What are Rich Snippets and Why is it Important to Use In 2023?
It doesn’t matter whether you are exclusively active in the web world or you only use it to do your necessary and daily tasks, you have undoubtedly noticed how much Google has progressed in the last few years to be able to provide the most accurate information. users and the display result is what the user is looking for. For this purpose, Google has used various tools, each of which has its own efficiency and performance. Rich Snippets are one of these tools that provides more detailed information about each site to the user. You are probably less familiar with Rich Snippet than other issues in the web world, so join us to learn more about this concept, its types, and its use in this article.
What is a Rich snippet?
In a little specialized language, Rich Snippet is a description of structured data markup that the site admin can add to the existing HTML of the site. This markup helps Google understand the information of each page better and help users to display it more accurately.
For a better understanding of the rich snippet and its information, pay attention to the picture below.
If you pay attention to the displayed information, you will notice that in addition to information such as the meta description and URL of the site, information such as the user rating, the number of votes, whether it is free and the operating system required for installation is displayed to you. This information is the same ridge snippet that the site admin entered in HTML to display to search engines and users so that more accurate results are displayed to users on Google, and people can find exactly what they want. Although Google does not require the use of rich snippets on the site, its use can increase the click rate of your site and improve its SEO. The information you consider for rich snippets can be a review of a product, a person, a business, a sport, or anything else that provides more detailed and accurate information to users, depending on the content of the site.
How to use Rich Snippet?
In order to be able to enter data related to each keyword in the rich snippet of each page on your site, you must mark the information you want. Tagged information is also known as microdata. Google recognizes and extracts this marked information by RDfa and Microformat. The information extracted by Google in SERP is shown to users in search results as rich snippets. Microdata is the most common content type that Rich Snippet supports.
Types of rich snippets
As mentioned in the introduction section, the information used in rich snippets can be anything. Therefore, there are different types of rich snippets that by identifying them and how to use them correctly, you can take an effective step to improve your site’s SEO. By identifying the type of data you want, you can use Structure Markup specially designed in SERP to get the best result from the desired rich snippet. It should be noted that due to the wide variety of data used in Rich Snippet, a large number of them are used only for very specific sites and are not public. In the following, we will get to know some types of rich snippets that are more general and can be used in most sites.
Brad Crump
Breadcrumbs are one type of Rich Snippet that allows users to view the path directed to the desired page. In this case, users will know in which part of your site the desired page is located, and after entering the site and opening other pages, they will not lose their way.
Points
Another rich snippet that is highly appreciated by users is the points. You can enter the points given to the product, software, movie, book or anything else in Rich Snippet and provide it to the users. You can also use the total opinions of users or the opinion of a professional and expert and show it in Rich Snippet.
People
Another type of rich snippet is information about people. If your content is about a person, you can enter information about him in this section, such as skills, achievements, books, communication, etc., so that it will be displayed to users in the search results.
Products
Products are another type of rich snippet that most users are satisfied with its presence on pages and search results and use it. In fact, you can provide users with information such as image, price, color, year of manufacture, brand and any other basic information in this section. An online store that cooperates with multiple sellers can sort the price range in descending or ascending order.
Organizations
Various organizations and businesses can also provide users with information such as site address, brand name, logo, phone number or site address in the Rich Snippet section.
Articles
Another use of Rich Snippet is in article publishing sites. In these sites, the key and important parts of articles can be entered in this section so that users can see how high quality the article is or how much information it can provide them.
Software
If you review various software on your site or provide them to users for download, in the Rich Snippet section you can provide information such as the year of publication, the required operating system, its rating, etc. at the discretion of the user. .
Music
In the Rich Snippet section, you can provide users with information such as the release date of the album, the number of tracks on the album, etc. Note that Bing does not support music, but music information is an exception.
Benefits of using Rich Snippets
Nowadays, the importance of Rich Snippet in the results of different pages is not hidden from SEO experts and most SEO experts consider it as the golden key in the path of site optimization and SEO. But how can Rich Snippet help the site in this way?
Increasing Google’s understanding of site content
By tagging the information you want in the schema codes, Google’s understanding of different parts of the site increases and this increases your chances of displaying your site in the search results to users.
Increase the click rate of users
Most users like to know what awaits them before clicking on a link and whether the information they need is available on the site or not. By adding Rich Snippet to your site, you will provide users with this opportunity and the site’s click rate will increase significantly.
How to Add Rich snippets to content
Before learning how to add rich snippets to content, keep in mind that you don’t need to do this for all of your site’s content. Some written content may not be suitable for this work. However, the more bookmarked the site’s contents are, the more accurate the search engines will provide to the users. Another important point is that you should only mark the content that can be displayed to users. The contents that are in the DIVS codes and are among the hidden elements of the site, do not need to be marked. Data marking is done in three different parts.
- Itemscope indicates that the HTML code in the DIV block is about a specific item.
- Itemtype shows what exactly is the desired item?
- Itemprop is related to item information such as address, name, review and other information.
The amount of information entered in this data varies according to the type of content, so it may be difficult and complicated to do, especially for those who have never programmed before. It is easier if your site is set up on the WordPress content management system.
Is Rich Snippet the same as Schema?
Many people assume that Rich Snippets are the same as Schema, which is a misconception. In answer to this question, it should be said that schema is one of the methods that can be used to activate the site’s rich snippet. Schema or structured data is information from the pages of the site that helps Google’s crawlers get a better understanding of the site and display them to users in search results. In addition to recognizing pages, schema uses schema to get more detailed information and display rich snippets in SERP results.
Use a plugin to add rich snippets
You can do two different ways to add rich snippets to your site pages. First, go to a programmer or web page developer and ask him to do this for you. The simpler solution is to use various plugins that are used to add rich snippets. In the following, we will get to know some of these plugins.
All in one schema Rich Snippet plugin
This plugin is one of the most popular plugins for site schema and rich snippets. So far, more than 90,000 users have installed it on their site and it has been able to get a score of 4 from the satisfaction of its users.
All in one schema Rich Snippet plugin
Schema App Structured Data plugin
This plugin is currently used in more than 10 thousand sites and has been able to get 4 points from its users.
Schema plugin
This plugin is one of the most widely used plugins in the web world, which is known by most people active in the field of SEO and the Internet world. So far, it has been installed more than 60,000 times on different sites and has been able to get a score of over 4.5.
Conclusion
A rich snippet is a structured data markup description that helps Google better understand your site and content. Rich snippets are displayed to users in different ways in search results and at the bottom of the web address of the site pages and help them understand whether the site in question provides them with the information they need or not. There are different types of rich snippets, and to implement them, you can use schema codes or plugins, which are comprehensively explained in this article