Schema markup gives you a way to enhance how your website and its content are displayed in the search engine results pages (SERPS).
Examples of these enhancements include star ratings, event info, product pricing, and FAQs. When implemented correctly, they’re an effective way to make your content stand out in the SERPs and increase click-through rates.
Adding schema markup to your WordPress site also helps search engines to understand your content better, increasing the chances of it being displayed where your target audience will find it.
By the end of this guide, you’ll better understand schema markup for WordPress and how to add it to your site.
What is schema markup?
Schema markup, sometimes called structured data, is code you add to your website. Its purpose is to help search engines understand your content better, such as its meaning and context.
Similar to categories and tags in WordPress, schema markup can be used to add labels to your content that explain what each piece of content is about and its format. Some examples of these labels include products, recipes, reviews, and events.
Adding schema markup is also a way to enable rich results or rich snippets for your site and its content.
You’ve probably seen rich results in the SERPs before. They include extra details about a page in the results, such as business information, star and average ratings, product details, FAQ, recipe information, and more.
This additional information makes rich results-enabled content stand out and helps search engine users decide which result to click on.
Common Types of Schema Markup
Here are some widely used schema markup types and how they can generate rich results:
- Review and Rating: Can display star rating and number of reviews in the SERPs.
- Articles: Includes headline, author, publication date, and a thumbnail image.
- Product: Price, availability, and rating can be displayed.
- FAQ: Collapsible questions and answers are displayed.
- Recipe: Cooking time, ingredients, and ratings can be displayed.
- Local Business: Name, address, phone, and business hours can be included.
- Event: The event’s date, location, and ticket availability can be displayed.
Not everything that can be displayed in a rich result is displayed. Many factors control how and when they’re displayed, such as site settings, the user’s search term, and the search engine algorithm.
However, adding schema markup is essential for enabling rich results for your site.
While there are hundreds of types of schema, you must use the types supported by Google if you want your content to feature rich snippets when displayed in their search results.
Benefits of adding schema markup to your WordPress site
One of the main benefits of adding schema markup to your WordPress site is that it can increase your content’s click-through rate when it’s displayed in the SERPS.
For example, one study found that 58% of search engine users clicked on results enhanced with rich results while only 41% of users clicked on regular (non-rich) results.
This makes sense as rich results not only stand out but they also provide search engine users with more information when deciding which result to click on.
For example, if a user is searching for a recipe, seeing the cooking time and user rating displayed in the SERPs demonstrates that the content is informative and whether or not it meets their requirements.
The other main benefit is that search engines can use schema markup to better understand your content. This helps the search engines to know when to display your content in their results, sending more relevant traffic to your site.
A further benefit of using schema markup is that it increases the chances of your content being displayed in more places in the SERPs. This includes the People Also Ask boxes and recipe carousels.
Key benefits of adding schema markup:
To summarise, the main benefits you could potentially unlock by adding schema markup to your WordPress site include:
- Increased visibility in the SERPs by enabling rich results.
- Improved click-through rates in the SERPs by making your content stand out.
- Increased traffic to your site without needing to improve your ranking.
- Help search engines understand your content and know where to display it.
- Make your content eligible for display in People Also Ask boxes and elsewhere on the results pages.
As we’re about to cover, adding schema markup to WordPress is relatively straightforward, making it something all site owners should consider.
How to add schema markup to WordPress
You can add schema markup to your site manually, but this is another area where WordPress plugins can be used to simplify the task.
Here are some recommended plugins as well as a guide to adding structured data to WordPress using one of the options.
Schema markup WordPress plugins
There are lots of plugins that can add schema markup and structured data to WordPress. Some of these plugins include other useful functionality, such as search engine optimization features, while others are focused solely on implementing schema markup.
Not all schema markup plugins for WordPress cover all the available schema types, so you must choose a plugin that supports the ones you need. For example, if you’re creating a food blog with WordPress, you could select a recipe-specific plugin that adds the relevant schema markup, such as WP Recipe Maker.
Just ensure that any plugin you’re considering supports the schema markup you want to use.
Rank Math SEO
Rank Math SEO is a popular and user-friendly option for adding schema markup to WordPress.
The free version of the plugin lets you add 13 schema types, making it suitable for most projects. The paid version supports six more types.
Thanks to its broad range of SEO features, Rank Math SEO can also be used as your WordPress SEO plugin.
The paid version has more schema-related features, including adding multiple schema types to a single page. This would let you add the Product Schema and Review Schema to an eCommerce product page to display pricing and rating information in the rich results.
