Structured data refers to any type of information that is in a fixed field in a record or file. They include materials contained in relational databases and spreadsheets.
Characteristics of Structured Data Types
Such material primarily depends on the creation of various business models that will be recorded. And it is also important how they will be stored, processed and used. This includes determining which fields will be stored and how they will do it: a set of structured data, type (numeric, currency, alphabetic, name, date, address, and so on) and any restrictions on entering information. For example, the number of characters is localized by certain conditions, such as a lord or mistress, a man or woman, a child or an adult.
Structured materials have this advantage: they are easy to enter, store, query and analyze. At one time, due to the high cost and performance limitations of storing memory and processing relational databases and spreadsheets, the use of structured materials was the only way to effectively manage. Everything that did not fit in a tightly organized structure had to be stored on paper in a closet.
Data management
Working with structured resources is often done using the query language (SQL). This is a common programming syllable designed to control and invoke validation of structured data in relational database systems.
Structured materials were a huge improvement over unstructured paper-based systems, but life doesn't always fit into neat little boxes. As a result of all, the first type of data should always be supplemented by a storage of paper or microfilm. As technology productivity continued to improve and prices declined, it became possible to introduce unstructured and semi-structured materials into computing systems.
Different kinds
Unstructured data is all those things that cannot be easily classified and put into a neat box or library. These include, for example, photos and graphics, videos, streaming tool data, web pages, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, emails, blog posts, wikis, and word processing documents.
Semi-structured materials are a cross between them. This view is a type of analysis of structured data, but it does not have a strict structure of the information model. In the case of semi-structured options, tags or other types of markers are used to identify certain elements, but the information does not have a rigid system.
How to structure data, an example: word processing software can now include metadata showing the author’s name and creation date, while the bulk of the document is unstructured text.
Emails have a sender, recipient, date, time and other fixed fields added to the contents of the email message and any attachments. Photos or other graphic objects can be marked with keywords, such as the creator, date, location, etc., which allows you to organize and place graphics. XML and other markup languages are often used to manage semi-structured data.
Technology standards
SQL, a query language, has been a model of the national institute since 1986. It is determined by the Technical Committee of the Interstate Management for Information Technology Standards. It is worth noting that structured data includes materials and their exchange. The committee has two working groups: one for databases, and one for metadata. HP, CA, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase (SAP) and Teradata, as well as several federal government agencies are participating. Both project documents of the committee have links to additional information on each of them. SQL became an International Organization standard in 1987.
And also structured data helps, for example, Google to better understand the content. This is an important signal if a businessman wants the site to be visible in the search functions.
But should all brands use structured data? Is it worth it? The short answer is, of course, yes.
But before moving on to the full answer, you need to deal with the wrong idea: to structure the data is just to build an SEO strategy. This must be understood.
Structured data is the basis for machines to become aware of all content.
This is similar to the relationship between customer and supplier: the more information about the buyer’s SEO problems, the better they can be solved. To do this, you need to know what problems they had before. This is the main secret of creating a success strategy.
Brands hope machines like Google, Alexa, and Siri will read and understand the content efficiently and effectively.
Using markup schemes, however, gives them the ability to control how their information is determined, in turn, to control the machine understanding of the whole structure.
Reuse of structured data
This type of information has existed for many decades.
Some time ago it was more limited, but now you can find it here for almost anything, including recipes, jobs and restaurants, and much more.
In fact, Richard Wallis, a consultant working on supporting Schema projects at Google, summarizes that this type of material is featured in every published post on any brand’s website.
Key conclusion: the use of the concept of “structured data” is increasing, and currently it makes up about a third of the total number of websites crawled.
This is because the big brands tested the resources with the help of their time, and they were able to compare the results with business values, such as improving traffic or creating conversions.
Structuring data not only provides great search benefits, such as reusing information to improve analytics or locate in the field - it also provides voice benefits such as informing chat bots.
By structuring the information, the owners help determine the content in order to increase the chances of the machines to correctly match its content with the corresponding voice requests. In fact, for example, Amazon says it uses a scheme to determine the intentions of a local business.
Influence
One of our hospitality clients has recently been tested to see the full impact of structured data.
To begin with, a local scheme of lists and breadcrumbs was implemented on the main page.
As a result, mobile clickthrough rate improved slightly from 2.7 percent in the 1st quarter to 2.8 in 2.
So far this has been a short test, but it is expected that in the next nine months the number of clicks on this project will increase by 5-10%.
In addition, this experiment led to some more results:
- Clicks increased by 43 percent.
- Impressions increased by almost 1.
- The average position also increased by 12 percent.
The importance of structured data used to be only to get rich results from Google or Yandex. Now the value extends further to the quality of movement measures.
Search pages have published several case studies that show examples of using the schema for some major brands.
Top 5 Reasons Many Companies Don't Use Templates
Watching many pages, you will notice that some holders, for a number of reasons, do not have structured data. Here are the main issues:
- They have no resources.
- They are not technicians (and they do not have the right specialist) and do not understand the code, and how to mark objects.
- The site is not supported by their CMS.
- They do not see and do not understand the benefits.
- Lagged behind in time and stuck in the past.
Fortunately, there are several excellent solutions on the market that make it possible to scale out and easily create, manage and measure structured data.
Key Benefits of Using a Scheme
There are many benefits to this product, especially for e-commerce brands. Here are a few key benefits.
Higher clickthrough rate
Having rich snippets for products in search results is a great way to increase your clickthrough rate and attract more attention to your ads. This is especially true if there are excellent product reviews.
More conversions
The presence of rich fragments can also increase the coefficient, because if many people see the ads and they are positive, the likelihood that people will buy on the necessary platform will increase.
As for job sites, since Google launched Jobs, and companies like ZipRecruiter have implemented structured job data, their articles get more information and conversions by showing relevant queries.
Getting recommended snippets is the Holy Grail for SEO. The site will appear at the top of the search results page, in front of organic listings. Structured data is not necessary, but sometimes it can help get a recommended snippet. This can increase your clickthrough rate and drive more traffic.
Advice
Unfortunately, SEO sites often abuse certain things.
Do not become spammers when using structured data. Only materials that are relevant to the content should be used.
If the owner does not follow this rule, you can get a manual action with spam-structured data from Google or Yandex, as a result of which the entire site or individual articles will not be displayed in the search results. This will last until all the information has been cleaned.
And also make sure that all structured data has been updated. Everything is constantly changing, and therefore new trends invariably arise, including in the dissemination of information.
Summary
Do not ignore structured data. Organic search is becoming more competitive. Any additional information that can be provided to search engines helps:
- Increase clickthrough rate.
- Improve search engine visibility.
- By showing selected fragments in the knowledge column, you can help machines solve user problems.
More structured data resources:
Google and Yandex confirm that this type of information improves targeting.
And they also specify how much structured data is enough for certain models.