TL;DR: When you add schema markup to WordPress, you boost your chances of ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to add schema markup in two different ways — using a plugin and adding it manually.
Everyone wants to get to the top of the SERPs to get that free organic traffic to your WordPress website, right? The trouble is, if you’re in a competitive niche, that can be easier said than done.
Adding schema markup to your WordPress posts and pages is just one way to boost your SEO efforts — but it’s important to get schema markup right if you want to get those coveted search snippets.
Jump straight to the tutorials or keep reading to find out more about schema markup in WordPress.
What is Schema Markup?
Schema Markup (otherwise known as structured data) is a type of microdata on your website that provides information to search engines to make it easier for search bots to understand the content on your website. Though search engines are already advanced, they still need a little bit of help to rank the websites based on the content.
Structured data goes further than just giving information to search bots, though. When you search a particular topic, and the search results appear, you’ll notice a few websites with detailed descriptions, video thumbnails, and star ratings. These are known as rich results, and having those rich results displayed by Google drives much more traffic to your website.
The most coveted rich result is the Featured Snippet — that one result that (often) appears at the top of the SERP page, where an excerpt from the page is displayed. The Featured Snippet places you above all the other search results — and data shows that the click-through rate (CTR) for the top positions on page 1 of Google is significantly higher than results appearing lower on the page.
Benefits of Schema for WordPress SEO
The chief benefit of adding markup to WordPress is boosting your website’s visibility in SERPs. By adding structured data to your posts and pages, you’re increasing your chances of getting rich results added to your listing in the SERPs, which increases the chances of people clicking on your link.
Rich results like star ratings (for example, if you review products or have a ‘rate my post’ function on your posts) add a visual element to your listing in SERPs, which draws attention to it. Other rich results, including pros and cons, give searchers a clearer idea of what they’ll find on your website.
Types of Schema
There can be different Schema Markups depending on the type of website content. But before we learn how to add Schema Mark-up to WordPress, it’s helpful to understand the most popular Schema types.
Product Schema
Product schema allows you to expand your product descriptions. For instance, you can add ratings, offers, prices, reviews, descriptions, awards, and more to the product listings. This kind of information is often displayed in search results, increasing your web page’s visibility. It’s most commonly used for eCommerce websites.
Organization Schema
Organization schema gives essential information to Google about your organization. For example, it will describe the organization by showing its social media profile, logo, website address, and contact information directly in the search results.
FAQ Schema
FAQ rich results display the answers to popular questions directly on the results page, in a section called People Also Ask (PAA.) When you add FAQ Schema, you’re helping Google to understand your content and giving it a concise answer that can easily be displayed in the SERPs.
Review Schema
Review Schema helps you add ratings, short reviews, and other helpful snippets that can improve the search results for users if they’re looking for a review of something. For example, if someone is looking for a review of a restaurant, product, movie, or anything, the search results will display your content in a form that draws users’ attention. Check out these examples below:
How-to Schema
How-to Schema contains instructions in the snippets that tell the user how to do or achieve something by following a few steps. As such, this Schema is helpful for how-to guides where the readers are looking for step-by-step directions or instructions to do something. How-to schema can appear in Featured snippets and in the PAA box – like this example:
How to Add Schema Markup to WordPress
There are two ways to add Schema Markup to your WordPress; with a Plugin and without a Plugin. I recommend using a plugin as this is the easiest way to add Schema to your posts and pages, but if you prefer to add schema markup manually, you can jump straight to that part of the tutorial.
ADD SCHEMA MARKUP IN WORDPRESS USING A PLUGIN
To add schema markup to WordPress using a plugin, just follow these simple steps. You don’t need to know code or be a WordPress expert!
Total Time Needed :
15
Minutes
Required Tools:
Things Needed?
Steps to add schema markup using a plugin:
Install the Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP Plugin by going to Plugins >> Add New and searching for Schema.
Note: There are various schema plugins available, and some SEO plugins include schema markup features. But for this tutorial, we’ll install the Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP.
Click ‘Install’ and then ‘Activate’ to start using the plugin.
