Many people know about rich results and how to do structured data for them, but many don't know how to create rich connected schema markup. In this presentation I go over everything from the ROI to advanced uses of the schema.org vocabulary to help you ensure voice and search engines truly understand your content. Martha van Berkel is the CEO at Schema App (https://www.schemaapp.com), professional tools for doing Structured Data at scale for any type of content, on any type of CMS.

1. 10 Things you Don’t Know
about Structured Data
Martha van Berkel
CEO, Schema App
November 5th, 2019

2. MIT
Queen’s
University
Strategy &
Innovation
Mathematics
& Engineering

3. Structured Data (aka Schema Markup) helps search
engines explicitly understand your content so that you
can be found and stand out in organic and voice search
across various devices and platforms.

4. #1
ROI Beyond Rich Results

5. Be Found. Stand Out. Drive Results.
35%
26%
20%
more impressions
more clicks
Higher click-through rate
9
Higher Revenue
*Average results based on customer feedback from Schema App enterprise accounts
positions higher rank in search
150%
3.6x
more time on rich pages
more interactive

6. Google’s Motivation for Schema Markup = Voice
“Reaching users at different moments and surfaces offers great
opportunity for content creators. But building and maintaining
customer experience on all these surfaces and devices can bring extra
work for you.
This is our motivation for working on the structured data program.
Focus on building great content using an open standard (structured
data) and Google will help you reach your users across Search and
Assistants without having to build a custom experience.”
Aylin Altiok, Google Product Manager, Google IO 2019

7. When you’ve optimized with schema markup, you’ve
optimized for Search and Voice

8. #2
Errors and Warnings +
Content Strategy

9. The Schema
Markup Process
Spans from Strategy to
maintenance and Reporting.
Is Iterative.
Identifies opportunities in content
based on schema.org vocabulary &
Google Errors & Warnings.

10. Errors and Warnings
You can have perfect schema markup,
and still get Errors and Warnings.
Errors and Warnings are ONLY for
Google features.
Update content to meet criteria, if it
makes sense:
● Hay doesn’t have a SKU
● JobPosting doesn’t include Salary

11. #3
Schema.org Extensions +
Actions

12. Schema.org Extensions
Automotive
Health & Life Science
Internet of Things (IoT)
Bibliographic
Finance (FIBO) - Merged

13. Actions
CreateAction
FindAction
InteractAction
PlayAction
SearchAction
TransferAction
UpdateAction

14. #4
Connected Schema Markup

15. Don’t put the same
schema markup on
every page.

16. Don’t create islands
of schema markup.

17. Video
Your Schema Connects to Tell a Story
Apartment
Complex
Contact
page
ProductApartment
Offer
(price)
People
Organization
Review
Rating
Article/
Blog
Canada
Office
European
Office
Feature Feature Image VideoJob
Posting
The benefits:
● Search Engines explicitly
understand what you are about.
● You can re-purpose your data for
use with Knowledge Graphs,
Chatbots, etc.

20. https://www.schemaapp.com/tools/schema-paths/
Schema Paths

21. subjectOf
about

23. provider

25. contains place
area served

26. Use Strong Connectors
About
Mentions
subjectOf
hasPart

27. NewsArticle
About
Jack Ward, Cowboy

28. NewsArticle
mentions
Interstate 10
Avocados

29. NewsArticle
subjectOf
VideoObject of
Bees

30. Collection Page
About Service
hasPart FAQPage
hasPart Question
AcceptedAnswer
mentions BlogPosting
Service Description
FAQ
Question + Answer
Question + Answer
Question + Answer
Blog Posting Blog Posting Blog Posting

31. #5
Main Entity of Page

32. Identify the
primary topic of
the page

33. 5 Items

34. Add mainEntityOfPage

35. #6
Multi-Type Entity

36. When something is
best described by
merging two types

37. House for Sale = Product + SingleFamilyResidence
Comedy Event on Air = ComedyEvent + BroadcastEvent
Book for Sale = Product + Book
Hotel Room for Rent = Product + HotelRoom
Examples

38. #7
Additional Type

39. Add additional
clarity to the
schema.org Type
that is not in the
vocabulary.

40. Additional Type
Type
Additional
Type

41. Additional Type
Dentist
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Orthodontics
+
Type
Additional
Type

42. Type Thing
Additional Type

43. Additional Type
Thing
https://www.wikidata.
org/wiki/Q390214
+
Type
Additional
Type

44. #8
Additional Property

45. Add additional
“variables” or
properties.

46. Additional Property
Property
Value

48. name
“Megapixel”
unitCode
“E38”
value
“20.3”
Property
Value

49. #9
Lists: Item List,
Collection, Offer Catalog

50. Item List
BreadcrumbList
HowToSection
HowToStep
OfferCatalog

51. Lists
Item List: List of Any Type of Thing
Offer Catalog: List of Products
Collection Page: Container around a List
to connect it with other Things

52. Collection Page
About Service
hasPart FAQPage
hasPart Question
AcceptedAnswer
mentions BlogPosting
Service Description
FAQ
Question + Answer
Question + Answer
Question + Answer
Blog Posting Blog Posting Blog Posting

53. #10
Structured Data + Analytics

54. Trend Report

55. Enhanced Analytics
Identify what author
gets the best results,
on what topics. Refine
and optimize content
strategy.

56. 10 Things About Structured Data
1. ROI Beyond Rich Results
2. Errors and Warnings + Content Strategy
3. Schema.org + Actions
4. “Proper” Connected Schema Markup
5. Main Entity of Page
6. Multi-Type Entity
7. Additional Type
8. Additional Property
9. Lists: Item List, Collection, Offer Catalog
10. Analytics

58. Martha van Berkel
CEO, Schema App
martha@schemaapp.com
@marthavanberkel

59. Questions?