SEO Structured Data: Meta Tags That Matter
- 30 May, 2022
- Jason Ferry
- SEO
When it comes to formulating an effective SEO strategy for your website, one of the most important elements to consider is structured data. This is the code that helps search engines understand the SEO content on your website and how to index it.
One of the most important aspects of structured data is meta tags. Meta tags provide information about a web page, such as the title, description, and keywords. Search engines use this information to index pages, so it’s important to ensure that your meta tags are accurate and up-to-date.
In this blog, we will look into some of the most important meta tags that you should be aware of when formulating your SEO strategy.
Do you like to do web searches using certain keywords or categories? In the early days of the internet, there were two different search paradigms that competed with one another: the directory and the crawler. It came down to Yahoo’s directory approach against the crawler that Google used.
When it came to arranging webpages, the directory used a methodical approach, while the crawler looked for keywords in unstructured data. The victory went to search engines that used crawlers, and from that point on, internet searches concentrated on keywords.
The most effective search engines of today are still known as crawlers, but they are rapidly becoming more structured in the data they collect. They work in secret with structured entities to improve search results. This takes place behind the scenes. In addition to this, they allow for the input of structured data from websites. There is a possibility that the user experience will be enhanced as a result of the increasingly comprehensive search results.
Overview: What is Structured Data?
Meta tags are a type of structured data that is frequently discussed in relation to SEO. Crawlers take advantage of the information contained in two meta tags: “meta keywords” and “meta description.” Meta tags are defined as “information about information” and are intended to help crawlers rank and showcase websites.
However, many would stuff material in the form of a large list of keywords inside such tags in the hope that it would improve their site’s ranking. After a while, search engines began to completely disregard meta keywords. Meta descriptions, the other structured data category, have also dropped in relevance.
Consider structured data to be a spreadsheet with column and row labels. Unstructured data is what you see in the text of a webpage or in a newspaper story. There are names for your information in structured data, such as the “keywords” and “description” stated above.
The usage of structured data for an SEO strategy for website rankings is essentially the meta tag’s comeback. Only this time, instead of keywords and descriptions, it’s about important detailed information on what displays on your website.
Different Categories of Structured Data
The website schema.org has hundreds of different forms of structured data. The total number is more than 135, and schema.org is solely used by Google, Microsoft, Yandex, and Yahoo as their reference library. The OpenGraph language is used by many different social networks for their structured data. You can obtain it by going to ogp.me.
The process of searching through the library of entities on schema.org to find those that are pertinent to your company can be time-consuming and may not always be fruitful. Let’s look at the question from the opposite angle, shall we? What are some examples of structured data that can be beneficial to your search engine optimisation efforts?
Structured data can now be submitted for various information kinds through Google. It uses the data for things such as rich results. Still, it may also use it to generate things called the knowledge panel and featured snippets if necessary. Let’s look at some of the different types of items that Google uses to produce rich results for companies.
- Local Businesses
The marketing challenges faced by companies with a physical location are distinct. One of those challenges is to encourage people to visit that area. This presents a big obstacle for local search engine optimisation. For this particular purpose, structured data gives you the ability to tie your website to your physical location correctly. You are free to add the star ratings of your reliable source into the description of your page, just as we did with the ice cream example earlier.
It is possible to add more details about the company, such as its operating hours or menus in the case of dining establishments.
- Products
Integrating structured data markup into your content management system is the strategy that will serve your website and its database of individual products the best. Many of the markup characteristics are already present in your database, but it would be beneficial to add things like the product rating to the database and then have the CMS automatically publish the structured data.
- Articles
The vast majority of the information that can be incorporated as structured data when publishing articles is already available at the time when the articles are being published. The majority of CMS systems will automatically publish this information for you. As part of the maintenance process for your website, make sure to check that the relevant data is being processed and published on the pages it should be on.
Google also accepts structured data for events, TV episodes, book reviews, movie reviews, and software programs. This data can include granular components like image carousels and breadcrumbs for navigation. It is anticipated that the list will continue to expand over time. Within Google’s Search Gallery, you can monitor the comprehensive list of markups that can be used for the search engine.
Optimise Your Website’s Meta Tags and Structured Data
When it comes to SEO, your website’s structured data and meta tags are two key elements. Structured data is code that helps search engines understand the relationships between pieces of content on your website. This can be anything from the type of content (e.g., blog posts, product pages, etc.) to who wrote it and when it was published.
At position1seo.co.uk, we often refer to structured data as “the invisible infrastructure of the internet”. It’s not something website visitors will see or interact with directly, but it is essential for helping search engines understand your website and improve your SEO.
Our team of experts specialises in helping businesses optimise their website’s structured data and meta tags to improve their SEO strategy through SEO best practices. We also offer SEO audits, keyword research, and link building.
Position1SEO is the leading provider of technical SEO audits in the UK. We have a team of experienced and certified SEO experts who can help you identify any potential problems with your website’s technical aspects. Visit our homepage to learn more about our services, or email us at jason@position1seo.com for a free consultation.