After installing and activating the plugin, go to Structured Data >> Settings. Provide the basic information about your WordPress site; you can also add your social media profiles and logo.
To create new custom schema types, navigate to Structured Data >> Schema Types and click the “Add Schema Type” button. You can also edit the default schema types.
Once you have set up the schema types in the plugin, you can also use the schema blocks for the Gutenberg editor that the Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP plugin includes. These make it easy to add detailed schema to your posts and pages, as in the example above.
Add Schema Markup Without a Plugin
If you want to add Schema Mark-up without a plugin, you can use the JSON-LD generator for code generation. JSON-LD is a structured data helper for Google which can help you add Schema Markup. It’s more complicated than using a plugin, but you don’t need to have a full grasp of coding to use this method. Follow these steps to add Schema Markup without a plugin using JSON-LD.
- Go to the structured data Markup helper and select the data type for Schema Markup.
- Write the URL or HTML source of the page for which you want to add the Schema Markup. Click the ‘start tagging’ button to tag the data.
- After tagging all the data, click on ‘Create HTML’ at the top.
- Copy the markup and open the editor for the page that you want to add the schema to.
- Use the HTML block to add a schema code to your post.
Conclusion
Creating Schema and adding it to your WordPress is easier than it sounds. You can add Schema Markup to WordPress with or without a plugin — but I recommend the plugin method! Plugins always make it easier and ensure the Schema code is accurate.
Schema or structured data has lots of benefits for your website. Google is rolling out more types of structured data all the time, meaning there are more opportunities to get your website noticed in SERPs.
In some cases, your website may get a rich snippet in the SERPs without you adding schema markup, but it’s still advisable to use structured data markup on your posts and pages to improve your chances of getting rich snippets.
Frequently Asked Questions About Adding Schema to WordPress
How important is schema markup for SEO?
Theoretically, schema markup doesn’t directly affect ranking (at least that’s what Google leads us to believe), but in practice adding markup to your website does have an impact on your SEO efforts. Rich snippets get more clicks and more clicks signal to Google that your website is offering valuable information. Therefore, getting rich results for one page can improve the ranking of your other posts and pages, as you’ll be considered more authoritative.
How do I check my SEO schema?
You can use the schema and validation tool provided by Schema.org or use the validation tools that Google offers. Input the URL you want to check, and the tools will check your structured data and provide information about whether your schema is valid or not. Don’t worry if you see non-critical errors in the validation results. Non-critical errors refer to suggested fields, but they won’t prevent your content from getting rich results in the SERPs.
If you get a critical error in the validation results, there’s a required field in your schema markup that hasn’t been filled out. Posts and pages with critical errors in schema markup aren’t eligible to get rich results, so it’s advisable to fix these errors quickly.Does FAQ schema help SEO?
As with all schema types, FAQ schema doesn’t officially have an SEO impact. However, actual results from websites that have seen their traffic grow across their whole site as a result of getting FAQ snippets in SERPs suggest that adding FAQ schema to your posts does help SEO. Tests done by SEOClarity also showed a 25% increase in traffic as a result of adding FAQ schema.
What is the difference between schema and snippet in SEO?
Schema is the markup that’s added to posts and pages in WordPress, while snippets are what Google displays as a result of the data it finds in your schema markup. There is a chance you can earn a rich snippet without actually adding a particular kind of schema markup to your posts and pages, but you stand a much better chance if you pay attention to schema markup in WordPress.
Is it easy to add schema markup to WordPress?
Schema markup sounds a lot more complicated than it is. When you use a plugin to manage schema and structured data on your website, schema is really easy to implement. Manually adding schema is more complex and can produce more errors, so I recommend using a plugin.
Does Yoast SEO do schema?
Yes, Yoast SEO has schema settings, so if you’re already using Yoast for your WordPress SEO, then you don’t need a separate schema plugin. When you install Yoast, you get some schema blocks that you can add to posts and pages using the Gutenberg editor. Currently, however, Yoast only has How-to and FAQ schema blocks, so if you wanted to add Recipe schema directly into your posts, you’d need to install the Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP plugin.
