Authoring

Training Objective

Determine your plan for marking up your content. Enter this into the planning document you created in the “Strategy” training section.

“Authoring” refers to the process of assigning schema markup to the content on your webpages.

Comprehending the fundamentals laid out in this 20 minute video will put you in an excellent position to understand the details of how to mark up a particular schema.org type (aka class).

When it comes to authoring your markup, there are several different options. You can mix and match them depending on your requirements. We recommend exploring your options in the following order:

1. Schema markup embedded in your CMS

Does your CMS (Content Management System) have built-in schema markup options that satisfy your requirements and are those markup options robust enough? If so, great!

2. Schema App Plugin

We have plugins for WordPress, Shopify and BigCommerce. Plugins allow the schema markup to reside server-side (within the web platform) which means that it will load faster and can be read by all search engines. But beware that plugins might not offer the level of detail you are seeking. Take advantage of all that the plugin offers, but if you need more consider a Schema App Pro, Premium or Enterprise subscription.

To determine if your CMS (or a plugin) is the best approach, determine what schema markup you want on your pages, then compare your desired markup with what is available in the CMS or plugin to see if it provides enough coverage and detail. Plugins and Apps often meet the basic requirements but don’t allow customization.

3. Schema App Editor

Schema markup page-by-page. Typically used for unique pages (i.e. if your content is not templated). Examples may include your Homepage, your Contact Page, your About Us page, etc.

4. Schema App Highlighter

Use if your content is captured in a page template. Mark up one page and then apply that markup to tens or thousands of pages at once. As new pages are added, the markup will be automatically generated.

A page template utilizes the same layout for a specific type of content (e.g. products, services, videos, news, locations).

Common Questions

How long will it take for the search engines to crawl my website?

How can I remove my older microdata?

Should I add Organization schema markup to every page?

Are there free options for authoring and deployment?

What are the most common errors people make with respect to schema markup?

What are the most common errors people make when marking up images?

How long will it take for the search engines to crawl my website?

In our experience, this normally takes between four days to three months but it could take up to six months.

How can I remove my older microdata?

Here’s a link that will help – Remove my older microdata

Should I add Organization schema markup to every page?

No, We recommend adding unique schema markup to each page. Your schema markup should be specific to that particular page, since you want the search engines to understand what that specific page is about. If the same schema markup is on all pages, how will the search engine know what the page is about?

Are there free options for authoring and deployment?

Handwrite code – It is time consuming, is slow to release and update, requires manual maintenance, is prone to syntax errors, and requires a deep understanding of JSON-LD … but it can be done.
Google Highlighter – Free and scalable but only optimizes for Google. Additionally, you may find there is only a limited offering in terms of page types and fields, a lack of support and you may not have control over the pages that are optimized.

What are the most common errors people make with respect to schema markup?

Most common errors:

The same schema markup on every page which does not match to the content type
“Organization” or “LocalBusiness” on every page
Multiple conflicting types of schema on every page versus one primary schema.org type with nested data item

What are the most common errors people make when marking up images?

Most common errors:

The wrong image format type, such as svg
The image is not connected or related to any other markup

If the answer to your question isn’t here, check out the Schema App Knowledge Base.

Schema markup is code and we use JSON-LD

Google recommends that you write your schema markup in JSON-LD, however microdata and RDFa are also options (formats explained).

JSON-LD

A script tag that puts markup in one block on the page and makes it easy to see markup for a page.
A faster and cleaner way to implement schema markup. Easier to read and add detail.
Google recommends using JSON-LD for rich results.
The schema.org vocabulary is maintained by Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Yandex, but it’s unclear whether search engines (other than Google) are using this markup to change how they display search results.

This is what it looks like:

Microdata

Microdata is written within the html. As a result, it can be easily overwritten when page layout changes are made.
Microdata is harder to maintain because it is embedded in a web page and cannot be managed centrally.

This is what it looks like:

Let's dig into the Schema App Editor tool

Next Lesson