What is Schema Markup and How To Use It To Boost SEO Rankings?

Introduction to Schema

One of the newest evolutions in SEO is called schema markup. This new search engine optimization method is one of the most powerful but least-utilized forms of SEO available today.

However, once you grasp the concept and strategy of schema markup, you can boost your website on search engine result pages (SERPs). 

What is Schema Markup?

Schema markup is structured data (semantic vocabulary) that helps search engines understand a website's info to serve rich results in a better way.

It allows search engines to see the meaning and associations behind entities mentioned on the website.

Example of how the Schema works

A hotel may have more than one phone number on its pages (reservations, restaurant, spa center, wedding coordinator).

By marking up the correct contact number, a search engine can know which information to serve a user and when.

Benefits of Schema Markup for SEO

These are some benefits from Schema markup and structured data:

1. Help Search Engines understand Website Content better:

Whether structured data affects rankings has been the subject of much debate and many experiments. As of now, there is no convincing evidence that this markup improves rankings.

But there are some indications that search results with more extensive rich snippets (produced using Schema) will have a better click-through rate.

For best results, experiment with Schema markup to see how the audience responds to the resulting rich snippets.

Adding Schema to the site helps search engines understand what the site is about. This reason is enough alone to use it. But that is just one of the benefits.

2. Improve Brand presence with a full Knowledge Graph:

Schema can provide an excellent boost for a brand's presence online. The Knowledge Graph is the big box on the right-hand side of Google desktop searches (or front and center mobile searches).

It has the most relevant business information customers require, like phone numbers, social accounts, reviews, etc. The issue is that many businesses don't have a fully fleshed-out knowledge graph if they have one at all.

Google will display knowledge graphs only if they are highly confident the information included is accurate and useful.

Make it easier for them to trust the company's information (and thus show a knowledge graph) by marking it up as structured data on the website.

This way, you can explicitly provide Google your preferred logo, hours of operation, website link, and more.

3. Get attention-grabbing Rich Results to increase CTR:

Maybe the #1 benefit people seek from Schema is rich results. Google is no longer ten plain blue links on a page. Search listings can now be impressive.

Rating stars for a Hotel, room pricing, amenities, and more are now possible to show right in search listings. To get these unique listings, add whatever relevant Schema you can to the page.

Relevant being the operative word (you don't want to have a spammy schema just because you can).

There are many possible schema types to add (currently, Google shows 30 rich results powered by Schema).

Rich results powered by Schema make organic search listings stand out, which, in turn, has been proved to increase CTR.

4. Position website for Voice Search, Alexa, and Google Assistant:

In emerging SEO trends, voice search is on the rise. With the increase of mobile devices and home speakers, it's clear why. Unfortunately, in voice search results, there is typically only one Result provided.

So getting to that top position on voice search is even more crucial than regular search.

Thankfully, several best practices that lead to featured snippets in frequent searches are the same for voice SEO. One of which is structured data.

So use Schema to increase the odds of surfacing as the #1 voice search. Also, there is a new speakable schema specifically for marking up site elements meant to be spoken and thus suitable for voice search results.

5. Display Social Proof in SERP:

Online interactions are inherently not as trustworthy as dealing with people face to face. That is why social proof, positive signals from unbiased third parties, is broad.

We earlier mentioned that Google ratings and reviews could show up right in Knowledge Graph. In addition to that, one can mark up pages with rating and review information. Perhaps you ask readers to rate how helpful a post was.

You have an e-commerce presence that allows customers to leave reviews. This user-generated social proof content can be summarized in structured data and eventually included in Google search results.

A great way to stay ahead in the competition.

How can Hotel Websites benefit from Schema?

Schema can allow the search engine to recognize more info about the hotel, rooms, amenities, and more while informing potential future guests about reviews, upcoming events, and answering FAQs.

Here are the types of Schema you should be adding to the hotel website and how they can benefit click-through rate and overall organic performance.

1. Hotel Schema:

Hotel Schema should be essential to implement on every hotel website. It straight away lets search engines recognize that site is for a hotel.

At the same time, it also gives you a plethora of opportunities to provide the search engine with more information about hotels, such as an address, phone number, amenities, and more.

In addition, once you implement a hotel schema on the Hotel website, it may improve search results for search queries they think the landing page is relevant to or a high-quality result.

2. Hotel Room Schema:

Hotel Room Schema gives you an extra layer of exclusive hotel schema you can use to further inform search engines about the various hotel rooms you offer.

For example, you can generate different codes to implement on individual room types such as Luxury Suites, Family Rooms, Balcony Suites, Penthouse Suites, Twin Rooms, etc.

The benefit of this Schema is that it allows web pages to inform the search engine of the hotel's types of rooms.

Thus, it increases the chances of the search engine showing pages higher in the SERP search queries that are particularly searching for family rooms, penthouse suites, hotels with balcony suites, etc.

3. Star Rating Schema:

Star Rating is a small amount of code that you can generate and implement on a hotel website to increase CTR dramatically.

First, you need to find a Google My Business account and note the average star rating property and the number of reviews the property has received on Google My Business. Using these data sections, you can generate a star rating Schema, and soon after, it will appear in search results. 

Conclusion

Schema markup can improve SEO. It is a way to make it easier for search engines to find and engagingly display pages, boosting their visibility.

We at INNsight are aware of SEO strategies to increase direct bookings. Our SEO and SEM professional team will ensure that your hotel website stays ahead of your competitors.