If you want your site to show rich snippets in search engine results pages (SERPs), you need to markup your posts/pages with Schema.org.
Schema.org uses something called schemas to take care of your site’s structured data needs. You can use these schemas to markup your reviews, recipes, contact information, and products so that popular search engines can make sense of your content and help it stand out in their results pages.
In this post, we’ll explain what rich snippets are and the SEO benefits they offer. We’ll also walk you through a step by step tutorial on how to add rich snippets to your content using the All In One Schema Rich Snippets plugin. And, finally, we’ll wrap up with a section on some common use case scenarios for using rich snippets and recommend some plugins to help you get started.
What Are Rich Snippets?
Schema markup gives you structured data and structured data gives you rich snippets. So, when you markup your content, you’re essentially making it easier for search engines like Google and Bing to understand what it’s all about and giving them the opportunity to present it in their SERPs in an enhanced way.
A Little About Schema.org and Rich Snippets
If you’ve ever Googled something and saw search listings that had a little more information than the others then you probably already know what rich snippets are. They can show up in the form of star ratings, calorie information, product prices, and even images.
For example, if you were to search for thin crust pizza recipes, you might find some important information related to the recipe displayed in the search listings. And as you can probably tell, displaying this little bit of extra information can quite easily draw in the reader’s attention and give them an idea about what they can expect to find if they click on the link.
Key Benefits of Using Rich Snippets
Rich snippets are created when you markup your content with schema. They are designed to help search engines understand what your content is about and provide some relevant, additional information in search listings.
And since rich snippets have that little bit of extra information, they automatically stand out in the array of search listings in SERPs. While that may not have any direct impact on your page’s search ranking, it certainly has the potential to give your organic click-through rates (CTR) a boost.
Now that you have some context about rich snippets and why it’s a good idea to use them, let’s take a look at how you can implement schema markup in WordPress using a free plugin solution.
How to Add Rich Snippets
All In One Schema Rich Snippets is a powerful, free plugin that lets you markup your content with different types of schemas. It gives you the bare minimum functionality Google requires in terms of adding structured data to your posts. Here’s how you can get started with it:
Step 1: Install and Activate All in One Schema Rich Snippets
Log in to your WordPress admin panel and head over to Plugins > Add New. Search for All In One Schema Rich Snippets. Once you’ve found it, install and activate it to your website.
Step 2: Configure Its Settings
Head over to Rich Snippets from your sidebar menu to begin configuring the different schema types on offer. For the purpose of this tutorial, we’ll demonstrate by adding an Events schema type.
The Configuration tab lets you set the strings (labels) that will be displayed on your site’s front-end for an events rich snippet. You can change the labels to whatever you’d like it to say. For instance, I changed the Event Location field to read Venue and the Ticket Promotion to say Promotional Price.
Once you’re done with that, hit the Update button to save changes and move on to the next step.
Step 3: Add Schema Markup From the WordPress Editor
Next, head over to the post you’d like to markup. You’ll notice that a Configure Rich Snippet meta box has been added right under the text editor box.
Click on the drop down menu and select the schema type you’re trying to add to your post. Following our example, we’ve added the Event schema type. You should see a form show up in the meta box with the same fields that you saw in Step 2.
Fill out the form by entering as much information as you can about your event. If some fields don’t apply to your particular event then you can leave them blank. Once you’re done, it should look something like this:
When you publish the post, you’ll see that a rich snippets box has been added directly under your post’s content.
3 Useful Rich Snippets Plugins for WordPress Websites
Depending on what kind of rich snippets you want to add to your website, you might consider using a different plugin. Here are some alternatives to the All In One Schema Rich Snippets plugin and the use cases they’re best for:
Use Case 1: For Product and Service Review Websites
If your site focuses on publishing high-quality reviews of various products and services, you might want to opt for the WP Review plugin instead. It enables users to add as many fields as they’d like to their rich snippets review box and give them star, point, or percentage ratings.
Use Case 2: To Collect User Reviews From Visitors
For those of you who receive reviews from your site’s visitors, the Rich Reviews plugin lets you set up a form to collect user reviews and use them to generate a star rating schema. The plugin follows Schema.org’s micro-data format which is how the page’s ratings will show up as rich snippets in search listings.
Use Case 3: To Display Business Contact Information
The Rich Contact Widget plugin uses micro-data and micro-formats in compliance with Schema.org to help you display personal or business contact information as rich snippets in search listings. The phone/email links are linked so your mobile traffic can place calls or reach out to you instantly. In addition to this, you can also add a profile image or a static image map to your rich snippet!
Conclusion
Relevant content is important to both human visitors and search engine bots. And since all major search engines work in collaboration with Schema.org to power rich, extensible experiences, now’s as good a time as any to hop on the rich snippets bandwagon and get your search listings to shine in SERPs.
