How to use Schema to Add Reviews to your Site

[Linda Buquet]

Here's what looks like a pretty good post over at Search Engine Watch. I have not read this thoroughly, but Carrie's info is usually pretty good, so I wanted to share.

She also lists some good tools I've reference before that can generate the Schema code for you.

How to Add Reviews to Your Site Using Schema Structured Data Markup - Search Engine Watch (#SEW)

Adding reviews to your own website is fairly simple. If you're using WordPress, definitely use the Schema Creator plugin by Raven Tools. If you don’t use WordPress, you can use a tool to mark up the data and add it to your site.

Schema isn’t a Band-Aid for poor site architecture and SEO. You won't circumvent those problems with schema markup if you have them, but you will help your organic listings in the search results stand out – which is important as more sites compete with you for visibility and clicks.

For awhile back when Google still showed the Places review stars, many of us were using hCard to add site reviews and were able to get our clients DOUBLE gold stars. Here's an example.

GREAT while it lasted. Alas the Google Places review stars are gone now with G+ Local and Zagat ratings. PLUS it's very hard to get organic review stars to show up on local listings these days. There's a trick that sometimes works, but it requires special coding.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Another good article I just read that ties into the general concept of Schema markup and why to use it.

My Changed Perspective on Structured Data

 

[MiriamEllis]

Ha! So funny. I just linked to the SEW piece from and SEOmoz thread and here it is in the greatest local forum on Earth! Nicely written and very clear directions.

 

[ccconsulting]

I just read the link you shared and I completely agree with that. It seems like schema is still playing a big role in search engines and specially Google.

 

[Rik Delta]

FWIW, if you do NOT use WP and would like to update a lot of pages at once, consider using GTM (Tag Manager), a simple example is below, once you learn JSON/LD syntax then scripting for GTM is just wrapping the code as shown

Anything in curly brackets are variables "{{ }}" so that script can be copied over with minimal changes (change the domain, create a few GTM variables)

<script>
(function(){
var data = {
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "WebSite",
"url": {{Page URL}},
"sameas" : [ {{sameAsFacebook}}, {{sameAsTwitter}} ],
"potentialAction": {
"@type": "SearchAction",
"target": "http://changeTHIS.com/?s={search_term}",
"query-input": "required name=search_term" }
}
var script = document.createElement('script');
script.type = "application/ld+json";
script.innerHTML = JSON.stringify(data);
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);
})(document);
</script>EDIT: Okay, BBS doesn't like scripts/html in posts PM me if you want a copy of script for GTM<script>
(function(){
var data = {
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "WebSite",
"url": {{Page URL}},
"sameas" : [ {{sameAsFacebook}}, {{sameAsTwitter}} ],
"potentialAction": {
"@type": "SearchAction",
"target": "http://changeTHIS.com/?s={search_term}",
"query-input": "required name=search_term" }
}
var script = document.createElement('script');
script.type = "application/ld+json";
script.innerHTML = JSON.stringify(data);
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);
})(document);
</script>