We prepare content for two entities, the search engine and humans. The syntax in which search engines better understand our content is called schema markup. In this article, you will learn how to add schema markup in WordPress and prepare your content to be understandable and lovable for search engines.
Schema markup is very useful for ranking your content. It is a structured data format that the search engines understand better. In schema markup, we provide additional information about our content, and that helps the search engine comprehend and categorize our content. This can lead to a number of benefits for our website, including improved visibility in search results, an enhanced user experience, an increased click-through rate (CTR), and better indexing. Overall, schema markup is very important for improving the visibility and relevance of our websites.
Table of contents
Add schema markup in WordPress without a plugin
To add schema markup in WordPress without a plugin, we use an online tool named “Technical SEO”. Type https://technicalseo.com/tools/schema-markup-generator/ in your browser and hit enter. You will see many options here like articles, FAQ, How to, Breadcrumb, etc. You just need to select the appropriate type and fill in all the fields for that field. After that, copy the generated script on the left side and paste it into your WordPress article. Make sure to select “Text” in your editor when you paste the script. On this website, we can add schema markup for the following content types;
Article Schema Markup
Article schema markup is used to present an article in a structured format to the search engines. This markup is used for both the news and blog posts. The article schema markup on the “Technical SEO” website consists of the following fields.
Article Type: Provide the type of article here; Article, News Article, Blog Posting.
URL: The URL of your news or blog post goes here. Copy the URL and paste it here.
Headline: Type the headline of your article in this field. You can provide a headline of up to 110 characters.
Image URL: The URLs of images on your article go here. If you have more than one image in your article, click on the “ + IMAGE” button to add another image.
Author: You can select from two options here; Person, Organization. Select the appropriate type and provide additional information about the author like “Author name” and “Author URL”.
Publisher: Type the name of the publisher and paste the publisher URL.
Published Date: The date on which the article is published.
Date Modified: The date on which the article is last modified. This is also visible in the search engine. The article that has a recent date modified usually gets more CTR.
Breadcrumb Schema Markup
A breadcrumb is a navigation element that helps website users determine their current location within the website’s structure. It is commonly placed near the top of a webpage and consists of a trail of clickable links that represent the path the user followed to arrive at the current page.
For instance, if a user clicks on a link to visit the “Contact Us” page while browsing a website, the breadcrumb might display a sequence like “Home > Contact Us.” This sequence informs the user that they are currently on the “Contact Us” page and that they navigated to it by first visiting the homepage.
To generate schema markup for breadcrumb, select breadcrumb in schema markup type and provide details in the following sub-fields. The breadcrumb schema markup consists of only two fields; details are given below.
Page Name: Type the name of the page in this field for which you want to generate the schema. Make sure you type the exact name that appears on your website.
Page URL: Paste the URL of the page in this field.
If you want to add additional pages, click on the “+ ADD URL” button.
Schema Markup for Event
The event here means a meetup or gathering event. A meetup event is a type of social gathering that brings together like-minded people who share a common interest or hobby. Meetups can be organized around a wide range of topics, such as technology, sports, politics, or art. The event schema markup consists of the following fields.
Name: Provide the name of the event in this field.
Event Description: Type a short description of the event in this field. It is suggested to be brief and specific in this description.
Image URL: Provide the image URL in this field.
Start Date: The date on which the event will start. Next to this field is “Start time”.
End Date: The date on which the event will come to an end. There is also an “End time” field next to this field.
Event Status: Select the status of the event from the dropdown menu. It consists of scheduled, postponed, canceled, and moved online.
Attendance Mode: Select the mode of attendance for the event. You can select online, offline, or mixed from the list.
Stream URL: If your event is live, provide the URL of the stream here. Next to this field is “Timezone”.
Performer Type: Select the appropriate performer type from the dropdown menu. It consists of a person, a performing group, a music group, a dance group, and a theater group. You can select “none” if the performer at your event is none of these.
Performer Name: Enter the name of the performer in this field.
Add Ticket Type: If you want to charge the attendees of this event, select the currency and that’s it. You can charge the attendees in different currencies by clicking on “+ ADD TICKET TYPE”.
Schema Markup for FAQ Page
The FAQs page is very important for answering visitor queries. The schema markup for the FAQ page consists of the following fields.
Question: Provide the question in this section. Copy the question from your page in order to generate the schema for the exact FAQ.
Answer: Type the answer to the question in this section. If you want to add more questions, click on “+ ADD QUESTION”.
Schema Markup for How-to
The schema markup for How-to consists of the following properties.
Name: Enter the name of the How-to process.
Description: A short, brief, and specific description of the How-to process.
Total Time: The time it will take to complete the How-to process.
Estimated Cost: Enter the estimated cost for the process to complete.
Currency: Enter the currency of the estimated cost.
Image URL: Paste the URL of the image in this field.
Add Tool: Click on “Add Tool” to add tools used in the process.
Step Instruction: How to process consists of different steps. You will need to provide instructions for each step. This is not mandatory but providing detailed instructions will complete the fields for schema markup. Click on “Add Step” to add additional steps.
Image URL: Provide the URL of the image used in that particular step. Leave it blank if a step has no image associated with it.
Name: Provide the name of the How-to step.
