YMYL Schema Theme

Finally, the Internet’s most advanced Schema.org Structured coded and Search Engine Optimized theme available today…The YMYL Schema Theme.

This is an amazing new WordPress theme that you can easily setup and use for most all types of websites (for example: large and small business sites and blogs). At its foundation, the YMYL Schema Theme is built upon the most popular, safest, and advanced WP theme, Twenty Seventeen

Twenty Sixteen is a modernized take on an ever-popular WordPress layout — the horizontal masthead with an optional right sidebar that works perfectly for blogs and websites. It has custom color options with beautiful default color schemes, a harmonious fluid grid using a mobile-first approach, and impeccable polish in every detail. The YMYL Schema Theme will make your WordPress look beautiful everywhere.

Ah, but don’t be deceived by its simplicity, because…

• The YMYL Schema Theme has achieved Rapturous Genius in terms of Schema Markup perfection according to Google.
• WooCommerce compatibility with Schema Markup styled elements for each product you sell – A HUGE Rankings Boost!
• Fully Search Engine Optimized using advanced coding methods.
• Live Theme Customizer – see your changes before going live.
• Lots of Styling Options – Colors, Google Fonts, background imagery and more.
• Fully Structured Data Coded: using schema.org vocabulary.
• 100% Google Structured Data Tester validated.
• 100% Responsive & Mobile Ready.
• Thoroughly Commented Code Blocks for those who want to learn how WordPress works as a CMS (content management system ).
• Easy to Use and Customizable so that you can make it uniquely yours!
• The YMYL Theme is pre-coded to easily install and benefit from the YMYL Footer Plugin ..for an even bigger boost in rankings.
  

We all want to get the best possible results from our Google rankings, and this can most often feel like a bit of a minefield!

You may recall I recently wrote a blog post on how we can define important content on websites to help ensure good ranking for relevance in search engines. In that article I discussed how Google reads data on websites to rank it’s relevance, compared to the way you or I read the data.

Well, Google has recently updated their guidance on how to structure data, including advice on the importance of “hidden” micro data / tags. These tags help to define how search engines interpret the different types of information on a web page (from addresses to events, and other structured forms of data).

The full, somewhat technical guidance can be seen here . However, here’s my rather more human-readable version…

We’re all familiar with the concept of meta tags and keyword rich web copy in order to improve search engine listings, but the emphasis on micro data takes the art of defining important content to a whole new level.

When we search for information we can scan a page of text and make a quick judgement on whether it has any relevance to us. For example, if you are reading a auto dealer reviews section on a website, the auto dealer’s opening hours and location are usually fairly obvious to the human eye. However, the technology that powers search engines has only a limited understanding of the text. They simply don’t understand the nuances or meanings of the written text. This is where structured data and schematics come in.

What changes we need to make to our sites…

During the coding / html stage of a website, we can mark up web pages with schematic coding and add micro data within the underlying html code. This coding is not visible to the viewer of the web page as it is embedded within the code itself, but it is essential in communicating the relevance of the information to search engines.

A structured series of schematics within the page, that are easily understood by search engines, is an essential tool in the battle to win those coveted ‘First Page’ listings, and to really push the website up the relevance rankings.

These schematics could define:

• Events
• Organizations
• People
• Places, Local Business, Restaurants etc…
• Products or Offers
• Reviews
• Creative Works (Books, Music, Audio Recordings)

Embedded non-text objects including:

• Audio clips
• Images
• Videos

Full details of what structured data can be used is available at http://schema.org and the specifications are currently being upgraded.

I spent hours upon hours adding Schema markup to my collection of websites because I knew the benefits of Structured Data that Google loves. But, after awhile, I knew there had to be an easier way!

So after thoroughly checking out the latest WordPress Theme (Twenty Sixteen), I decided to develop a theme that has Schema.org Markup built right into the them. Now, it’s incredibly simple to be rewarded by Google for having Structured Data Markup on all my sites.

This new WordPress Theme easily accommodates websites for large and small business owners and YMYL Fans so that they can also take full advantage of the Structured Data that Google officially supports and encourages Website owners to use in 2016.

The YMYL Theme’s structured data is built right in!

If you are a business owner (or just in charge of your business’ website) and you want to dramatically increase your traffic from search engines like Google and Bing, then your first step should be to integrate structured data into your website.

For professional search engine optimizers (or SEOs), the benefits of employing structured data has long been clear, but I understand that most of our clients don’t read SEO blogs on a regular basis. It can be difficult to explain many SEO concepts, so I wanted to provide useful examples of structured data for many different industries to help you get an idea of how you can use structured data for your website. But first, let’s take a step back, what are we even talking about?

What is Structured Data?

Structured data is informational tags placed on websites (not seen by users) that clearly defines information on a webpage to help search engines understand the context of that information. The most basic structured data is often used for local businesses to define simple information about their company: name, address, and phone number.

