What is Structured Data and Schema?

Modern search engines are very good at understanding the content on your website. However, giving them a little help with semantics is still something we need to do. We can do that with structured data.

There are many types of content you can enhance with structured data, ranging from your business descriptions, to product descriptions, questions and answer style content, to the hierarchy of pages on your site (“Breadcrumbs”) to name just a few.

Structure data can be written into your page content in a few different ways. One way is to describe your content using attributes in your html tags. In fact, if you inspect the html code of the question and answer paragraph above, you’ll see that I’ve added schema attributes to the block of text to specify that there is a question and an answer.

Another way to include structured data on your page is as a json script block. For example, if you go to PlusROI’s contact page and view the source code, you’ll find a block of code that looks like this:

<script type='application/ld+json' >
{
     "@context": "http://www.schema.org",
     "@type": "ProfessionalService",
     "name": "PlusROI Online Marketing",
     "url": "https://plusroi.com",
     "logo": "https://plusroi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/plusroi-logo_color.png",
     "image": "https://plusroi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/plusroi-team.jpg",
     "founder": "Rob Cooper",
     "foundingDate": "2007",
     "foundingLocation": "Victoria BC",
     "description": "PlusROI Online Marketing Inc is an multi-channel online marketing agency which follows a rigorous process of ongoing improvement for clients. Services include SEO, online advertising, wordpress website development, and email marketing. PlusROI has been recognized by Google as one of a select group of \"Premier\" agencies and has been ranked as a best-of-breed Google agency. In practical terms, this partnership gives PlusROI access to their own team at Google to support them with research, insights and strategic help whenever requested.",
     "priceRange": "$$",
     "email": "info@plusroi.com",
     "telephone": "+1(250) 294-0915",
     "address": {
         "@type": "PostalAddress",
         "streetAddress": "4633 Lochwood Crescent",
          "addressLocality": "Victoria",
         "addressRegion": "British Columbia",
         "addressCountry": "Canada",
         "postalCode": "V8Y 1A7"
      },
     "geo": {
         "@type": "GeoCoordinates",
         "latitude": "48.502340,",
         "longitude": "-123.367461 "
     },
     "hasMap": "https://goo.gl/maps/vAdjh8EshAp",
     "sameAs" : [
         "https://www.facebook.com/PlusROI/",
         "https://ca.linkedin.com/company/plusroi-online-marketing-inc.",
         "https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRXaX_97REdjFLf6VI4RoMg"
     ],
     "openingHours": "Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr 09:00-17:00",
     "contactPoint": {
         "@type": "ContactPoint",
         "telephone": "+1(250) 294-0915",
         "contactType": "sales"
     }
}
</script>

The main resource for structured data documentation lives at Schema.org. On this site you’ll find all sorts of ways to structure your content, including examples. When you’re done writing code, you can validate it using Google’s Structure Data Testing Tool.