Structured data is an important aspect of SEO that can improve click-through rates, conversion rates, and bring in more traffic to your website. As an often misunderstood part of SEO, many people are left wondering if it will improve their rankings. But is structured data a Google ranking factor?
Structured data is not a direct Google ranking factor. However, it can help you rank faster on search engines because it makes pages easier to crawl. Aside from this, it can also provide rich results in SERPs (search engine results pages) and improve click-through rate and conversion rates.
Read on to find out more about structured data, Google ranking factors, why structured data is important, and what types of structured data are available.
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Structured data, otherwise known as schema markup, are standardised pieces of data that you can attach to your website that organises the information and helps search engines understand what the site’s content is about.
While Google and other search engines are extremely sophisticated, they’ll still sometimes need help with understanding page content. That’s where structured data comes in. Providing a distinct explanation of your page and what’s offered on it through the use of a set list of data points will ensure that everything is understood.
Structured data will also allow search engines to add extra features called rich results to how your website appears in SERPs (search engine results pages). If you’ve ever seen an image or rating next to a search engine result, this is what we call rich results. They add extra information around your results and help to increase click-through rate. Because you’ve given Google all the information it needs to add these features through your structured data, it can choose whether to serve the extra features without being restricted by the information found on the page.
While the full extent of ranking factors that Google considers is not publicly known, what we do know is that there are hundreds of ranking factors that can influence Google’s decision on where to rank your page.
These can include niche specific factors such as the freshness of the content when searching for news related topics. They can also include off-page factors like backlinks or the site’s consistency with your social media profiles.
While it’s impossible to discuss every ranking factor, here’s our 7 most important Google ranking factors for SEO:
For more information about these ranking factors and more, read our guide on Google Ranking Factors and How They Impact SEO.
While structured data isn’t one of these ranking factors, it can still help you rank. While this may sound counterintuitive, it’s actually quite simple once you wrap your head around it. Essentially, structured data won’t be something that’s looked at when deciding if you should show up on the first page for a search term. However, it will make your content easier to crawl, which will lead to faster indexing and getting your page ranking faster.
Using structured data to let Google serve rich results can also make a huge difference to your click-through rate (CTR). This means that you’ll get more traffic, and it will also provide more trust to new users by showing your reviews or other information about you.
Structured data will also allow you to control the information that’s understood on your site and how it’s defined. This doesn’t mean that you should lie about your company in your structured data, but the opposite. You can define exactly what your company is and does, meaning that you won’t be classified incorrectly in Google’s eyes and struggle to rank for the correct keywords.
There are 797 types of schema and 1,453 schema properties, so we won’t be listing them all here. Depending on your website and what you’re looking to achieve, the types that you use can vary. Here we’ve listed the schema that’s most often used by SEO professionals.
Within all of these examples, there are multiple options for different schema properties. These properties mean that you can also add extra rich results such as reviews to your schema.
At Wildcat Digital, our team of technical SEO experts can create the perfect structured data to allow Google to understand your site and serve a range of rich results. We don’t focus solely on this though, and we optimise our campaign strategy based on what your site requires. After all, your site is unique so your SEO strategy should be unique too.Get in touch with a member of our friendly team or visit our SEO page for more information.