Schema.org is the accepted standard for structured data on the internet. Schema.org acts a repository for accepted structured data vocabulary. The definition base is constantly expanding to increase the scope and useful of structured data on the internet. It has quickly become the industry standard for structured data and is sponsored by Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. Schema is so ubiquitous, in fact, that its name is now synonymous with structured data. Much like Kleenex or Q Tips, as casual reference to Schema is the same as structured data (you’ve been warned).

Out in the wild, structured data is impossible to see without looking at a page’s source code. The beauty of schema is that it exists only for search engines, which means there’s no need to pretty it up. Here’s an example of snippet of code from a website here in Las Vegas that’s defining an office location.

Examples of Structured Data

So if you’re still around and interested in structured data, you may be wondering how to use this wonderful information. I’ve put together a list of how a few simple lines of code can totally alter how your business is represented online. The examples below are a small sampling of options available to you and I highly recommend browsing the full schema.org site to see what’s possible. Any web developer should be able to implement these changes pretty easily, once you’ve identified the appropriate tags.

Schema for Local Businesses

For most small (or local) businesses, the most relevant pieces of structured data will revolve around local search. These schema definitions will define location, opening hours, and more.  While most of the terms don’t need a thorough explanation, I’ll provide any notes you may need to know.

Opening Hours – List opening hours of your business by day of week.
Address – Physical address of the business.
Geo – Address not enough? Geo-Tag your exact longitude or latitude for precise position on earth.
Branch Of – Defines the location as a branch of a larger organization. This is great for franchises.
Logo – Wrap this tag around the image of your logo to ensure the appropriate image comes up with users are looking for it. This is very helpful if you’ve recently redesigned your logo. This tag should help promote the new image in search over the older iterations.
Telephone – As you’d guess, this tells search engines that the number indicated is your primary office phone number.
Reviews – Used to indicate reviews (surprise!) of the local business, not to be confused with Review which is generally associated with the reviews of individual products or services.

You can see the full list of Local Business schema here.

Schema for E-Commerce

Of all business categories listed here, e-commerce has the most to gain with properly employed schema tags. Most e-commerce sites feature thousands of pages (if not more) that are auto-generated for each product. This product likely has duplicate content provided by the manufacturer and isn’t doing much to increase the SEO of your site. By wrapping item details in structured data, you can get a leg up on the competition, getting your products in front of more users.

Most structured data can be built into page templates much like the YMYL Schema Theme, making this a mostly automated process.

Audience – Define the intended audience for the product.
Is Accessory or Spare Part for – This rather lengthy tag is pretty self-explanatory, but if you’re selling replacement parts, make sure to define the exact model.
Item Condition – If you’re selling used products, use this to express item condition or quality.
Product ID – This flexible signifier identifies the product ID which includes ISBN numbers for books.
Offers – This is a way to provide any incentive or offer tied to a product.

You can see the full list of E-Commerce schema here.

Schema for Restaurants

Many of the relevant markup data for local businesses will overlap with restaurants including the name, opening hours, and phone number, but there are a few additional specifications that can be of use.

Accepts Reservations – If your restaurant accepts reservation, this schema tag will express that to users on the Google SERP.
Cuisine – While self-explanatory, help Google classify your restaurant correctly by defining your cuisine type through structured data.
Menu – If potential diners are hungry for a specific dish, using structured data to highlight your menu can ensure you’re not overlooked by your competition.
Price Range – Commonly expressed on sites like Google+, Yelp, and other review sites, this allows users to know the expected price range on your site, ensuring there’s no misinformation on review platforms.

You can see the full list of restaurant schema here.

Schema Alternative

So what if your website is hosted on a painfully out-of-date CMS that simply doesn’t allow for the addition of structured data to enhance your site?

Well, you’re definitely not alone. The internet is riddled with websites stuck on stubborn systems for a litany of reasons, but there’s hope! At YMYL Themes, we’ve found recent success in using the YMYL Schema Markup Plugin and the associated  Google Search Console’s Data Highlighter tool.

Simply log into the Google account that’s linked to the domain in Search Console and go to Search Appearance -> Data Highlighter. Follow the tutorial and “highlight” the relevant pieces of information on the site. While less permanent than using schema in a site’s code, this is a suitable stopgap to increase your search visibility.

To see how a comprehensive SEO strategy could change your business, contact YMYL Themes today and set up a consultation.

Schema.org is an initiative launched on 2 June 2011 by Bing, Google and Yahoo! (the operators of the then world’s largest search engines) to “create and support a common set of schemas for structured data markup on web pages.” In November 2011 Yandex (whose search engine is the largest one in Russia) joined the initiative. They propose using the schema.org vocabulary along with the Microdata, RDFa, or JSON-LD formats to mark up website content with metadata about itself. Such markup can be recognized by search engine spiders and other parsers, thus gaining access to the meaning of the sites (see Semantic Web). The initiative also describes an extension mechanism for adding additional properties. Public discussion of the initiative largely takes place on the W3C public vocabularies mailing list.

Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

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