Schema.org: Eight Tips to Incorporate Rich Snippets to Conform to Google Hummingbird
Google’s
latest search algorithm update, known as Hummingbird, is one of the most important updates
in more than a decade. The update devalues websites with poor content and makes
sure that people are able to find relevant information through long-tail search
queries, which Google calls ‘conversational search’. Hence, the update makes it
easy to find information with search queries formatted like questions.
Google’s
searching database, more popularly known as ‘Knowledge Graph’, has billions of
pieces of information that you can search from. In order to organize the data
on a website, Google and other search engines recommend using Schema.org rich
snippets. Schema.org,
also known as ‘microdata’, came into existence in June 2011. In this article,
you will get a few tips to mark up your content to conform to the Hummingbird
update.
1. Microdata is More Important than Ever
What
do people who visit your website find? The information on your website may be
properly structured and presented for people to easily understand. However,
with search bots, this is not the case. They do not understand the design of
your website or the elements on it unless you specify them properly. For
instance, if you have the name of a person on a web page and other relevant
details, such as his/her address, phone number, spouse’s name, etc., a search
bot has no way of knowing how these pieces of information relate to each other.
On the other hand, if you specify how this bits of data relate to each other as
shown below, the search engine will be able to better understand your page.
Here is an example of marking up a person’s details using microdata.
itemscope
itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>
<span
itemprop=”name”>Sam Worthington</span>
<span itemprop=”jobTitle”>Actor</span>
<span itemprop=”jobTitle”>Actor</span>
itemtype=”http://schema.org/PostalAddress”>
<span
itemprop=”streetAddress”>
The address of the person is here.
</span>
</div>
<span itemprop=”telephone”>(111) 222-3333</span>
</div>
The address of the person is here.
</span>
</div>
<span itemprop=”telephone”>(111) 222-3333</span>
</div>
This
markup essentially tells a number of things about the person in the context.
When Google gets a semantic search query like “what is the address of Sam
Worthington”, it will be able to display the web page containing the structured
data above. Since microdata makes it easy for search engines to understand
content, all the major search engines recommend using it.
2. Rich Snippets & Special SERP Listing
These
days, when you search for specific items within Google, you are presented with
information inferred with the help of rich snippets. For instance, when you
search for the movies a particular actor has appeared in, Google shows a top
bar with posters of that actor’s movies. It’s the same way, Google
highlights recipes, events, product reviews, ratings, restaurants, videos,
business organizations, etc.
Since
Hummingbird enables the search algorithm understand natural language better and
brings more relevance to search results, websites have to incorporate rich
snippets within the content. This makes sure that your pages are highlighted
for relevant searches.
3. Microdata is Available in All Languages
Although
currently microdata and its documentation are provided in English, the schema
can be used in any language as long as you follow the rules. This benefits your
site when people use Google search in their local languages. Since microdata
markup is not visible to the visitors, it does not affect the general
presentation of the website.
4. Increase the Visibility of Your Business
With
microdata markup, you can easily provide more information about your company.
With appropriate markup, such information as your company’s name, description,
logo, location, web address, telephone numbers, names of founders, names of
employees, tax IDs, etc., can be incorporated. This will make all this
information easily searchable. In essence, your marketing will be better with
microdata markup. Schema.org website provides
different markup schemes for companies, brands, corporations,
educational institutions, sports teams, government organizations, NGOs, etc.
5. Niche Websites Will Have More Advantages
Since
Google Hummingbird targets long-tail search queries, niche websites with good
content will have a boost in search ranking. By incorporating specific markup
schemes for niche products and services, you can make your website better. The
algorithm update and microdata work together in improving relevance. E-commerce
sites, job search sites, recipe sites, restaurant sites, etc., will find
several benefits by incorporating microdata markup.
6. Microdata Helps Incorporate Your Information into Google’s
Knowledge Graph
Whenever
you search for something on Google, such as a famous person or a movie, you
will find that the right-hand side of the search result page contains useful
data about the entity with basic information and links to resources such as
Wikipedia. This information is fetched from Google’s database of over half a
billion different concepts and interrelationships among them. Proper microdata
markup ensures that your website data is added to this knowledge graph and
available to searchers faster.
Hummingbird
is an algorithm that finds relevant information faster for long search queries.
Such search queries will be used more often in the coming days when
smartphones, tablets, and devices like Google Glass will be popular. People
tend to ask a question rather than speak the keywords in order to find
information on handheld devices. Voice search will be more efficient and
straightforward.
7. Updating Your Existing Content
Many
creators of good content continue to receive targeted traffic from search
engines even without doing any active SEO work. Post-Hummingbird, you can boost
your SEO by incorporating rich snippets in your old content. Within blogging
platforms, this task should be fairly easy. WordPress, the most popular
blogging platform in the world, provides you with a number of plugins to add
microdata into your site.
8. Testing Your Markup to Conform to the Standards
After
adding the markup to your web pages, you should test the pages to know whether
the markup is properly incorporated or not. Particularly for a large website,
some mistakes in markup are ineveitable. To know if your site has any errors,
go to the Structured Data Testing Tool provided by Google; it is a part of
Google Webmaster Tools. Within the Structured Data Testing Tool, you can see
all the microdata objects in your web page. It tells you if anything has to be
added or removed.
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