Schema Structured Data

What is Schema.org structured data?

Structured data is a way for search engine machines to make sense of content in your HTML. Google and other search engines created a structured data standard called Schema.org. Often these Schema elements trigger specialized SERP features and Rich Cards that can increase the amount of click through you get from your site’s ranking.

Schema creator tools

When Schema.org was originally released, the core way of including it in your pages was to use microdata inside your HTML elements. The Schema.org vocabulary and method of using microdata attributes was foreign to most web designers. That’s why we created the Schema Creator tool, to help web designers better understand and utilize Schema.org.

Using microdata attributes seemed elegant at the time, because it meant that you could markup your existing HTML without changing the content or appearance of the pages.

It still wasn’t perfect though, and it could become cumbersome to integrate depending on how your pages were originally coded. Fortunately, there is now a simpler and better solution for integrating Schema.org structured data. That solution is JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data (JSON-LD), which is basically JavaScript that you can place anywhere on your page.

Here’s a code example of Schema JSON-LD:

<script type=’application/ld+json’>
{
“@context”: “http://www.schema.org”,
“@type”: “product”,
“brand”: “Raven Tools”,
“name”: “Site Auditor”,
“image”: “https://raventools.com/img/og-raven.png”,
“description”: “Site Auditor analyzes your site to find all of the SEO issues that may be keeping your site from ranking on search engines.”
}
</script>

For the uninitiated, writing Schema structured data in JSON-LD can be intimidating. Fortunately, there are a couple of great tools that can make it significantly easier for you to implement JSON-LD.

JSON-LD Schema Generator

Following in the footsteps of the original Schema Creator tool – the free tool Raven made that generated microdata for a select group of commonly used types – Hall Analysis has created the JSON-LD Schema Generator. It too allows you to pick from a group of popular types, but instead of outputting microdata, it generates JSON-LD.

Schema App

Schema App is a more full-featured paid app that helps you create and manage all of your structured data in one place. The tool allows you to pick from any itemtype and enter the data for it. You can then export it to multiple formats, including JSON-LD. They also have a WordPress plugin.