However, the same case not resides with larger websites.

RDFa

The third type of structured data markup is RDFa which stands for Resource Description Framework in Attributes.

Just like we markup each entity individually in Microdata, RDFa does the same. However, we use typeof attibute for marking Types and the property attribute for defining the properties.

Structured Data Implementation

The implementation of structured data depends on the CMS where you have created your website.

For example, if you are using WordPress as your website’s content management system, then there are plenty of plugin available to ease this journey.

If you are using Shopify as well, there are plenty of apps available through which you can easily add schema to your website.

Let me give you some popular plugins and apps for both of these CMS types to easily implement structured data on your website.

Structured Data Plugins for WordPress

1. Rankmath
2. Yoast SEO
3. All in one SEO

Structured Data Apps for Shopify

1. Yoast SEO
2. JSON-LD Express for SEO Schema
3. Ilana’s JSON‑LD for SEO

Now, if you are not using any of these two popular CMS, then you can write and add custom JSON-LD (we recommend) schema using ChatGPT for the required page.

Suppose, you want to create schema for a FAQ page, then place the below prompt in ChatGPT.

Below is the code, I got from ChatGPT when enter the above prompt.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "FAQPage",
  "mainEntity": [
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What is your company about?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Our company is dedicated to providing high-quality products/services in [your industry]."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How do I contact customer support?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "You can reach our customer support team at [contact email/phone number]."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What payment methods do you accept?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "We accept payments through [list of accepted payment methods]."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How can I return a product?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "To initiate a return, please [provide return instructions]."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "Do you offer international shipping?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Yes, we offer international shipping. Shipping costs and delivery times vary by location."
      }
    }
    // Add more questions and answers as needed
  ]
}

Now, in the above code I just have replace the questions and other details I want.

Cool! isn’t it?

Once, we get the code, we can add it to the header <head></head> or <body></body> section of our website (as required).

For example, if we want a structured data to be implemented across whole website, then we can add its code to head and vice versa.

Structured Data Benefits

Although there isn’t any ranking benefits associated with implementing structured data, it do have other SEO benefits.

• Improves Relevance: When you implement structured data in your website, search engines find it easier to understand your content. Hence, they rank your content for relevant keywords.
• Boost CTR: In other to provide better experience to the users, Google Search provides rich results for some of the structured data types. For example, the review structured data enables star rating for a particular page. Having something unique on SERP provokes users to click more on that result which leads to more click through rate.

Structured Data for Social Media Websites

Seeing the importance of structured data, Social Media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are also accepting content with structured data.

However, for social media websites, you have to use the OpenGraph protocol (more commonly know as OpenGraph tags).

Through this website you can see all the OpenGraph tags supported by social platforms to let your website appear as rich object in the respective platform.

Now, if you are using Yoast SEO or any other schema plugins or apps (as I described above), they have options to configure OpenGraph tags as well.

However, if you want to add it manually, then you can again take help from ChatGPT.

Structured Data Testing

Now, once you create and implement structured data on your website, how can you test it.

How to test if the structured data code is correct and doesn’t contain any errors. Otherwise, the search console would prompt incorrect structured data issue.

Well, the schema.org team have created a structured data testing tool (Google also recommends the same).

Through this tool, you can test whether your structured data is correct or not.

You can add both the URL or Code to test the structured data.

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So, this is all about structured data in SEO. Hope you like the article. If you have comment and suggestions, feel free to post it in the comment section below.

Read also: Google Brings New Structured Data for Educational Videos