URL: This is the step URL. This is most often blank. The how-to articles consist of only one URL, and that is the URL of the how-to article. So, leave it blank.
Tools: Provide the names of the tools that are required for completing the how-to process. Click on “+ ADD TOOL” to add more tools.
Schema Markup for Job Posting
This markup type provides detailed schema markup for the job postings. This schema type consists of many fields. Discussing all of them will make our discussion lengthy. We have written a detailed article about this schema type. Follow the following link to read in detail if interested.
Schema Markup for Local Business
The schema markup for local businesses consists of the following fields.
Business Type: Select the appropriate business type from the dropdown menu. It consists of local businesses, animal shelters, archive organizations, automotive businesses, and many more. Select the one that is more relevant to your business.
More Specific Type. Here, you can make your local business more specific. We have a drop-down menu here too.
Name: Provide the name of your local business here.
Image URL. If you have any images for your business URL. Paste its link in this field.
URL. It is the URL that points to the homepage or landing page of your business.
Price Range. Type the price range here.
Address: It consists of many sub-fields. Provide the complete address of your local business by typing street, City, Zip Code, Country, state or province, latitude, and longitude.
Add Opening Hour: Here you can add the opening hours for your business.
More Schema Types
There are also other schema types in this tool like Person, Recipe, Product, Video, and website. Select each one of them to explore it in detail. We have kept our discussion limited to the above-mentioned schema types and left other types for the readers to explore themselves.
Add Schema Markup Using a Plugin
Using a plugin to generate schema markup can be highly beneficial, especially for those who are not comfortable with coding. While the online tools we discussed do not require coding skills, some people may still find them daunting. Moreover, using a plugin has the added advantage of receiving regular updates, even if you are using the free version. It should be noted that certain features in many schema plugins are not available to free users. You will need to buy a subscription to activate these features.
To use a plugin for generating schema markup, we will explore the three most commonly used plugins i.e. Schema and Structured Data for WP and AMP, WP SEO Structured Data Schema, and All in One Schema Rich Snippets. For all of these plugins, you will have to install and activate them.
Add Schema using Schema and Structured Data for WP and AMP Plugins
Following are the step-by-step instructions on how to add schema to WordPress using Schema and Structured Data for WP and AMP
- Install and activate Schema and Structured Data for the WP and AMP plugins. You can also download it and install it using the “Upload Plugin” option.
- Now navigate to the “settings” page for the plugin. You will see the following options, as shown in the picture below.
- In “Global” select all the pages for which you want to have schema markup.
- Click on AMP, if you want to generate schema markup for the AMP version of your website.
- Click on all the fields one by one to explore and apply the settings that are most relevant to your needs.
- You can also set the schema markup using a wizard. Navigate to “Installed Plugins”, and Locate the Schema and Structured Data for WP and AMP Plugin. Now, click on the “Setup Wizard” to start a step-by-step wizard.
- Follow the instructions in the setup wizard to complete generating the schema markup.
Add Schema Markup using WP SEO Structured Data Schema
Follow these instructions to add schema using the WP SEO Structured Data Schema Plugin.
- Install and activate the plugin.
- Click on “WP SEO Schema” to access its general settings.
- Fill in all the properties that you want to include in schema markup and hit “Save Changes”.
- Now, navigate to the settings page. You will see the options shown in the picture given below.
- Fill in all the attributes that should be added in schema markup.
- Click on “Save Changes’ and that’s it. You have configured the plugin for generating schema.
Add Schema using All in One Schema Rich Snippets
This is yet another awesome plugin for adding schema markup in WordPress. Follow the below-given instructions to use this plugin for generating a schema for your WordPress website.
- Install and activate the Plugin.
- You will be directed to the “Getting Started” page as soon as you activate the plugin. Read all the information to have a sound knowledge of configuring the plugin.
- Click on configuration to access configuration options. It looks like these;
- Click on all schema types to set properties for each of them. When you click on it, it will be explored, and all its fields will be shown. You can now set values for any field. I have clicked on item review, and all the fields that are required in the schema for item review are shown to me as shown in the picture above.
- Click on Customization to set styles and colors.
- If you have more queries about the plugin, click on FAQ to see what people ask about and what answers they have gotten.
Conclusion
This was all about how to add Schema Markup to WordPress, which is a structured data format that search engines understand and use to categorize and rank content. Schema Markup provides additional information about content that can lead to improved visibility in search results, enhanced user experience, increased click-through rate, and better indexing. We explained how to add Schema Markup to WordPress without a plugin, using an online tool called Technical SEO. The tool allows you to generate Schema Markup for different types of content, such as Articles, Breadcrumb, Events, and FAQ pages. We provided a detailed description of the fields that need to be filled in for each type of content. We also discussed how to add schema markup with the help of a plugin.
FAQs
You can put the schema code anywhere in your post. Just make sure you switch to the “text” option in your post editor.
Read this article carefully. We have discussed the process in detail.
A plugin that is used to generate schema markup is termed a schema plugin. We have discussed the three most commonly used and trusted schema plugins in this article.
You can create schema manually if you know all the fields that are required for a particular schema type. In this article, we have discussed in detail how to generate a schema markup manually.
