There are two different structures to present your website to the crawl bots better. On the one hand there are the Open Graph metadata informations and on the other hand the so-called structured data informations, which are listed on the website schema.org.
Open graph
Open graph is more likely to give social medias a list of items so they know which image or which excerpt to display in the timeline.
For example, we worked on the project pixel-fuer-den-dom.de, where people could buy pixels and write their names on these pixels. There, the customer wanted to have a sharing option, so that the people who bought a pixel, can also post their pixels on Facebook etc. With Open Graph metadata, we were able to create dynamic elements for the timeline so everyone could point to their pixel.
Structured data
Even more extensive and interesting, however, are the Structured Data specifications, which have been brought to life as an open source project by all major search engines.
Structured data gives you the ability to provide accurate information to the search engines so that they can then analyze the content and categorize the website.
While search engines are now exploring websites with artificial intelligence for good content, artificial intelligence still needs input. That’s why there is the structured data. If you use it properly, it’s like running Google through the website and showing it all the way as like you do with a guest who’s new in your home. Once it has settled down, you do not need to do anything anymore because the indexing process is automated.
Installation
Any non programmer is unfortunately forced to use plugins and can never be sure if they have been installed well or not.
But it is very easy for a programmer. Go to the https://schema.org page and then type in the search bar what kind of website you have. In my case, for example, it would be blog posts which are indexed, so I’m looking for blog. As a result, the right landing page link is displayed: https://schema.org/BlogPosting
If I go to the site, it may seem a bit daunting, but it’s just a summary page where all the information is listed with great care. If you need examples, you have to scroll down to the bottom and you can see how it should look in the end. One can take these examples out but also work with the structure. The table we scrolled down contains all the data that can be allocated in the structure data.
My commitment
I have Structured Data built into my website as follows:
<?php if (get_post_type() == 'post'): ?>
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "BlogPosting",
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Talha Sariyürek",
"logo": {
"@type": "imageObject",
"url": "https://talhasariyuerek.com/wp-content/themes/kc-talhasariyuerek-child/img/icons/fav-152.png"
}
},
"headline": "<?= get_the_title() ?>",
<?php if ($subline = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'subline', true)) { ?>
"alternativeHeadline": "<?= $subline ?>",
<?php } ?>
"image": "<?= get_the_post_thumbnail_url($post,'full') ?>",
"editor": "Talha Sariyürek",
<?php if (!empty($tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID, array('fields' => 'names') ))): ?>
"genre": "<?= implode(' ',$tags) ?>",
"keywords": "<?= implode(' ',$tags) ?>",
<?php endif; ?>
"url": "https://talhasariyuerek.com",
"datePublished": "<?= get_post_time('Y-m-d') ?>",
"dateCreated": "<?= get_post_time('Y-m-d') ?>",
"dateModified": "<?php the_modified_date('Y-m-d') ?>",
"description": "<?= $post->post_excerpt ?>",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Talha Sariyürek"
}
}
</script>
<?php endif; ?>Conclusion
In any case, it makes sense to integrate the structured data on your website. Especially now, because hardly anyone has integrated it into their website. It would be very useful if you look into the future and wish to be displayed on Google in higher places.
The structured datas are not new, however, the use of them is being extended more and more day by day. The images, quick answers, snippets and so on. They all come from structured data because someone has gone through the hard way and Google gets the information from their web pages.
