Use schema in a more organised and more meaningful way

Tin says: “Get to know schema and start using it in a more organised and more meaningful way.”

Are there not enough SEOs using schema?

“Not many SEOs are using all the advantages of schema or not many even know what those advantages are.

In the context of today’s SEO world, where data is constantly being produced at a level that it never has been before, schema is gaining importance because it allows you to structure and present the data in the way that you want Google to understand it.”

How would you summarise the current state of schema?

“It’s not being used properly, and people should start using it better.

To start using it correctly, you first need to know and understand what schema can be used for. What can you gain by adding schema to your website? A lot of that is not clearly explained by Google – or by anyone, really.

By adding schema to your website, you can upgrade your data quality, first of all. Then you can dictate how that data is organised and how it’s ultimately presented. You can prevent inconsistencies and errors throughout your website.

I believe that schema is going to be used as a sort of metadata, like meta descriptions and meta titles. It can give a lot of backend information about the semantics of your data, what you mean by having certain websites, who you are, and how you present yourself to Google.”

What elements of schema are implemented well and what elements need to be implemented better?

“There are certain types of schema that are used all across the web. Some plugins do it automatically, for instance with product schema on e-commerce platforms and web stores. That type of schema is added automatically and it’s not very deep. It’s just a scratch on the surface.

You need to get to know and understand schema, to see what all of these elements are that you can add to your schema markup, and then add that schema to your website.

Nowadays, schema is being added to websites just because Google said that it’s a good thing to have. People are doing it just so it’s done. They do not understand why it should be added, and all of the things that you can add to your schema to help Google understand the website better.

You need to get to know schema to see what you can add to deepen the quality of the data.”

Is that an individual SEO’s job or can you use software to automatically add schema without human intervention?

“I have used ChatGPT to generate schema for me, and it’s doing a really good job in establishing a framework for that. It’s not doing a perfect job, but it’s doing well enough to get you started.

You can simply ask it to give you the specific schema for a certain type of business, like insurance agency schema, for example. It does a really good job of giving you the framework.

Of course, then you want to go on schema.org to see what else you can add, and how you can connect other dots on the website.”

Is there a certain way that you need to share information with ChatGPT to ensure that it’s giving you the best result?

“You can go crazy and paste in the entire content of the web page to give it that context, but I am just asking it to give me a framework. I don’t give it information on the website or the name of the brand. I just want to get that framework that I can edit later.

If you want to skip all of the manual work and have ChatGPT give you schema that you can copy and paste to a website, that could be possible. However, for that step of getting to know and understand schema, it’s really important to not just go to ChatGPT and ask it to give you the finished product.

It’s okay for AI to give you the framework, then you need to go to schema.org and see what else you can do so that you better understand what you are doing.”

Does this have to be done for every piece of content that you publish on your web page?

“Of course, if you have a giant web store, it’s really difficult to add schema to all of your products. That’s the sort of thing that needs to be done automatically.

What needs to be prioritised are the About Us page and the organisation page. We’re not just talking about e-commerce platforms or web stores. Structured data is gaining importance not only for web stores but also for all sorts of brands – not just brands that have an online platform where they’re selling their products or services.

Branding is going to be a big thing in SEO for 2025. By adding schema on your About Us page and on your homepage, you are telling Google who you are, what you are doing, how information on your website is presented, and what you want Google to tell your customers about you.

You’re educating Google on what your brand is about. You’re giving it more confidence and you’re making it more likely that your brand is going to be featured in the knowledge graph and perhaps even be picked up by AI-powered search engines.

By adding schema, you are doing marketing to machines and to Google, so that Google can advertise you better.”

Are there more opportunities in areas like AI overviews, which make it more important to utilise schema?

“That’s actually the main reason why I decided to talk about schema. In April, Google’s CEO did an interview where he mentioned that schema will be used more and more for AI overviews.

Therefore, schema will be increasingly important not only because of all the things that I have mentioned already but also because it will be used by AI, like Gemini, in order to present information more clearly and gather that information from your website.”

How important is it for your brand to appear in these AI overviews?

“I believe it’s not that important. Many SEOs have done their case studies and, if you have a featured snippet or some kind of rich result, it doesn’t really do a lot for your click-through rate.

I wouldn’t prioritise that. It’s not that important to appear in that AI overview; the rest of the SERP is more important.

We don’t yet know how people will respond to AI overviews. That’s left to be seen, but I still believe that there will be a lot more value in the rest of the SERP.”

Do you use any tools to track your brand success, and make sure that your brand is optimized for the SERP?

“I don’t use any specific tools; I just use Google Search Console. There are other tools out there, but I haven’t needed them. When I start testing with schema, I focus on only that one thing and try to measure its success.

I try to see which keywords are getting people to certain pages by adding schema. Has that number increased? Has that number decreased? Has your brand visibility got bigger? Did people start to search for your brand in different ways? Perhaps they are not just searching for your brand name, but your brand name plus other terms as well.

If you’re operating a service, like SEO, have people started using the main keyword for your industry along with your brand? For instance, my company is called Canonical, so I am looking to see whether people have started using ‘Canonical SEO’, ‘SEO services Canonical’, etc.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Stop adding alt text to images. I love doing it, and I always do it, and it’s become a sort of habit. However, if you’re struggling for time, that’s a really manual task that you can do, but it’s not going to get you far.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it but, if you’re struggling for time, maybe that’s not the thing you should prioritise. You can also stop worrying about Core Web Vitals. It’s important for things like accessibility, but it’s not going to get you very far on its own.”

Tin Đudajek is Founder of the Canonical SEO Agency, and you can find him over at Canonical.hr.