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          Search engine optimization (SEO) helps businesses drive visits to their website through organic search traffic. Given that the top organic search results receive a third of the clicks, a decline in ranking could be detrimental for your business. Implementing SEO best practices on your website will help to ensure that your web content is seen by as many potential customers as possible. The more visitors you have, the better your chances are of converting those visits into sales!

          Local search engine optimization (SEO) helps local businesses gain visibility by optimizing their local business listings for local search. A business that leverages local SEO will include its address, phone number, local opening times, and exact location in the form of a local citation. The goal is to rank for local searches which are usually performed by people in a specific geographical region looking for a business near them.

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          Digital advertising uses the internet to send advertisements to customers who are online through different websites and social media platforms like Google, Bing, LinkedIn and Facebook.

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          The price for Social Media Ads management depends on the monthly ad spend. For accounts with $1,000 in monthly ad spend, the price is $550/month. Between $1,000 and $5,000 a month in ad spend, the price is $950/month. For $5,000 to $10,000 a month in ad spend, the price is $2,000/month. For more than $10,000 a month in ad spend, the price is $4,500/month.

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          This depends on the complexity and size of a redesign and if eCommerce is needed. On average, it takes around 14-18 weeks from the web design intensive stage to launch.

          If your website experiences the following issues: it’s not responsive on all devices, has a slow loading speed, the design appears old and tired, users don’t spend long on the site, sales are stagnant, or your business is going through a rebranding - your website needs a redesign to boost your brand awareness and sales.

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          Semantic search launched in 2013 with the release of Google's Hummingbird update. Since then, Google's search engine has become more complex. The integration of machine learning, with RankBrain, and NLP, with BERT, has enabled the search engine to better understand the context of a query and deliver more personalized and targeted results. Semantic SEO is the process of creating machine-readable content using structured data and linked open data to help search engines better understand your content.

          On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page SEO refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page that can be optimized, as opposed to off-page SEO which refers to links and other external signals. From meta tags to page content, website structure, and HTML, on-page optimization services are focused on making your website more visible to search engines.

          Structured data refers to any organized data that conforms to a certain format, such as information in a relational database. When information is highly structured and predictable, search engines can more easily organize and display it in creative ways. Structured data involves using a piece of code that is laid out in a specific format easily understood by search engines. The search engines read the code and use it to display search results in a more dynamic way.

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3 Reasons to Add Structured Data to Your Website

Amanda Fallace

October 15, 2020

Structured data markup is a way of providing better context for Google so it can read the information on your web pages and understand it. In other words, structured data converts a site’s HTML from an unstructured mess into something much easier for search engines to digest.

When it comes to organic search, implementing structured data paves the way for a slew of benefits, including helping your web pages rank for more relevant search queries. Let’s take a look at three of the top reasons to add structured data to your website.

3 Reasons to Implement Structured Data

1. Structured Data Provides More Visibility in Search Results.

Adding schema markup to your HTML improves the way your page displays in SERPs by enhancing the rich snippets that are displayed beneath the page title. Take a look at these two examples of webpages that appear when using the search query “chili recipes.”

rich-results-example

Which link is more intriguing to you? It’s probably the “30-Minute Chili” recipe by Martha Stewart. That’s because this webpage includes a few pieces of Schema that provide a “richer” or more dynamic search result.

Rich results offer additional information coupled with eye-catching visuals that attract your attention in search. They bring a standard search listing to life and take up more space in the search results pages, helping you outshine your competition.

When you add schema markup to your website code, you qualify for rich results. There are lots of opportunities to qualify for rich results. Be sure to check out Google’s Search Gallery to view the various options available.

2. Structured Data Improves Click-Through Rates.

It should be no secret that there are a number of ranking factors that determine the SERPs. Click-through rate (CTR) is one example of this. According to Search Engine Journal, sites that implemented structured data found that their 400% net growth in rich result organic traffic overall.

As mentioned above, the whole point of structured data is to provide information that can be easily understood by search engines so that you can clarify the purpose of your site and its pages to provide users with accurate information. 

Since the goal is to improve your appearance in search results, you’ll add video schema to appear in video search. By implementing structured data into your pages, your site should be shown to a more relevant audience base, and your click-through rates will ultimately improve.

3. Structured Data Improves SEO

Structured data for SEO is a way to help search engines better understand what the content of a website page is about. It’s a way to provide machine-readable metadata on the page so that a search engine can quickly determine what information is present and whether it’s worth ranking in its index. Structured data also allows webmasters to configure snippets that are displayed more prominently in the search results, making it easier for users to find relevant content based on their query.

Using structured data helps boost rankings as more information is provided to search criteria. This provides added context to value URLs, such as an “About Us” page, providing useful details like contact information and addresses, or pages within sites that feature products and services in more detail than they traditionally do. 

Types of Markup to Use

The type of content you have on a page determines the structured data type you need to add. On your “about” page, you will add AboutPage Schema. Additional JSON-LD Markups include:

  • Product Markup
  • Person Markup
  • FAQPage Markup
  • Video Markup
  • Article Markup
  • Recipe Markup
  • Rating Markup
  • HowTo Markup

While you can add more than one piece of markup to a page, you must use the proper markup on each page in the right order so that your pages pull up in the right section of search.

Additionally, you want to use the correct piece of code so you pull up for the correct featured snippet. For example, if you are in real estate you’ll want your Google Business Profile with your website to pull up when someone searches “real estate broker near me.” Adding schema will help major search engines properly categorize your website for correct searches.

For copy-and-paste schema options, check out this free tool! 

FAQs About Structured Data Markup

How does Google use structured data?

Structured data snippets and labels are inserted into the HTML code of webpages and give additional detail about the page that allows for customization on how the results appear within the SERP’s ranking system. 

How does structured data for SEO work?

In terms of SEO, schema markup offers two great advantages: 1) it can help ensure that the right information is being presented in the right places on web pages, and 2) it can assist search engine bots in recognizing site content which results in more accurate indexing and improved search engine rankings. 

What format of schema markups should I use?

There are several formats for schema markup; however, the most common ones are JSON-LD Code, Microdata, and RDFa. Google recommends JSON-LD.

Structured Data: The Secret to SEO Success

To help ensure your site shows up for the right users, it’s important for search engines to understand your site, its content, and the context in which it’s presented. Using structured data and schema can help you better inform the search engines about your content and get your web pages to rank higher in the SERPs. Every piece of code matters. Proper Schema will improve user experience in Google search and on your website. 

Need help implementing structured data and schema on your site? Contact us today. We’ll audit your site and present a schema strategy to help increase search rankings!

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Amanda Fallace

Amanda is SMA's Lead SEO Strategist working from her home office in Port Orange, FL. She is passionate about SEO and the Inbound Methodology. As a Florida native, she enjoys spending her spare time at the beach with her beloved dogs, Bentley and Kona.

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