Schema best practices - use sitewide or not?

[Rich Owings]

So here's my understanding of where to use schema. You want to show NAP on the home page if it is a single location, and on individual location pages if there are multiple locations.

And you want to show business type and sameAs on the home page and any location pages. But do you want to do that sitewide?

And if it is a single location, should NAP schema be placed sitewide as well?

Sitewide is certainly easier to implement with WordPress themes that allow you to add code to the header.

 

[MarketingGiant]

I would use the NAP Site wide either on the footer or header. If dont want to use the NAP site wide then have a designated landing page for each location with unique content/images with the NAP. Use the second option if you have more than one location. If you use the NAP of multiple locations on all pages it will confuse the Search Engine when you sue schema tags. I would check out the Google structure data tool once your ready to review your work.

 

[Rich Owings]

Thank you! I'm going to give it a try, and yes, I will use their structured data testing tool.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Let me check with David Deering our resident Schema expert and see what he has to say.

 

[David Deering]

Hi Rich and all. Well technically, there's nothing wrong with marking up the NAP on every page. But Google's guidelines state that the markups should basically represent the content on the page. So if the only markup you included on your site's various pages was of the NAP, we can't really say that it represents the main content on the page or the purpose of it. Not that Google would penalize you, but honestly, the markups aren't accomplishing much. Because let's face it--Google likely already knows your NAP information and they don't need you to mark it up in order to understand it.

So what I always try to do for my clients is determine what the main subject of the page is, then make that the primary marked up entity. I always include the NAP in the markup, but it's typically secondary. I want Google to understand what product or service is being offered and then who's offering it (or who wrote the article, etc).

So again, there's nothing wrong with marking up the NAP on every page of your or your client's site, but try to go further with it so that Google understands what the business is offering on that page. And just be sure that whatever you mark up can be seen on the page.

I hope that helps.

David

 

[Rich Owings]

Thank you, David. That's great advice and it certainly gives me a new way of looking at it.

If you don't mind me asking, do you have a preferred method for incorporating schema markup into individual WordPress pages on a site, where the schema markup is different for each page?

 

[David Deering]

Hi Rich. Well, I'm not sure if I understand exactly what you're asking, but if the markup is going to be different for each page, then you'll need to add the markup manually to the page through the text editor.

 

[Rich Owings]

Oh my, I made an ASSumption that all schema markup had to go in the head section, but a quick Google search seems to indicate it can go in the body. In which case, yes, I can just use the post/page text editor. But I am wondering if the visual editor would break the code.

Thanks for the epiphany!

 

[David Deering]

Yeah, typically you would add the markup directly to the content if you were using microdata. However, if you'd like to use JSON-LD, then you would add that to either the head or body and would not need to insert it around the actual content.

 

[Rich Owings]

David, I think you have solved all my problems in implementing this. I can use the text editor for page-specific markup. I also want to use sameAs / JSON-LD, but fortunately the newest version of the Yoast SEO plugin does that. I am going to try it all out ASAP and test the markup. I'll report back here as to how it goes.

Thank you for taking the time to help!

 

[David Deering]

Sounds good, Rich. And anytime!