Use Schema Markups to Make Your Search Results Shine!

Google Knowledge Graph is always developing new opportunities to enhance your listing on the search results page. Help create engaging content that will make your page stand out in search results! Here are some best practices for making a ‘stand out’ search results with a small time investment.

Location, Location, Location! Your business is one of HUNDREDS of listing trying to be discovered. Focus on helping searchers find what they are looking for at your business. Stand out by providing as much information as possible for your business listing. Also, make sure that your business location is precise on the map. Having your building show up somewhere that you are not located could cause some devastating results for potential customers.

Google My Business has now integrated multiple Google Search channels to allow one listing to show in search results, on maps, and in Google Plus. End result, customers are able to find your business no matter what device they decide to use! Most users have become familiar with Google Maps, but the addition of Knowledge Graph goes beyond maps and includes store-specific reviews as well as social media channels for the business.

If your business travels (in example, a band, comedian, show, etc.), use the events, places, and dates options to provide the latest details and current info about your company and/or brand. If you search for a band in Google, you will see their playlist, band members, upcoming events and ticketing info that is relevant to your location.

By creating these enhanced listings (such as Events) you can highlight temporal happenings and locations that are relevant to the search query being performed. We see these schema markups primarily with concerts, conferences, festivals; these additions are ways of producing geo-spatial results in your search engine responses. Ticketing info can be added to web-based content markups by using the “offers” option.

You don’t have to be a famous icon to get top billing in search results for your event. Schema markup for Events and Locations also help answer any questions about what to do this weekend or next weekend. Looking for “things to do in Fort Lauderdale, FL” this weekend? Go no further than Google Carousel.

These enhanced listings options bind a point of interest for a specific location with a schematically optimized image to achieve getting your content placed at the top of organic results. If you take the time to incorporate schema markup into your event information at a local point of interest this may help influence the left-to-right order in the local carousel. Any events that are held in this geographic location are located in this Carousel, as well as staple POI’s for that city.

Regardless of your industry, if you put structured markup on your Web content, you can give off a very rich visual display in line with regular search results. This is a perfect opportunity to optimize your business to consume better and/or more real estate in the search results.

Another opportunity is to answer a question people could be searching for. Google Answers surpassed Wikipedia by including high-quality content that addresses specific questions and even includes step-by-step instructions. For example, if you are curious “how to make a key lime pie?” ask Google. The search results provide you with complete directions for baking a key lime pie.

By using the creative schema markup for Recipes, a small site can supersede the giants in the industry for top search results. Keep in mind that the surge in search referrals may be temporary. Google collects Feedback to determine which user interface features to keep in search results.

Using structured markups on your Web content can help it rise to the top of the SERP’s in many different ways. Schema.org is a website dedicated to providing schema’s webmasters can use. You can also refer to Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper. There are also schema plug-ins available if your site is on WordPress.

Google is growing which means change. Search Engine’s number one goal is to provide the most valuable and relevant content to the search user based on the search query. We recommend that you add structured markup to important content today in order to leverage new UI displays in all major engines tomorrow. Tandem Interactive encourages questions to clarify any of our suggestions and, as always, we can help implement as much as possible if you need our help!