Here are some advanced schema markup techniques that I recently learned and taught a small group of analysts to help them create some actionable task our clients. All tactics and techniques were first reported by Phil Rozek from localvisibility.com, and David Deering from whitespark.ca. Thanks for the awesome posts and technique guys!

1. Advanced Schema Markup As
Told By Super Saiyans

2. What is Schema?
• The purpose of using
structured data markup is
to help search engines
better understand your
business.
• It’s important that you
select the schema type
that best describes your
business to make it that
much easier for search
engines to understand
your business.

3. Example
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<span itemprop="name">Dynamic Web Solutions</span>
<link itemprop="url" href="http://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/">
<a itemprop="telephone" href="tel:8043032883”</a>
</div>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope
itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">1813 E. Broad St./span>
<span itemprop="addressLocality">Richmond</span>
<span itemprop="addressRegion">VA</span>
<span itemprop="postalCode">23221</span>
</div>

4. But let’s take it to the next level.

5. The additionalType Property
• What if you can’t find an accurate schema that
best describes your business? Or, what if you’re
afraid you don’t think your type of schema is
specific enough?
• Use an additional ontology called
Productontology. It allows you to specify products
and even services, bit it also be used to help
extend other schemas to get more specific.

6. The additionalType Property
• We want to find the matching entity of your
product or service on Wikipedia and create a URI
with Productontology. Then use the
additionalType property to create an association
between the general schema type and the more
specific description.
• For example, Cheryl owns a deli. But there isn’t
an exact schema type for deli so she has to settle
for the schema type, Food Establishment. But she
wants to get more specific than just Food
Establishment.

7. The additionalType Property
• First, find the Wikipedia page related to your specific
service or product.
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicatessen
• Then, using the Productonology URI we take the last
part of the Wiki URL and add it to the Productontology
URL
– http://www.productontology.org/id/
– http://www.productontology.org/id/Delicatessen
• Then use the additionalType property to mark it up and
create the association.

8. The additionalType Property
<div itemscope itemtype=“http://schema.org/FoodEstablishment”>
<link itemprop=”additionalType”
href=“http://www.productontology.org/id/Delicatessen” />
<span itemprop=”name”>Cheryl’s Dank Deli</span>
<div itemprop=”address” itemscope
itemtype=“http://schema.org/PostalAddress”>
<span itemprop=”streetAddress”>100 Main St.</span>
<span itemprop=”addressLocality”>Richmond</span>,
<span itemprop=”addressRegion”>VA</span>
<span itemprop=”postalCode”>23221</span>
</div>
<span itemprop=”telephone”>(804) 123-4567</span>
</div>

9. We just took it to a whole new level…

10. …but let’s
see if we can
take it even
further.

11. The sameAs
Property
• When you create citations it
become a waiting game as
you wait for Google to find
your new citations and make
the connections between
those listings, your business
and your websites.
• The SameAs property can
help make this process
quicker and easier. You can
tell search engines that the
business you’ve marked up is
the same one found at a
certain citation URL.

12. The sameAs Property Example
<div itemscope itemtype=http://schema.org/LocalBusiness>
<span itemprop="name">Dynamic Web Solutions</span>
<link itemprop="url" href=http://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/>
<link itemprop="sameAs"
href=https://plus.google.com/+DynamicWebSolutions>
</div>

13. The geo and hasMap Properties
• One of the most important things for Local
SEO is making it absolutely clear to search
engines where your business is located. Using
the geo and hasMap properties is sure to
make things crystal clear.

14. The geo and hasMap Properties
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<span itemprop="name">Dynamic Web Solutions</span>
<link itemprop="url" href="http://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/">
<link itemprop="sameAs" href="https://plus.google.com/+DynamicWebSolutions”>
<link itemprop="hasMap" href="https://goo.gl/maps/x6Lf8">
<a itemprop="telephone" href="tel:18043032883”</a>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">1813 E. Broad St./span>
<span itemprop="addressLocality">Richmond</span>
<span itemprop="addressRegion">VA</span>
<span itemprop="postalCode">23221</span>
</div>
<span itemprop="geo" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/GeoCoordinates">
<meta itemprop="latitude" content="37.538912" />
<meta itemprop="longitude" content="-77.424745" />
</span>
</div>

15. The Knowledge Graph and Your Logo
• Clients often come to us with
the questions, “why isn’t my
logo showing up, can you fix
this?”
• Google recommends marking
up your logo because, as
stated on their Webmaster
Central blog, “markup like this
is a strong signal to our
algorithms to show this image
in preference over others, for
example when we show
Knowledge Graph on the right
hand side based on users’
queries.”

16. The Knowledge Graph and Your Logo &
Telephone Example
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<span itemprop="name">Dynamic Web Solutions</span>
<link itemprop="url"
href="http://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/">
<img itemprop="logo"
src="https://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/site/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/DWS-Logo.jpg" />
<link itemprop="sameAs"
href="https://plus.google.com/+DynamicWebSolutions”>
<link itemprop="hasMap" href="https://goo.gl/maps/x6Lf8">
<a itemprop="telephone" href="tel:+18043032883>(804)303-
2883”</a>

17. Schema that was so weak and
powerless
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<span itemprop="name">Dynamic Web Solutions</span>
<link itemprop="url"
href="http://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/">
<a itemprop="telephone" href="tel:+"tel:18043032883”</a>
</div>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope
itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">1813 E. Broad St./span>
<span itemprop="addressLocality">Richmond</span>
<span itemprop="addressRegion">VA</span>
<span itemprop="postalCode">23221</span>
</div>

18. Has now become…

19. The strongest in the universe
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<span itemprop="name">Dynamic Web Solutions</span>
<link itemprop="url"
href="http://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/">
<img itemprop="logo"
src="https://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/site/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/DWS-Logo.jpg" />
<link itemprop="sameAs"
href="https://plus.google.com/+DynamicWebSolutions”>
<link itemprop="hasMap" href="https://goo.gl/maps/x6Lf8">
<a itemprop="telephone" href="tel:+"tel:+18043032883>(804)303-
2883”</a>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope
itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">1813 E. Broad St./span>
<span itemprop="addressLocality">Richmond</span>
<span itemprop="addressRegion">VA</span>
<span itemprop="postalCode">23221</span>
</div>
<span itemprop="geo" itemscope
itemtype="http://schema.org/GeoCoordinates">
<meta itemprop="latitude" content="37.538912" />
<meta itemprop="longitude" content="-77.424745" />
</span>
</div>