What does your website’s schema markup look like? If you don’t know, you’re going to want to keep reading!
In this blog, Ray Day, SEO Specialist, will explain why image schema markup is important, especially for Google Images and mobile users, and how the right strategy can increase your clicks and SERP ranking. If you’re just getting started with schema markup, be sure to check out our post, What is Schema Markup? Your Complete Guide to Using Schema Markup, as a great starting place!
What You’ll Learn:
- What is Image Schema Markup?
- Benefits of Using Image Schema for SEO
- Understanding the Image Field in Schema Markup
- Implementing Image Schema Markup
- Adding Schema Manually
- Using Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper
- Testing and Validating Image Schema
- FAQs about Image Schema Markup
Expert Opinion on Image Schema Markup and Rich Results Images
There’s a reason why that number one spot on the SERP is so important. Being in the first few results drastically increases your organic search traffic, boosts your brand awareness, and helps you stand out from competitors. But it’s not just about text results—having your images appear in SERPs can make a huge impact by drawing more attention to your listing and increasing the chances of inclusion in rich results. These visual enhancements can significantly improve click-through rates and engagement.
One of the most effective ways to land that spot? A solid SEO strategy that uses image schema markup. This technique’s endless benefits include higher click-through rates, brand visibility, and user engagement.
If your SEO strategy doesn’t include types of schema markup, you’ll love the information I’m about to share! Keep reading to find out how I use this strategy with my clients and how you can tweak it to fit your business’s goals, too.
What is Image Schema Markup?
Image schema markup is a type of structured data that can be added to a website’s HTML to give search engines additional information about images on the page.
It can be used for all types of content but is especially helpful for creative work, including:
- Products
- Articles
- Creative work
- Person
- Place
- Event
- Organization
Images are a requirement for all content types, be it an article, a recipe, or an event, but they’re not a content type that stands on its own.
As powerful as it can be, though, you should never use it alone. It should always be used as part of a broader strategy that includes additional types of schema markup, including carousel schema markup, article, video, recipe, review, or product.
Combined, all of these types give a search engine more information about the website it’s crawling. The more information it has, the better your website is indexed. The better your website is indexed, the more likely it will show up in the top search results.
Benefits of Using Image Schema for SEO
In general, the key benefit of image schema markup is that it creates another opportunity to get in front of your target audience.
While structured data is becoming an increasingly important piece of the competitive SEO landscape, getting markup wrong isn’t a death sentence for search performance.
See, unless Google catches you marking up hidden content, bad markups won’t hurt your rankings.
However, failing to make corrections or implement markups in the first place means you miss a huge SEO opportunity.
Some of these huge opportunities include:
- Improved Click-Through Rates
- Enhanced Visibility in Google Images
- Potential for Featured Snippets
We talked about how Image schema markup is a good way to get onto the first page of the SERP, but it’s also a great way to get a rich image result.
Rich results provide valuable information for both the search engine and the searchers themselves. For example, someone might search for how to roast a chicken, and the top result will give them a preview of the steps, along with an image of the final result.
An example of Google product schema
So, before that person clicks, they can get a sense of how that recipe turns out–and perhaps get a sense of the ingredients needed or how much of a time commitment they’re in for.
If you thought a front-page position or even a top-three organic SERP position was good for traffic, position zero takes things to the next level–particularly if you have a visual element in the mix.
Understanding the Image Field in Schema Markup
The most important thing to understand about schema image markup is the “image” field. This is where you can provide search engines with critical information about the images on your page.
Google refers to this field to extract data about the images, effectively pulling that data into the rich results highlight. It’s super important to make sure that your information is correct as it is directly related to how your images are displayed in search results and how your rich results feature will appear.
There are three essential points of the image field:
- Image URL – this will be the image Google displays in the rich result feature
- Description – this is similar to alt text but gives a more detailed description of what is happening in the image
- Format – it can be incredibly helpful to tell Google what type of file your image is
To make the most of your image field, be sure to use high-quality images, optimize your descriptions, understand how to correctly use alt text and titles, and check your URL for accessibility. If the URL is blocked to crawlers, it can’t pull your content and that will tank your rich result feature.
To improve your content’s chances of appearing in relevant search results, you should also optimize the caption, thumbnail, and license fields.
Implementing Image Schema Markup
The more content you mark up, the better. However, if you’re new at this, adding schema to your site can be complicated.
You can either choose to use the Google Structured Data Markup Helper or go the DIY route and add the code to your site manually. Let’s first look at how to add image attributes manually usually JSON-LD or Microdata.
Adding Schema Manually
There are two ways to add schema manually: JSON-LD or Microdata.
JSON-LD, also known as JavaScript Object Notion for Linked Data, includes information like image URL, description, format, caption, and thumbnail URL.
