Since the emergence of the Semantic Web, the use of structured data has been enriching search engine results pages in an intuitive way. How is this understanding of content possible? What is a rich snippet? How do you use microdata?
In this article we will only deal with microdata, which is a sort of improved version of microformats that is easier to integrate, particularly in HTML5.
Microdata: meaning added to information
Microdata are in fact values marked up with a type of semantic tagging that makes the content of your pages intelligible to search engines. Through these snippets of code, you use metadata that enhances your snippet in the SERP. This is what is known as the rich snippet, or enriched extract. As a result, your snippet is no longer limited to describing a title, a URL and a meta description! On the contrary, it can bring out important details such as a page’s breadcrumb trail, the number of reviews for a product, and so on.
*Snippet: the descriptive box that gives an extract of your page in the search engine results page.
*SERP (Search Engine Result Page): the search engine results page.
Take, for example, the case of the Allociné website for a query about the Star Wars films. You can see in the snippet below that the URL has been replaced by a more meaningful breadcrumb trail. Likewise, the reviews left for the film are represented by stars, and the rating given to the film along with the number of votes are highlighted just above the meta description.
As you will have gathered, this type of structured data offers significant advantages such as:
- A more informative and intuitive snippet, which makes it possible to optimise the number of characters in the meta description tag.
- A more imposing snippet in the SERPs, even an eye-catching one, thanks to the use of images and videos.
- Better interpretation of the content by crawlers (search engines), which leads to better positions in the SERPs.
- An improved user experience: thanks to greater relevance of results and the time saved by understanding them more easily.
- An increase in CTR (click-through rate) thanks to eye-catching elements such as the price or the reviews left, which can encourage clicks.
Semantic tagging to structure that data
The idea is to nest specific tagging inside HTML elements. This will give semantic weight to your data. Once this markup is in place, the search engine will be able to understand the nature of the information. Let’s take as an example the leisure centre La Tête Dans les Nuages, where we held our latest internal event. In addition to its Google My Business page, the company can use microdata to bring information out in its organic snippet. This tagging is based on a trio: itemscope, itemtype and itemprop.
Itemscope and itemtype let you define an object
The purpose of these two fragments of code is to flag things up to the search engine, to make it understand that there is data to be brought out in this place. itemscope first indicates the block in question, and itemtype then makes it possible to tag the reference to which the element applies. Indeed, it may be a film that you want to describe, an author, a person, or in our present case an organisation.
La Tête Dans les Nuages
Address: 5 Boulevard des Italiens, 75002 Paris
Telephone: 01 40 13 08 08
Itemprop marks up the content of the object semantically
This last fragment of code works in the same way as an HTML attribute. It is placed inside an element in order to apply a property to it. This is how the semantic markup operates.
La Tête Dans les Nuages
5 Boulevard des Italiens 75002 Paris, France,
(+33 1) 40 13 08 08, E-mail: secretariat(at)latetedanslesnuages.com
Note that itemscope and itemtype can be used to define an object that is itself nested inside another. The tree structure is infinite, which makes it possible to create a genuine mesh and to define a knowledge graph of your content.
Likewise, we use tags that are semantically neutral in order to incorporate the microdata into them. You can also use tags to create groups that are close in meaning.
In addition, the use of the comma is necessary in order to concatenate the various properties. This brief example only shows a glimpse of the markup that is possible with microdata for an organisation. It is also possible to indicate the number of employees, its sponsors, and so on. The full list of these attributes is available on Schema.org, which is behind structured data.
