What the heck is Semantic Markup aka Google’s Structured Data

Semantic means “meaning” and Markup means “Which mark something useful”. In that way, the semantic markup is a markup that is descriptive enough to allow machines/bots to recognize and make decisions about it. It becomes a brilliant mechanism that allows machines/bots to understand the same information.

It is XHTML that is written to define the context of the content enclosed by the markup. Semantic HTML is processed by regular web browsers as well as by many other user agents like Google bots etc…

Why it is important to add Semantic Markups?

Because… you will see

1. Improved Click Through Rate (CTR)
2. More traffic
3. More conversion

The benefits of using semantic markups can also be understood by the Info-graphic shown below.

Google and other search engines promote Semantic Markup to show rich snippet on SERP, like image shown below:

Isn’t it attractive?

This is a Rich Snippet.

Now there is one more thing that you should know i.e. Google Humming Bird Update. It is Google’s new search algorithm that helps the user to find accurate results and tries to show maximum results on [p2p type=”slug” value=”increase-serps-ranking-social-media”]SERP[/p2p].

There are various factors that Google takes into account to understand how the content on your site is accurate or what a user is looking for. Some of the factors are:

1. Intent
2. Sentiment
3. Freshness
4. Personalization
5. Localization etc

Types of Semantic Markups

1. RDFa
2. microData (Schema.org)
3. MicroFormat

Comparison amongst the three is shown in Info-graphic. The best recommended semantic markup is microData which is developed by joint effort of Google, Yahoo, Bing and Yendex.

There are lots of categories where semantic markup can be implemented like person, product, review, event, restaurant, organization, recipe, address etc.

How to implement?

To implement semantic markup, text data is represented by using HTML elements as shown in Info-graphic. If you are beginner to implement semantic markup, use Schema Generator to help you for getting rich snippet on snippet.

Semantic Markup is the future of [p2p type=”slug” value=”optimizing-your-website-by-organic-seo-techniques”]SEO[/p2p] and its implementation will be a new way of generating endless traffic and revenue.

You can learn more about semantic markup by taking a look at the Info-graphic which is provided by NineHertz shown below.