How to Optimize for Rich Snippets: A Complete Guide
Once upon a time, Google search focused on these 10 gloriously simple, easy-to-optimize blue links.
Then came a whole new user interface.
Google has evolved to accommodate more and more different types of search results and displays designed to better meet the needs of searchers: rich snippets.
It is no longer enough to rank for 10 blue links.
So what exactly are Rich Snippets, why are they important in SEO, and how can you optimize them? In this guide, you’ll learn about the different types of rich snippets and how to use structured data to help Google understand when your page may be the best option for a rich snippet.
Let’s get started!
What are Fortified Snippets?
Rich snippets are Google search results enriched with additional data or functionality. These rich results add visual interest, more information, and greater utility to researchers.
Using your SEO strategy to target rich snippets can help increase your overall organic CTR (click-through rate).
Do Rich Snippets Help SEO?
While it’s generally believed that searching for rich snippets using the correct structured data markup will improve some aspects of your SEO, Google’s John Mueller mentioned that it wasn’t a direct ranking factor:
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âIn terms of using structured data in general for ranking, I think it’s a bit tricky.
So, on the one hand, we use structured data to better understand the entities of a page and to know where that page is most relevant.
⦠But that doesn’t mean that we would show it to more users or that it would be ranked higher.
As Roger Montti explains in this article, âIt’s important to note that although structured data doesn’t currently exist as a ranking factor, it helps communicate content factors on the page like which entities do. the subject of the page. “
More, Martin Splitt recently explained that just because they don’t use structured data now doesn’t mean they won’t use it in the future.
The different types of enriched extracts
While there is a wide variety of rich snippets available for optimization, many of them apply to certain types of websites.
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We’ll take a look at some of the more common types of fortified extracts, and then see how to optimize them.
- Product markup.
- Music.
- Comments.
- Events.
- Recipes.
Product tagging
Markup is displayed for specific products and includes attributes such as price, availability, and reviews.
Music
This markup displays information about the music, such as albums, their release dates, and more.
Comments
The review markup will show the ratings under a snippet in the search results. You can score up to a 5 out of 5, where 5 is the highest and 1 is the lowest.
Events
Event tagging is necessary to provide information about specific events along with their location, event time, dates, etc., depending on what you want to display about that event.
Recipes
When you use recipe markup, it allows you to include structured data on your recipe website. And this only applies to recipes.
Rich Snippets vs Rich Snippets vs Featured Snippets
Some use the terms ârich resultsâ and ârich snippetsâ interchangeably. However, rich snippets are only one type of rich result.
You can explore all the different types of rich results in the Google search gallery.
Rich result types such as product, podcast, software application (currently in beta), and sitelinks add more information and / or functionality to a existing research extract (result).
Other types of rich results add a New functionality in the SERP, as is the case with recipe or movie carousels, job post boxes, handy carousels, and more.
Check out this Featured Snippets article for an in-depth dive into all of the featured snippets types available in Google Search.
Due to this significant variation in featured snippets and how they vary by industry, it can be difficult to use them as part of your optimization strategy.
How do rich snippets work?
Structured data is a type of coding that highlights specific types of data on your page, allowing Google to better understand the context of that data.
Suppose, for example, that you need to create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page that revolves around effective piano learning.
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To do this, you would use the Schema.org FAQpage structured data type.
Structured data allows Google to fully understand and display real data. It adds context and displays the attributes that Google likes.
This allows you to take a more proactive approach and make sure that you are providing this data to Google in a way that you have control over, rather than waiting for the AI ââto figure out what it thinks you want.
However, since it’s not a direct ranking factor, structured data markup won’t automatically propel your site to the top of the SERPs.
This will help the page to gain more clicks as it helps show better, more useful information for Google users on the SERP.
For local SEO, you can expect to see significant benefits using structured data markup. E-commerce fields or anyone with specific products can benefit from using structured data in this way.
How to optimize for an enriched extract?
First, you need to create your structured data markup. Then you need to test it.
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Finally, you can release your data into the wild in the form of a final deployment.
Build your data
The optimization for the coveted rich snippet includes several best practices, the first of which uses structured data from Schema.org.
Structured data allows you to optimize your snippet to include all the basic information that snippet needs, depending on the type of data already present in the Schema.org vocabulary.
What is the Schema.org vocabulary?
First, the vocabulary includes a comprehensive dictionary of data types. These data types are all predefined, depending on your subject and industry.
There is even structured data from Schema.org lawyer available in the vocabulary, if you want.
Google supports Schema.org structured data, which maps to individual entities based on what Google already has in its database. By using structured data from Schema.org, you optimize for these entities.
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All major search engines support them, so you don’t have to worry about adapting Schema.org to certain search engines.
Researching Schema.org will help you find the right data type match for the entities and subjects you are optimizing for.
Once you have your correct data type, all you need to do is code the markup.
You can use either standard HTML structured data or JSON-LD structured data.
There is more information in Google’s web developer documentation that you can use to identify what to do based on your optimization points.
Test your data
Next, it’s important to test your data with Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool. This replaced the obsolete Structured Data Testing Tool.
The testing process is generally quite straightforward:
Step 1: Copy your code.
2nd step: Paste your code or URL in the correct fields.
Step 3: Click Test Code.
Make sure to review and fix any errors found by the tool.
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Deploy your data
Once you have completed your testing and see that everything is working fine, you can deploy the new data accordingly.
Measure the performance of rich snippets
There are several ways to measure the performance of your rich snippets.
One is via Semrush, which walks you step by step through the process.
The other is through Ahrefs, which has a guide that shows you how to use the SERP Features Filter to track specific performance gains (and losses) for certain types of SERP snippets.
You can also implement tag tracking through Google Tag Manager. GTM tags can be used to mark pages with specific structured data, and you can use the information gleaned from these reports to discover your actual performance using your own measurement tools.
Obviously, Rich Snippets are a great way to improve your visibility online.
Certain industries may not lend themselves well to certain types of marketing in this medium, so it is important to do a thorough analysis of your industry that identifies opportunities where there are rich snippets to be realized.
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By identifying your strategy up front and working on the correct implementation of your data, it is possible to increase your online visibility through rich snippets as an added strategic advantage.
After all, the best strategy is one that tackles multiple fronts, rather than focusing on single outcomes.
More resources:
Image credits:
All screenshots taken by author, June 2021