Transcript
Hi guys. And welcome to another edition of Zupo SEO Talk & Tea.
Today's conversation is what is schema. Schema is an important conversation when it comes to SEO, because it's brought up a lot. I feel like I see it in a ton of sales proposal, sales deliverables. And when you are interested in SCS, schema always gets brought up as part of a capability that people can offer. So I think it is worth knowing what schema is so that you can understand what's being offered to you.
In addition, this is Zupo SEO Talk & Tea. So if you're new to this channel, we always pair a tea with our videos. I am a personal lover of tea. I drink a lot of it every single day. So I want to introduce the tea today. Today we have a pu'er tea that is not sold by Kirkland. This is just like Kirkland container I use the hold the tea. pu'er tea is a fermented tea that's very popular with, I guess, the Chinese community. It's not very well known in the West. But it's a fermented tea that has very dark leaf and brews very dark liquid or liquor. And so it is almost to me how I describe it, like the black coffee version of tea. It provides that kick. It's very dark and strong. And so I drink a lot of pu'er tea. It's my version of black coffee. But I feel like unlike black coffee, it doesn't make me hyper anxious all the time or things like that. So anyways, let's get brewing. As you can see I'm doing right now, let's get talking about what schema actually is.
So schema is a part of SEO that is kind of the, I would say it's the aesthetic version of SEO. Schema is all about adding a code on your website that tells Google how to better read your site. And the reason why that is important is because if you've ever been on Google search results and you see search results look a little bit different, because there might be ratings under the search result, or there might be a video next to it. Schema is the ability for you to mark up your page so that your search results can look a little bit nicer in the search results. Because the traditional search results are pretty much just texts. It's a blue heading and then I meta a description which was grayish to black tax, and that's the norm.
But over time, Google has very much, I wouldn't say revolutionized that's might be too much of a word, but has improved and iterated on their search results to give a better experience for their users. And as the world has become more digitally savvy, there has been more ability to have images and different visuals to help users when they're using something. So Google is no stranger to that. They have added many visual cues and visual aesthetics to their search results to make a better experience, so that it doesn't look like just an old version of yellow pages texts.
So therefore schema is your ability to add a code on your website, where you can tell Google, like, let's say you're a pizza of shop. I always use this as an example and you're selling pepperoni pizzas. And let's say you allow your customers to review the pizzas that they've had on your site. Well, you can tell Google, "Hey, the pepperoni pizza page, these are the reviews we get. We get four and a half stars. And we've had over 200 reviews, you can add that schema to your site.
And Google, when they see that they can say, "Okay, this is your pepperoni pizza page."
And a schema will notify them, "Hey, this specific section is the reviews." Therefore on search results, it will give you a better shot at letting your search results have reviews in your search result, because sometimes you'll see that, you'll see the stars and how many ratings. And so it gives you a better chance. Now I will say, schema is not your way of dictating it. Schema just gives you a better chance. Google is the ultimate decider. If they want to allow these extra features in your search results, sometimes the search results they will not and some they will. It's ultimately up to them. And how you can best know is just analyzing the search results. Do they allow any search results to have it? Or do they seem like across the board they're not allowing it? Schema is your ability to do that.
Schema does not just branch reviews, there's many versions of it. You can do it through authors, you can do it through videos, you can do it through reviews, like I just said. There's many different versions and the documentary is vast and wide. And so it depends on what kind of company you are in, what kind of business you're in, what kind of search results competing in. That will kind of dictate the schema you have. For example if you're a video production company, or do you do videos, video schema is important for you because you want your videos to show up. Or if you're selling products, reviews mean a lot. It'll depend, schema has many different little I'm a little, but schema has many different subsections that you can kind of go into. And so I'd encourage you, if you want to spruce up your search results that's what you can do.
But I do you want to end the video by saying a schema does not influence, or is not causal with your rankings. So a lot of people think schema helps your rankings, but it does not do so. So schema is more of a cherry on top. That is the best way I can put it. So adding schema doesn't necessarily give you a ranking boost, but adding schema can improve your click through rate. Because if your search results looks a little bit more enticing, more people will click it when they see you in the search results. And click through rate is a signal for Google. So the best way to put it is schema is a secondary correlated kind of like kind of influence on your results, where it influences another factor that does influence your rankings. So it has like a secondary degree connection to that, but it is a far cry to say that schema itself helps your rankings. It's more of a trickle down effect than it is like one-to-one.
So if someone is telling you, it does help, that's true, but understand the degree to how much it helps. So schema is much more about the click through rate and the final step, more so than it is in the beginning to help you increase your rankings. So when you're doing schema ensure that it's priority, I know of campaigns where I've seen them do schema first and I sometimes I'm wondering, "Why would you do that first when it has almost a minor effect on your search results?" You need to be focusing on other things, especially if you're not ranking well.
But hopefully, that kind of gives you a better understanding of what schema actually is. If you guys found that video likable, if I helped you understand something, I would really appreciate if you guys like and subscribe to the channel. I'm going to go ahead and pour out my pu'er tea. I think a small leaf just flew in there. But hey, whatever, it's leaf, I'll drink it. I'm going to go ahead and enjoy my pu'er tea. If you guys liked what you saw, I really hope to see you guys again soon on other videos. Cheers. Thanks everybody.