Structured data is a way of giving a search engine a clear, organized map of your content. For an e-commerce website, this is especially important. When a search engine understands your products, it can display your listings with extra information like star ratings and prices, which can significantly increase your click-through rate.
Here are the most important structured data types you need for your online store.
1. Product, Offer, and Reviews
Every product page on your website should have the correct structured data. This tells a search engine the product’s name, description, image, and price. You can also include reviews and a rating to make your listing stand out. These three are a package deal, and you can weave them together to get a detailed listing.
JSON
<script type=”application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”: “https://Schema.org/”,
“@type”: “Product”,
“name”: “Product Name”,
“image”: “https://www.example.com/product-image.jpg”,
“description”: “Product Description”,
“sku”: “Product SKU”,
“brand”: {
“@type”: “Brand”,
“name”: “Brand Name”
},
“offers”: {
“@type”: “Offer”,
“price”: “Product Price”,
“priceCurrency”: “USD”,
“availability”: “http://Schema.org/InStock”
},
“review”: {
“@type”: “Review”,
“reviewRating”: {
“@type”: “Rating”,
“ratingValue”: “4.5”
}
}
}
</script>
2. Shipping Information
If you’re shipping to a global audience, you should include your shipping information. This tells a search engine about your shipping destination, the shipping rate, and your delivery time. You can nest this information under the product schema or provide it separately.
3. Payment Method
You should make it clear to a search engine and a user what payment methods you accept. This can be a huge friction point for conversions, so you should address it with the PaymentMethod structured data. You can highlight payment in installments, credit card, and other options you support.
4. Warranty Policy
If you sell a product that comes with a warranty, you should make that clear to a search engine. This can help you stand out in the search results and build trust with a customer.
5. Breadcrumb
Breadcrumb navigation helps users and search engines understand your website’s hierarchy. By adding BreadcrumbList data to your website, you can get a cleaner URL in search results and help a user navigate your site more easily.
6. Local Business
If you have a physical location in addition to your online store, you should use the LocalBusiness structured data. This will notify a search engine of your work hours, address, and other vital information. This is a crucial step for local SEO.
7. Video Schema
If you create videos related to your products, you should tag them properly with the VideoObject Schema. This helps a search engine understand your videos and can lead to a lot of traffic.
8. Return Policy
You should specify how you handle returns. This removes friction from the conversion process.
9. Energy Efficiency Ratings
If you sell home electronics, you should emphasize their energy efficiency. This is a great way to stand out in the search results.
10. Does FAQ Schema Still Work?
No. Since 2023, FAQ Schema is no longer supported for websites that aren’t high-authority health or government websites. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still have an FAQ section for user experience purposes.
How to Think about Structured Data as an eCommerce Business Owner
You shouldn’t think of structured data as just separate pieces of code you add to meet a search engine’s requirements. Instead, you should think of it as the skeleton of your online presence. You should add structured data to all the important parts of your website, including blog posts, job posts, and contact pages. By nesting your structured data, you can tell a search engine a complete story about your business.
How to Implement Structured Data
If you use an e-commerce platform like Shopify or WooCommerce, structured data is likely already supported, whether natively or through plugins. However, I still recommend checking to ensure you’ve added all the relevant Schema types.
A professional SEO platform ClickRank can help you with this. The platform can scan your website for these issues and give you a prioritized list of tasks to fix them. ClickRank also offers one-click generation and injection of structured data in JSON-LD format. This means it can automatically create the correct schema for your pages. What’s more, you have the ability to directly edit the schema that ClickRank generates, and it will automatically update the changes for you. This provides a balance of automation and control over your structured data.
Give More Structure to Your Data (and Make Searchbots’ Jobs Easier)
I know that Schema sounds highly technical, but it doesn’t have to be. Simply think of it as a search engine’s tagging system and use the checkers, plugins, and tools to help you cover all the bases. Just make sure you use the structured data types that are supported. Even if a structured data type doesn’t generate a rich-feature snippet, you can still use it to prepare for a search engine’s future updates.
