This post will help you better understand microdata and the use of schema.org html 5 tags, so that you can start using these tags to markup your content so the search engines understand your content better. You should also see an improvement in your search results.
What are Schemas?
Scheme.org was created by Google in order to fine tune search results by creating Schemas (HTML Tags) which webmasters use to markup (wrap html text with) their content better in a language the search engines understand.
This additional information gives you an advantage in the search results as it tells the search engines a lot more about your content as opposed to your competitors who don’t use schemas. This narrows down the results to provide the search query user with a more targeted result which you content will be included in.
Search engines are now using these tags in order to categorize content better so the search results for your content should gain an advantage if you use the correct tags.
What is Microdata?
Microdata is a set of tags, introduced with HTML5, that allows the search engines to better understand your content and display it in a useful, relevant way.
Note: You only need basic HTML knowledge to use schemas so if you know how to edit the code in your WordPress editors HTML view, you’ll know how to add these html tags.
Example: I added some basic html tags to my about page which you can view here from my WordPress editor’s HTML view.
<div itemscope itemtype=”http://data-vocabulary.org/Person”>
My name is <span itemprop=”name”>Brad Dalton</span> and i’m a full time <span itemprop=”title”>WordPress Developer</span> & Blogger covering everything related to WordPress.
<span itemprop=”affiliation”>WordPress sites</span> is a blog about WordPress.org which is free </div>
Here’s what i’ve marked up using the Schema.org HTML 5 tags which i have effectively wrapped around the content i want marked up for the search engines.
Microdata Tags
- my name – <span itemprop=”name”>
- my title – <span itemprop=”title”>
- my company – <span itemprop=”affiliation”>
You can clearly see the code in blue which are the special HTML 5 tags or Schemas which Google has created especially for this purpose. Marking up your microdata format like this is very simple and results in an easy win with the search engines. All you need to do is add these tags at the beginning of the text you want to markup as your microdata and add </span> after the text so the tags wrap around the text.
Here are several excellent articles about Schema.org language and Microdata format.
For specific vocabulary and examples, see:
You can add html 5 microdata to WordPress automatically using the Seo ultimate plugin which includes rich snippet creator.
Use the Rich Snippets Testing Tool to check that Google can correctly parse your structured data markup and display it in search results.
Your site must also include support for HTML 5 if it doesn’t already do so.