What Are Rich Snippets?
If you keep up with the changes that Google regularly makes to its algorithm, you may have heard the use of rich snippets is increasing for SEO purposes. Rich snippets have been around for some time. However, the concept might be new to marketers who are not familiar with the technical aspects of SEO.
Rich snippets can improve your online visibility when it comes to search. As a result, you should consider incorporating them into your website’s code. Here is some background on what rich snippets are and how you can use them to your advantage.
The History of Rich Snippets
In 2011, Google, Bing, and Yahoo made an agreement to use schemas, or a set of protocols, which all of the search engines would acknowledge in order to improve the quality of the search engine results pages for users. In addition, the schemas help to standardize the code that web designers could use to tell the search engines about the information that is available on a page.
Although a partnership between the search engines is rare, this event led to the creation of the Schema.org website. This site serves as a database for the various schemas that webmasters can use to provide information to the search engines. Over time, the list of available schemas has grown significantly as the search engines approve new schema.
How Do Rich Snippets Work?
Although there are many different rich snippets available, Google supports rich snippets for the following data types:
Product – The product rich snippet provides information to the search engines about a product, including price, availability, and review ratings.
Recipe – This rich snippet permits recipes to be displayed directly in the SERPs and Recipe View.
Review – When this rich snippet is used, a review of an item such as a restaurant, movie, or store, will be marked as such for the search engines.
Event – This rich snippet is used to denote an organized event, such as musical concerts or art festivals, that people may attend at a particular time and place.
Software Application – This rich snippet denotes information about a software app, including its URL, review ratings, and price.
Video – This rich snippet is for online video, and will include a description and thumbnail.
News article – This rich snippet is especially for news articles to separate them from other types of content. It provides a headline, images, and publisher info.
There is also additional markup available for video search and local businesses.
To add rich snippets to your site’s content, you simply need to add the correct markup to a page and then test it using Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. It may take some time for the search engines to discover the content and add the rich snippets to the search results. In addition, the rich snippets must also be in compliance with Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines and Structured Data Policies in order to be shown.
How Do Rich Snippets Improve Your SEO?
Rich snippets are helpful for increasing your visibility in the search engines because they make your content stand out from the other search results. In addition, this also means that users will have some information about what the page content for your site contains before they even click on the results. By optimizing your site content with rich snippets, you have the potential to increase your organic site traffic.
If you think that your website can benefit from the inclusion of rich snippets in the content, let us help. Infintech Designs is experienced in advanced technical SEO and we add the markup required for your site to display rich snippets in the search engines. Contact Brian at Infintech Designs today to request your free site audit and quote.