Here is an example of schema using JSON-LD code:
Use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper
Instead of manually adding code to your website, you can also turn to Google’s Structure Data Markup Helper. Located inside your Google Search Console, this awesome tool will generate custom HTML or Javascript code for your content.
The Structured Data Markup Helper makes it incredibly easy to add image schema markup to your website. Follow these instructions to get started:
Open the Structured Data Markup Helper and choose the Website tab.
Then, you’ll want to choose the type of page you want to mark up. So, this could be an event, an article, or a recipe. While you can have multiple items on one page, Google advises users to keep things within a theme. For example, highlight movies or events, not movies and events, even if it’s all on one page. Think of it along the same lines as sticking to one CTA per landing page. The intent needs to be clear.
Next, you’ll either enter the URL of a live page or paste in the HTML. If you choose to use a URL, the page must be live and completely public.
Select Start Tagging from the menu. Once you’ve added the page you’d like to mark up, it’s time to start highlighting the most important elements on the page. For help finding all possible values associated with each item, look toward the right side of the page under My Data Items.
If you choose “product,” you’ll want to tag anything a searcher needs to know, such as item description, an image of the product, price, and so on. If you select “article,” the helper presents a different set of options, including author, date published, and a featured image.
Once you’ve tagged all applicable items, select Create HTML to generate the code. You’ll be asked to choose an output mode: JSON-LD or Microdata. Either copy and paste the code and add it to your website or download it to your desktop.
If you opt for JSON-LD, you’ll copy and paste the code into the body of your existing page.
For Microdata, you’ll actually replace the entire page by adding the new HTML file.
And finally, to make sure code works, you’ll want to test it. To do this, simply copy and paste it into the Markup Helper. This tool gives you a full list of missing fields and in some cases, offers a preview of what your content will look like to searchers.
After you’ve created your code, it may take some time for Google to index the update, sometimes up to three weeks! Of course, you can submit an indexing request to speed up the process, but there’s no definitive timeline for how long this process takes.
If you want to add more content to a particular page, Google recommends following a few additional steps:
- Select Add missing tags at the bottom of the My Data Items column.
- Do any of the following:
- Add a value by choosing a tag from the “select a tag” dropdown and add the value to the text box. For example, you can select product and type in “iPhone XS cases.”
- Delete existing data by selecting the X in a text box.
- Edit existing data by changing the value listed in the text box.
- Save changes.
Whether you add it manually or use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper, you should always keep it updated and test it often.
Testing and Validating Image Schema
Google is very clear about its guidelines. If you want your image schema markup to work, you have to follow them to a T.
This can be an incredibly daunting task, especially if you don’t do it often! Before you add your code to your website, you can test it using Schema.org’s free Schema Markup Validator.
Google also offers a free Rich Results Test, which will help you test your code to see if it will work.
Sometimes, your code won’t work for a simple reason, like your markup not being eligible for rich results. Sometimes, there’s a more abstract reason that Google won’t stick your site in position zero. Google might not consider your domain to be reliable or you have too few pages with structured data markup.
Other issues include things like profanity or a mismatch between your content and the featured image you’ve chosen. Maybe the data fails to represent what your brand or the content on your other pages is all about.
Some of the most popular issues include:
- Missing required fields
- Misalignment with page content
- Incorrect field values
- Non-unique identifiers
- Overstuffed keywords
Just like your website is a living and breathing project, your image schema markup should always be evolving, too. Make it a habit to regularly use these tools to check for errors. You should also re-evaluate your structured data when updating your site’s content or design. This will ensure that everything is working properly.
You can also monitor your progress through the Google Search Console. Here you’ll find insights and alerts about issues with your structured data, allowing you to get ahead of any potential problems and track your schema’s performance.
FAQs About Image Schema Markup
1. What is image field in schema markup?
The image field is part of your structured data that provides details about your image. It typically includes the image URL and a brief keyword-rich description. It can also include a caption that adds context, a thumbnail URL, and a license to use the image.
2. How to put in image attribute according to schema markup?
You can add image schema markup through JSON-LD or Microdata formats. If you don’t know how (or don’t want to!) do it manually, you can use the Google Structured Data Markup Helper to guide you through the process of writing the correct code.
3. What is the recommended format for implementing schema markup?
The preferred format for implementing schema markup is JSON-LD. It will help effectively communicate your site’s context to search engines and improve your chances of receiving a rich search result.
Implement a Successful Structured Data Strategy with Ignite Visibility
Schema markup is quickly becoming an SEO mainstay, soon to dominate the SERP conversations just like backlinks and keywords before.
Whether you need to improve an existing strategy or start completely from scratch, Ignite Visibility has you covered. Our experts have worked with hundreds of companies across the country to help them boost their visibility using SEO best practices, including a solid structured data strategy.
Ignite Visibility can help you:
- Include image schema markup in your website design
- Develop a strong SEO strategy
- Implement a content marketing strategy that works
- And more!
Are you ready to boost your page to the top of the SERP?
