Structured Data for eCommerce: Boosting ROI Through Schema Markup

In my opinion, schema markup is one of the most underused and underrated SEO strategy for e-commerce sites. It alone is not currently a ranking factor, yet Google has continually published documentation that supports the idea of schema being at least a consideration taken into account when ranking a website’s overall quality.

I love schema so much, I did a talk at BrightonSEO about it: An Introduction to Advanced Schema Auditing

Therefore, utilising structured data on your e-commerce website could give you the leg up on your competition, proving your worth to Google’s algorithm. In this article, we’ll explain why we think structured data is such a great tool for e-commerce, as well as divulging a few implementation tips.

What is Structured Data?

In the context of schema, structured data refers to the information conveyed within your schema markup code on your website. It is used to describe the contents of your page, as well as the various interactions that your visitors can perform while browsing. Structured data takes shape as an easily understood piece of code that search engines use to learn more about the page’s content, in a much more efficient manner when compared to standard HTML.

E-commerce sites stock similar products from across the web. Whether you’re a retailer or a reseller, there can be stiff competition in the SERPs. Using schema can help push your products into product carousels and informational content into rich snippets. This can be anything from the product price to how many reviews there are for it.

Learn more: An Introduction To Schema & How To Use It

Structured Data for eCommerce: Our Top Tips

There are numerous different types of schema markup  that can be used on most pages, with a few of which being mainly applicable to those that sell products. Here are our top tips on the structured data you need to include on your e-commerce site:

Fleshed Out Product Listings

Products are the number one feature of e-commerce sites, so it’s important that Google is able to discern different products and understand what those products are. This can all be achieved with the Product script. Below is a typical structured data Product example that you can replicate:

<script type=”application/ld+json”>

{

  “@context”: “https://schema.org/”,

  “@type”: “Product”,

  “name”: “Squeaky Dog Toy”,

  “image”: “https://example.com/dog-toy.jpg”,

  “description”: “Brightly coloured squeaky dog toy shaped like a T-Rex.”,

  “brand”: {

    “@type”: “Brand”,

    “name”: “Liberty Marketing”

  },

  “sku”: “123456”,

  “offers”: {

    “@type”: “Offer”,

    “url”: “https://example.com/squeaky-dog-toy”,

    “priceCurrency”: “GBP”,

    “price”: “4.99”,

    “priceValidUntil”: “2023-12-31”,

    “availability”: “https://schema.org/InStock”,

    “itemCondition”: “https://schema.org/NewCondition”

  },

  “aggregateRating”: {

    “@type”: “AggregateRating”,

    “ratingValue”: “5”,

    “bestRating”: “5”,

    “worstRating”: “1”,

    “ratingCount”: “100”

  }

}

</script>

There are numerous properties  that you should include that we’ve covered in the above schema Product example, such as the SKU (stock keeping unit), price, availability, and ratings. At the very least, we strongly advise that you include:

• Name
• Price
• Description
• Image URLs
• Currency
• Stock status
• Brand
• Review information

Breadcrumbs

For e-commerce, off-site navigation is just as important as on-site. Whereas on your website you can directly control the labels for certain product category pages and subsequent URLs within the main navigation, Google uses Breadcrumb schema to unpack your site’s pages complete with a user-friendly layout.

Examples of this can be seen below:

This first result shows how Google may display your site without breadcrumbs. This next example uses breadcrumbs as well as some additional schema. Not only does this take significantly less time for a user to digest, but it also even provides some further information about the products on this page.

Over time, search engines have gotten a lot better at picking out breadcrumbs by themselves, but this just provides us with an insurance back up just in case it slips up.

Navigational Markups

This next tip is especially important for sites with a great deal of branded search presence. When looking for websites, sometimes users will visit pages directly via the URL, while others prefer to simply search for the site in question.

Once found, schema’s navigational markup can allow for your website’s main navigation to be brought directly into Google’s search. Accomplished via the ‘SiteNavigationElement’ markup, you can implement product category pages, site search boxes, as well as additional pages that you’d like to highlight such as deals, temporary sales, and clearance offers.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is your warranty? How long does delivery take? What is your return window? All of these are valid questions coming from a prospective customer looking to take the plunge with your website.

Thankfully, schema allows you to highlight these commonly asked queries to instil even more trust in your website, all thanks to the “FAQPage” schema Thing . Not to be confused with the “QAPage” tag, FAQ schema should be introduced wherever you have multiple question and answer elements to your page’s content. This could be at the very bottom of your category/product pages, on FAQ specific pages, or even within FAQ-style blog articles.

Google advises against using the same questions across multiple pages. So, if you find yourself answering questions repeatedly via different pages, it might be more efficient for you to have a dedicated, generalised FAQ page, with more product-related FAQs being addressed individually.

Master Schema with Those That Know it Best

At Liberty, we deal with the complexity of site structures, coding intricacies and schema markup language on a daily basis.

Whether you’re diagnosing a crawling issue, or suffering from indexing woes, our technical SEO services can help you achieve all of your schema goals, and more. Contact the experts at Liberty and our team of technical SEO experts will help you make sense of your situation.