What Are Schema Markup, Structured Data, and Rich Results in SEO?

Standard web pages are already designed to communicate with search engines effectively through HTML (HyperText Markup Language). For example, Headings (the <h1> to <h6> tags) define the heading hierarchy and clarify the essential topics on a page. The <header>, <nav>, <main>, and <footer> tags are used for standard sections with layout semantics. Additionally, text-level semantics tags like <em>, <strong>, and <code> provide semantic meaning of words and phrases rather than just visual styling.

Utilizing schema markup allows websites to label pages and enrich key details semantically, giving search engines deeper insights beyond basic HTML. Through machine-readable identifiers and attributes, schema provides standard semantics for clearly denoting what types of content pages contain.

Why Schema is Important

With the massive amount of information online, search engines face the challenges of accurately organizing and presenting search results. Schema helps address this by allowing websites to semantically label their content in a way that search bots can easily understand.

As the website's content stays the same, schema markup may not have a direct impact on search rankings, but it helps search engines interpret the pages' intent and subject more accurately to determine their relevance to users’ intent.

How Schema is Used

Schema provides websites with a standard way to denote the type of information their pages contain. For example, labeling a blog post as an "Article" tells bots it is written content, not an "About" page. Categorizing products ensures they surface for shopping searches as Rich Results.

Schema Markup, Structured Data, and Rich Results

The concepts Schema Markup, Structured Data, and Rich Results are the three sides of the same triangle. They are interconnected and work together to give results in a specific direction, which aids SEO. Let's go deeper into these three concepts to understand them better.

Schema Markup

Schema markup is a language used to describe webpages in a way that machines, such as search engines, understand. The language involves selecting each page's most appropriate schema type (such as Article or Product) and tagging important attributes through structured data. Common elements tagged include the name, description, images, and other metadata.

Structured Data

Structured data is intertwined with schema and refers to the exact data marked and tagged by the schema language. The data comprises coded semantic tags and attributes that schema markup embeds within web pages. By applying schema annotations to organize and define the available data, websites can share structured key details about their content in a way that search engines and other online services can understand.

Rich Results

Rich results, on the other hand, are visual depictions that search engines display based on the data structured by schema for your web pages. Search engines use structured data to present your content in visually accurate depictions that match search intent. Some examples of visual depictions are knowledge panels highlighting key details about entities, interactive product carousels pulling prices and images directly into results, or thumbnail previews for videos that don't require clicking.