The paid version also includes a schema generator to help you choose the correct schema for each piece of content and a tool for importing schema markup from other websites so you can see how others are using structured data. However, the free version of Rank Math SEO can add a good range of schema markup to WordPress.
Rank Math SEO is an excellent option if you’re looking for a powerful SEO and schema plugin that’s easy to use.
Yoast SEO
Like Rank Manth SEO, Yoast SEO is an SEO plugin for WordPress that can add schema markup to your site. It’s also one of the most popular plugins on WordPress.com.
Like the other options covered here, you can set a default schema markup type for your site so you don’t have to select one each time you publish a new piece of content. This can be overridden at the post and page level if needed.
Yoast SEO integrates with other schema markup plugins, including WP Recipe Maker, giving you more options for adding structured data to your site while maintaining access to the rest of the plugin’s features.
Choose Yoast SEO if you want to install the most widely used SEO plugin for WordPress and add schema markup with the same plugin.
Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP
Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP was built specifically for adding schema markup to WordPress rather than also being an SEO plugin. The free version supports an impressive 46 schema types.
The developers claim that users can request additional schema types, and they will add them to the plugin. This makes Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP ideal for anyone creating content types not covered by other plugins.
Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP isn’t quite as user-friendly as the other plugins covered here. However, I’ve included it as it supports many schema types, making it a good option if it covers the schema types you want to use that other plugins don’t. It’s also a suitable option if you’re already using an SEO plugin you’re happy with and are looking for a schema markup plugin to use alongside it.
Using Rank Math SEO to add schema markup to WordPress
Here’s a walkthrough of using the Rank Math SEO plugin to demonstrate how you can add schema markup to WordPress.
You’ll need the Business plan or above if WordPress.com hosts your site and you want to install this plugin.
Rank Math SEO is a good option as it has a user-friendly setup wizard to help you optimize your site for search engines and add structured data to WordPress.
To get started, go to Plugins → Add New in WP Admin.
Next, search for “Rank Math SEO” and click the “Install Now” and then Activate buttons.
The optional setup wizard will launch after activating the plugin. The wizard walks you through setting up the SEO features of the plugin and gives you the option of importing the settings from an SEO plugin you might already be using on your site.
To configure the schema markup capabilities of the plugin, go to Rank Math SEO → Titles & Meta from the WP Admin sidebar menu.
Then, click on Posts under Post Types on the Rank Math SEO panel.
Now you can set the default schema markup type for all posts. Choose Article from the Schema Type dropdown menu if you’re primarily creating blog posts.
You can override the default settings from the WordPress editor when you’re creating a piece of content that will use a different schema markup type.
To do so, click on Schema Generator from the Rank Math panel in the WordPress editor.
One instance where this would be necessary is if you’re publishing a recipe where the default schema type for the site was set to Article.
You can then add the additional information for the schema type you’ve selected.
For example, if you selected the recipe type, you can add the preparation time, cooking time, and other details that will be displayed in the rich results in the SERPs.
Click the “Save for this Post” button when you’ve finished.
You can then repeat the above to add structured data to any new and existing content on your site.
The Titles & Meta section of the Rank Math SEO documentation has the full details on adding structured data to WordPress with this plugin.
Testing your schema markup
Once you’ve added the schema markup via your choice for plugin, rich results should be displayed for your content in search engines.
However, it’s recommended that you test your site to ensure that everything is working as expected. While the best schema markup plugins for WordPress do an effective job of adding structured data to your site, checking and testing can highlight any issues, such as missing required fields.
There are a few tools you can use to test your site’s schema markup, including:
- Schema.org Validator: Enter the URL of a page to find out if the structured data has been added correctly. Any errors will be highlighted to help you resolve them.
- Google Rich Results Test: Validate your schema markup to check which rich results can be generated by its structured data.
Correctly adding schema markup to your site is no guarantee that search engines like Google will display rich results for your content.
However, by using a reliable plugin or correctly adding the structured data manually, you will have done all you can to activate rich results for your site.
Ready to add schema markup to WordPress?
Adding schema markup to WordPress makes it possible for your site to start benefiting from rich results, such as improved click-through rates from the SERPs and more traffic.
The easiest and most convenient way to add structured data to WordPress is to use a schema markup plugin.
Before you choose a plugin, ensure it supports the type of schema markup you’d like to use on your site.
Plugins like Rank Math SEO and Yoast SEO are easy to use and include many useful features. However, they don’t cover all the schema markup types, so be sure to choose the right plugin for your goals.
If WordPress.com hosts your site or you’d like it to, you can install plugins on the Business and Commerce plans and benefit from fast load times, enhanced security, and many other valuable features.