As part of the website optimization strategy, schemas are a vital part due to several reasons:1. The desire to improve the CTR in the search results.2. The potential for improving the understanding of the page by search engines.3.Control and direction of the search engines on what is on the page.4.Using schemas to create entities for companies, site owners, content writers, and professionals.In this guide, I will layout 2 methods for researching the schemas of competitors that will help you decide, according to the schemas, whether the type of content you are optimizing is appropriate for a particular keyword and which schemas are recommended to use for each keyword, and explore what competitors do and probably do right.
Schema Markup or Structured Data is a way of describing/making accessible what exactly is on the page regarding structure and content to search engines by implementing a schema markup code.Schemas are – the product of a collaboration between many search engines, including Google and Bing, and they were to help the search engines and the content and page more easily.Schemas are basically based on “type” and “properties”, and thus each schema gives search engines an understanding of the type of content on the page and the breakdown of the page content by schema properties.Types of schemas and properties of each type of schema were determined in advance when the cooperation between the search engines was formed, and you can find a list of all types of schemas and their properties on schema.org. The schemas’ structure can be written in infinite configurations, i.e., schema’s properties and the structure can be changed. But basically, there are only 3 types of schema code that will eventually be implanted on the site page:1.JSON-LD2.Microdata3.RD-FAJSON-LD is the type of consent most recommended by Google and, in my opinion, also the most flexible and easy to use.* New Types of schematics and features are added to schema.org all the time, and changes are made.To stay updated on the site about the new and expected changes in the future. Now that we know the basics, we understand that we implement schemas based on the page’s content.
The tools we will use:
After a Google search of the keyword you want to check, we will check which schemas are on the pages from the first position to the tenth or twentieth position in the search results. The reason for checking pages ranked all the way up to the 20th place is that there are ranked pages that: pages are ranked due to other ranking signals that are not schemas, and therefore we cannot assume the top pages’ schemas are the most correct. For example, large sites of reputable companies and brands can rank high even without perfect site optimization.Therefore, for specific keywords, we will examine all the sites ranked up to 20th place. When checking the ranked pages’ schemas, it will be possible to see the commonality between all the ranked pages’ schemas. Before we begin, theres’ a clarification to be made – there are several schemas that are very common and are found in most sites that incorporate schemas such as the WebPage schema and the WebSite schema that are used just to describe the site pages to the search engines in a simple way and the chances that these schemas significantly affect site optimization are slim.However, later on, it is worth checking them out and see how they are built and designed to learn more about the pages.
The end result will be an analysis that includes:
After running all the addresses in the tool and copying all the schemas, n we can now see the commonalities between the schemas on all the pages, but before that, it is essential to know which schemas can be ignored (at least in the initial step of the analysis).As I mentioned before, WebPage, Website, and Breadcrumbs Schemas are essential but common and will be found on almost every page and site where there are schemas, so in the initial step of the analysis, we will not address them.However, it is recommended to delve into these schemas’ properties to learn the practice and content marked by competitors.
The reason we want to examine the title of the page and the URL is:
There are now many sites that use software or plugin to implement schemas that work automatically.It is sometimes the case that site owners don’t invest thought in choosing schemas.For
example, there may be pages where the title or URL indicates an article
or page that would be of a type of a HOW-TO type or a new news content
type which describes an event in a particular time, past, present, or
future, and the “Article” type of schema in its basic form would not be
the most fitting for that type of content. In this case, the NewsArticle
or Event schema might be more appropriate, the content might be more
appropriate as BlogPosting rather than Article, etc. So it is important
to look at the page title, the URL, and perhaps even the content of the
pages to see a pattern and conclude which schema would be the most
appropriate for the page.
2.to expand on the previous stage,
on the types of schemas that exist on the page ranked by each
competitor using a certain keyword.
Each competitor will likely have
one central schema that will be the best fit for the content on the
page, and that schema and its properties need to be analyzed. But these
might not be enough. For example, there may be a contact page containing
the local business information (LocalBusiness schema). Or
a page with a product/event/location review, with an EVENT schema
because this is an annual/one-time event, etc. Therefore, according to
the competitor’s page content and schemas, we will summarize each ranked
competitor and add it to the Excel file.
**
Opinion, for the analysis itself, it would probably be better to start
with the results ranked from the bottom (position 10 or 20) and to work
up to the first result on the page, the reason is that (as noted above)
in many cases, larger sites are less likely to invest in their schemas
or not add them at all, So it is better to start with the sites that are
more likely to put effort and invest in their schemas to help with
their rankings.with one
reservation, news sites, recipe sites, and commerce sites will very
often invest in their schemas because of the significant benefits from
them**
*with the research we performed, and by our conclusions, we could use it to craft new content fitting ideas*With everything above being said, There’s an easier and faster way to do the same competitor research with my tool, Schemaster.
Once you enter the tool’s interface, you can search for a keyword using the desired search location (no VPN needed), for example, Israel / United States / England. After that, enter the keyword we want to analyze and click the ANALYZE button.The tool will automatically do the entire process of testing the results ranked from 1st to 10th and will provide us with all the schemas found on all pages, the information on which schemas were common and which were less so, as well as which schemas from those found are schemas that have a chance of visually affecting the search results.If visually changing our search results is what we aim for, for example, with product pages, We will know if these rich result schemas exist in the competitor’s pages.
All we have left to do is, using an Excel file: