I subscribe to some of best SEO blogs and scan the email subject lines every day.
One of my favorite sections to look in for SEO news updates & tips is the SEO & SEM section in Search Engine Lands day in search.
A recent post caught my eye titled ‘Little blog scores big rankings: A Schema Creator case study’.
Firstly, lets get to understand the basics of schema micro data as it really isn’t complicated and can be highly effective in increasing search results positions and traffic to your site.
What Is Schema?
Schema is structured micro data which you display in your web pages HTML code to tell the search engines additional information about your content.
The 2 links under the next sub heading show you what type of rich data you can add to your posts and pages using a plugin or Schema creator.
Here you’ll find the most popular types of schema’s people use to add to their blogs.
Data You Can Add To Your Blog
The plugin can also automatically include http://schema.org/Blog and http://schema.org/BlogPosting schemas to your pages and posts.
It seems a little technical at first if you haven’t heard about it before but it really is quite simple.
Call it Schema, micro data or rich snippets, it doesn’t matter.
You can create the data (Schema) manually using Raven Tools Schema Creator or simply install a plugin.
Schema Micro Data Plugin
When i first found out Raven Tools had created a WordPress plugin for this task, i jumped at the chance to review the plugin and added it to my main site, WP Sites.
You can search for and download the Schema Creator by Raven plugin from the WordPress.org plugin directory or Github.
The WordPress plugin provides an easy to add your specific data to a form and embed the schema.org microdata into a WordPress post or page.
Schema Creator Plugin Settings
The plugin ads a simple setting page that you need to configure.
I simply saved these settings and left them as the defaults.
Once you activate the plugin, you also find a small icon appears above your editor.
Schema Creator Forms
Once you click the icon, you’ll get a pop up where you can choose the type of data you want to enter.
How easy is this?
Types of Forms
These several forms which have already been created so all you need to do is add your content and insert the data into your editor.
Schema Type Examples:
- Organization – Most important to add this data to your about page and even in your header or footer. Data you can add includes Type of Company, website, address, location etc.
- Movie – Add information about the movie so Google understands more about your content: Name, website, movie description Director, Producer & Actor.
- Person – Add all your personal details in addition to your Google Plus info.
- Product – Add data which includes the brand, manufacturer, model, product i.d, price and rating.
- Event – Add start and end times, duration, time and location in micro data format.
- Book – Add if its a eBook, Paperback, Hardcover, Author and publisher.
- Review – Name , review, rating, author, publication date, edition and format.
Schema Forms Gallery
Check out all the different forms you can use to add different types of micro data to your blogs posts and pages depending on the topic.
Add all the data and click insert.
Testing Schema Data
Google also offers a Rich Snippet Testing tool to review and test the micro data in your pages and posts.
I’ve already written about how to use Google’s rich snippet testing tool to verify author ownership and this tool will also check to see that any additional Schema micro data you add is valid.
WP Sites Schema Micro Data Examples
Here’s a couple of real examples i have added to WP Sites.
- Choose a Schema Type
- Add the data
Insert the data in your HTML editor
Video
Conclusion
Be nice to see Joost de Valk add this feature to WordPress SEO by Yoast considering its the best all in one SEO plugin for WordPress.
I think it is still better to just do in the code of the theme instead of using plugins.
Me too Thomas.
My microdata is appearing on front page. It should be only in code(HTMl). right? But is appearing on the top of the page. Please guide.
Did you post this question on the plugin forums?
Thank you for sharing this information. Having a micro schema to help Google find meaning into the posts is very useful. You helped me improve my site.
Excellent work!
I was researching more about schemas and came across your video. This is very informative and could be the future of SEO.
Also wanted to point out that one of the rich snippets link (Testing Schema Data >>>Rich Snippet Testing tool) is not working.
Thank you again for sharing your information with us.
Thanks, I got a good explanation from Brad about what microdata mgr does, and I am afraid I wouldn’t know how to populate its fields properly for events (location date and time) or people or organizations and other properties beyond default BlogPosting, so not ready to override what Genesis does by default. Need to brush up on that.
Still, in your video about schema that references this post it clearly shows the [schema} placed at bottom of the edit post window for this post, but I don’t see it showing up in source other than default.
And since this post is about Raven Schema, why recommend Microdata Manager instead?
Because its been designed to work with Genesis.
Genesis, already includes Schema, why install a plugin like Raven Schema?
What you may want to do is customize the default Schema already included in Genesis by installing Brad Potters plugin.
Easier said, than done. LOL
I have asked Brad to help figure out how to populate the form for an “event” as an example.
You simply replace the Schema url’s.
How hard is that?
Advanced folks such as yourself sometimes forget that newbies are not programmers. We all admit Schema isn’t that well documented, nor are most plugins. I am not a stupid person. This takes some figuring out.
FOR INSTANCE
Using Microdata Manager
Here is an example of my awe and wonder of things Schema.
Say for instance I write a post about a city councilman re-election fundraiser on some date at some location.
Just for fun and to see what that code would look like I went to http://schema-creator.org/event.php
and filled form to produce
Fundraiser for Edi Birsan Nov 3
Starts: 10/26/2013 3:00PM
Duration: 02:00
Concord, CA94518
U.S.
The issue for me is how to match most relevant data from the schema code above to microdata settings form
For now I have it populated as
Main Content: http://schema.org/BlogPosting
Entry: http://schema.org/Event
After that I don’t know what to do.
As a example, what would I enter (verbatim) for the rest of the settings
Entry (item prop) ? e.g. would put in “Fundraiser for Edi Birsan Nov 3”?
title (text)
Entry content
Would one put in the code from above? With or without the ?
It’s not clear at all.
If some guru actually saw that this was an issue for many users and said, “hey, I’m gonna give people some simple examples of how to use microdata mgr for
BlogPosting
Events
Organization
People
And maybe just a little more coaching up of how to nest even more info, that would be more helpful than brushoffs like “how simple is that”
Such an example would give me BIG clue as to how to work with and populate such forms for schema
thanks, bgr
Is Schema microdata supposed to display in HTML of post? I can understand if it shows up specifically in the snippet as meta code drawn from post but it looks out of place and messes up look of a post with a block of microdata at the top of every post.
I am using Raven Schema Creator plugin on WP36*/Genesis 2/Eleven40 Pro
I would suggest you try the Genesis Microdata Manager plugin by Brad Potter.
Brad,
I am a Webmaster and I am mostly doing WordPress Websites for Businesses.
I don’t have that much content text on those Websites and I don’t do any posting.
Will the Google Authorship Markup help me in those Websites CRT.
Thanks for your time,
Cheers..
Google has stated that Microdata may help the search engines better understand what the content is about and therefore may be more accurately indexed.
Wow, great post. I’m just a little agitated that Google want’s this type of data on our websites (as if the titles and descriptions aren’t enough).
On top of that, these rogue content snips can really mash up a great design if they aren’t hidden from users.
I’ve used the Schema Plugin from Raven, and cannot verify that the snippets are even there in my Webmaster Tools.
Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks,
Julia
Hi Julia
You can test it using the Google rich snippets tool.
I would post a question on the plugin forum as they’re the experts with this plugin and understand why you’re receiving errors.
Is Microdata supposed to show up on a page??? I used the plug-in for the top of the page and it puts it right there above my regular content and looks terrible. I thought this stuff was hidden.
Great tutorial though!
Nice logo Dennis! Yes the text displays but not the code which tells Google its microdata. Maybe you might want to put it in the footer and/or contact or about page.
Great tutorial and even better video. I have a question though. After I insert the data at the bottom of the page in the HTML editor and publish it, the information is displayed at the bottom of the published page. Is there any way to prevent the schema micro data from coming up on your page but still have the search engines see it?
Hi Tim
That’s something which i read about several months ago when testing another plugin. If its visible then its read by the search engines.
From what i understand, they don’t like hidden content. You could put it in your footer using a small font size so its on every page and post.
Thanks for the quick reply. I feel like I’m doing it wrong. Is it supposed to just look like a block of text at the bottom with all the descriptions and summaries I wrote in especially for rich snippets?
Also, I read somewhere that having it in a footer throughout the site is not recommended and somehow diminishes the effectiveness of showing the rich snippet. Thanks again.
Yeah. Its just text wrapped in a few tags. Nothing special really but the search engine’s read the tags and know exactly what the data means so they can accurately index your content.
If its contact information for a local business then the footer should be o.k and i would also use Google Places in this case. For reviews i would paste it in the bottom of the post or on the top in a small box with star rating as well.
Not sure this is the right plugin for you.
Paste your link here if you like and i’ll take a look.
What would you recommend for. I have the code built out, however I don’t know how/where to put it.
Hello Mike
I don’t think there is any coding needed to use this plugin.
What exactly did you want to do?
Very interesting plugin I do have a question have you noticed if this plugin has slowed down your site at all? It seems it would be a rather heavy plugin to use.
I am curious about it though and will keep it in mind I find it could be very useful on sales sites!
Thanks for introducing me to it.
I think it might slow down your site speed if you used it on every page but i don’t think it’ll be much of a difference. Did you have problems with this Justin?