Micromarkup is the specific tags and attributes in the web layout that we use to better insight the information on the website pages by search robots. It helps get high-quality transitions to the site, thereby increasing traffic without an extra budget.
What are the benefits of micromarking?
First of all, the micro-markup of the site is convenient for the user – in that it briefly conveys the content of the desired page. For example, if you have an online store, the user can see the price of the product, key features, and customer reviews. If there is an offline point, you can see its working hours, address, and contact details in the micromarking. If you publish articles, the markup displays the output and author of the each articles.
In addition, micromarking makes the website more visually attractive in search results. A beautiful snippet is clickable. So it increases the position in the SERP (but this does not happen immediately but by the reaction of users) and increases site traffic. It is not a fact that it will work right away. Do this work well, and improve the content, layout, and assortment. Achieve positive results. It is better than it works for both people and search engines.
If you use micromarkup, you will need do this with all website content. For an online store, it is a product catalog, separate categories, and articles on the website. Any structured data must be relevant to the content of the particular web page and must not describe information that was hiden from visitors.
Website micromarking components
The website micromarkup consists of tags and attributes. They are responsible for specific content: some of it are visible to visitors, and some need for search robots.
micromarking dictionaries
There are several dictionaries in micro markup, that is, sets of attributes. Let’s talk about the most common and widely used on the modern Internet.
Schema.org
The dictionary has three main attributes (itemscope – points to the object itself, itemtype – to its type, itemprop – to properties, if we are talking about goods, then this can be, for example, price and description).
See also: Schema.org micro-markup on the ADVANTSHOP platform.
open graph
Facebook developed this dictionary. It was for the correct display of web pages in social networks. Today it is also supported by instant messengers, including Telegram, which is now popular on the Russian market. It also has several attributes:
“og:locale” – site location and content language
“og:type” – type of displayed content (review, article, etc.)
“og:title” – title meta tag
“og:description” – description meta tag
“og:url” – web page address
“og: image” – an image in the text of an article, review, description, etc.
“og:site_name” is the name of the site.
Microformats
It is a special markup that helps search bots understand the content. Their main task is to tell about the contained data. For an online store, such data as address and contacts, product descriptions, and reviews are crucial.
The hCard format is suitable for working with information on the online store. It structures the geographic coordinates and contact website details, are automatically transferred to search engine directories, including when changed.
micromarking Syntax
Micromarking syntax refers to how a dictionary is applied. There is no unified syntax standard, but there several commonly used ones.
micromarking
So-called micromarking consists of several elements (think of the itemscope, itemtype, and itemprop attributes in Schema.org). Usually, the data is already available to the user is marked up, but sometimes metadata is also needed for markup.
RDFa
It was developed in 2004 to mark up HTML code for structuring data. Due to the complexity of implementation, today used much less frequently. Google favors JSON-LD or micro-markup.
Implementation of micromarking
Articles
For published articles on the website (for an online store, this can be a blog or expert advice) and for following attributes are used.
headline – the name of the material
datePublished – publication date
image – image
articleBody – body text of the article
author – author
publisher – the name of the resource
breadcrumbs
It is the name of the navigation system on the site, which demonstrates the structure and nesting of pages. You can make a linear navigation chain or a system with ability to go back to the main page or the product catalog. Breadcrumbs increase the uniqueness of the snippet by appearing in search results.
The following tags is using to mark up breadcrumbs:
itemscope – an indication of the described object
itemtype – an indication of the type of the object. If the element belongs to breadcrumbs, then in Schema.Org it will look like this:
itemtype=https://schema.org/BreadcrumbList
itemprop=”itemListElement” – indicates whether the element belongs to the list
itemprop=”item” – points to a link
itemprop=”name” – indicates the name of the breadcrumb.
meta itemprop=”position” content=”%number%” – indicates the position of the item in the navigation chain.
Micromarking of goods in an online store
Google recommends installing micro-markup on sections and pages with an assortment of products for an online store: search bots can use this data for a snippet, which, in turn, prompts the user to follow the link.
For products, the attributes name (name), description (description), image (image), price (price), and priceCurrency (currency) are sufficient. If you want to add reviews to the snippet, the AggregateRating field is required.
Checking micromarking for errors
Ready markup check for errors – only correctly structured data is available to search robots. In Google, it is on the validator page. It displays the slightest errors in the report and gives you the opportunity to correct them.
Let’s summarize. Micro markup is needed to make snippets more visible. It can affect rankings through the search behavior of users. Mark up all the content without errors: all attributes must be wrote correctly. However, search engine validators can validate the markup code and correct mistakes. The main thing is not to forget to do it.