As search engine results have evolved over the years, helping Google understand your website has become more important than ever.
One method of providing explicit clues about a page is by including structured data. Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying content. This is typically written using Scheme.org vocabulary and can provide information on everything from product prices, stock availability, company contact details, customer reviews, delivery information and more.
Essentially, in the context of web development and SEO, structured data is all the important information on a page organised in a way that makes it easy for search engines to parse.
Structured data, however, isn’t a direct ranking signal for search engines – so why is it so important to have, especially for eCommerce sites?
One way Google ranks sites is relevancy. For instance, if a user searches “cheap floor tiles”, Google return sites most relevant to that query and the user intent – so in this case it will most likely be eCommerce sites selling floor tiles. So if Google understands your site is an eCommerce store selling floor tiles, it will have more chance of ranking for this keyword.
Structured data make it explicitly clear what your page is about to Google, and while this isn’t a direct ranking signal, it may contribute to a stronger relevancy signal for the keywords you are trying to rank for. Allowing Google to easily see the exact information on products you want to sell is always going to be beneficial.
Another reason for structured data is Google’s ever-growing use of rich snippets. Rich snippets are Google displaying additional data aside from the usual organic listings and Google Ads – for instance, this may be a knowledge graph, showing the direct answer to a question.
Rich snippets extend to much more than just providing answers – here are some of the ways this can be utilised for eCommerce sites:
Product categories
Product Price
Stock status
Product Specifications
Aggregated Reviews
Displaying as much information as possible next to search listings is a proven way of improving click through ratio (CTR). The more information you provide, the more likely it users will click.
Some sites have seen as much as 30% increase in CTR after implementing structured data – this could be a major boost to both traffic and conversions.
Additionally, users will be entering your site with more information on the product they want to purchase. This can help decrease bounce rate and improve conversions as customers may have already made their purchasing decisions before clicking on the site.
If you are interested in improving your site with structured data markup, please get in touch with eSterling now. Our expert web design and SEO teams can implement structured data on your site, boosting your rankings, traffic and sales.
