5 types of schema for news
In this week's newsletter, we are talking about structured data again. We look at five common schemas that can be added to news web pages.
Hello and welcome back! This week, it’s Jessie, back from the emotional brink of the ten-minute version of All Too Well (Taylor’s version). A dream – a thrill! – to revisit the album that first made me a poptimist.
This week, it’s all about schema – also known as structured data, also known as extra code we feed to Google to help it better understand our web pages. There are many, many schemas we could define, but for our purposes, we’re going to look at a handful of types that are useful in the context of news.
Don’t forget to sign up for our Slack community to talk about SEO for news at any time!
Let’s add some data.
In this issue:
What is structured data?
What types of schema are useful for news?
Tools to create and test schema
THE 101
What is structured data?
Structured data is a standardized way for providing extra information to describe the page in a way that makes it easier for search engines to understand.
It’s a way to provide “explicit clues” to search bots about the meaning of the page, or specific context within the page;
The rules for structured data are agreed to by all major search engines, and are available on Schema.org. Schema is the shared language used to provide the data in “structured data;”
Refer to the Markup for News page of Schema.org for background and additional information about Schema and the news.
Structured data is written in JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data). JSON-LD is standardized and recognized by all search engines, and is written in key/value pairs that are relatively straightforward to understand.
JSON-LD can be added directly to the page in either the
<head>or<body>tag. (For most of us, we will add the code from our CMS with an HTML block/embed code into the body of an article.)JSON-LD is mutually exclusive to the HTML of the page. This means it won’t show up to readers on the actual page.
Why add it? Rich snippets and higher ranking. In short, Google is taking more and more space for itself in search results. Long gone are the days of 10 blue links. Google wants to provide the “best” experience for the user, even when that’s to the determinant of publishers (by increasingly fulfilling a query in search results instead on on-site).
However, those rich snippets can be a driver of traffic, and structured data helps snag that spot.
Remember, of course, there are no guarantees with ranking on search engines. Adding structured data doesn’t always mean you will see rich results – all you can do is add it to a page, optimize for your targeted keywords and monitor results to see what happens.
How to add schema: Obviously, the ideal workflow here is automation – structured data added directly from your CMS.
If that isn’t possible, Technical SEO has a great schema tool to generate the code for Article, Breadcrumb, Event, FAQ Page, How-to, Job Posting, Local Business, Organization, Person, Product, Recipe, Video, and Website schemas.
Always validate your schema using Schema Markup Validator or Schema Markup Testing Tool from Google Search Central.
THE HOW TO
Schema for News
Structured data is written as a key/value pair, a linked data item. The key is a descriptor (what information is being provided), and the value is the information itself, in the expected data format (a number, text, or a boolean).
These are the data types used for structured data:
There’s a lot we could cover. We are going to focus on five common types of structured data that's useful for newsrooms.
Article
All news articles on your site should – by default – include the Article/NewsArticle schema. Also make sure your pages include NewsMediaOrganizaion, and provide the name of the organization, the URL and logo.
What is it: Schema.org defines an Article as a "news article or piece of investigative report." The Article schema is intended to cover all the kinds of journalism we create, from lifestyle reporting to sports coverage to an in-depth investigation.
When to use it: Always, across the site. This should, ideally, be available on all stories on your site, added by default by the content management system.
What to add: Try to provide as much detail as possible, including:
articleBody: The text of the body of the article.
articleSection: Text describing the section (Arts, Sports, National) the story belongs to.
headline: The primary headline for the article.
alternativeHeadline: A secondary headline.
datePublished: The Date an article was first published.
dateModified: The Date an article was most recently updated. Both the datePublished and dateModified values must be formatted as proper Date or DateTime values.
description: A Text value providing a description of the article. Often the meta description (aka the deck).
author: The Organization or Person value who wrote the story. An organizational value (The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, etc.) differs from a reporter byline (John Doe).
image: The full ImageObject for the associated image or just the URL. Every page should include an image; Google picks the best image based on resolution and pixel size. Aim for at least 1200 pixels wide.
publisher: The Organization or Person of the article.
This goes for all other schemas: If you’re doing the extra work of adding structured data, make sure you populate all the relevant fields.
Examples: Use the SEO Pro extension to look at the Article schema in action on news sites like Vox.com, The New York Times, or Washington Post.
Here’s what the reader sees:
Here’s what schema is being provided:
FAQ Page
What it is: An FAQ Page, or "Frequently asked questions" page, is a collection of questions and answers.
When to use it: When collecting a set of questions and answers for a specific topic. An explainer or collection of reported answers to reader questions are very useful pieces of service journalism. When the content answers questions identified in search and serves a real need for readers, FAQs can be a very useful top-of-funnel play.
It’s important to note that Google advises against FAQs where readers can submit answers, or where answers are sourced from a forum.
What to add: Be sure your FAQ pages include the NewsArticle schema (again: by default), and description information along with author details. From there, also include:
Breadcrumb: Links to help a user understand and navigate your site’s hierarchy.
lastReviewed: The Date a page was last updated.
mainEntityOfPage: The CreativeWork or URL for which this thing is the main entity being described. For an FAQ page, the main entity will contain the Question and acceptedAnswer.
Question: An individual question being asked/answered in the FAQ page. In this New York Times example, “Which vaccine is best?” is the question.
acceptedAnswer: The individual answer to a question being asked. In the New York Times example, the accepted answer begins “All three vaccines used in the United States.”
When providing the JSON-LD markup, be sure to include the full body of the question and answer in the data. It’s fine if your site uses an accordion to toggle visibility for the answer on page, like the NYT example, as long as the answer information is always available in the HTML of the page.
Google’s documentation: Mark Up FAQs with Structured Data
Here’s what the reader sees:
Here’s what schema is being provided:
Recipe
What it is: A cooking recipe (coffee cake, the salmon and rice from TikTok, cashew cream). If you add the relevant data, Google can make the recipe eligible for guided recipes (using voice search) or the recipe carousel.
When to use it: When presenting a single recipe. If you have a collection of recipes on a single page, you want the CollectionPage and BreadcrumbList schemas.
What to add: Name and image are required. Additional fields are optional (but strongly recommended).
name: Title for the dish/recipe (Vegan Coffee Cake with cinnamon streusel)
image: Pages must contain at least one image.
description: A short summary of the recipe.
keywords: Other terms for the recipe or related descriptions provided in a list. Each term should be separated by a comma (vegan apple pie, almond crust)
author: The Person or Organization who created the recipe.
cookTime: How long the recipe takes to cook, provided in ISO 8601.
prepTime: How long the recipe will take to prepare, provided in ISO 8601. Make sure the cookTime and prepTime are always provided together.
nutrition: nutrition information for the recipe, including the servingSize, calories, and fatContent.
Google documentation: Recipe Schema Markup | Search Central
Here is what the reader sees:
Here’s what schema is being provided:
Review
What it is: Used for reviews of movies, shows, books, theatre or other events or products. When Google finds valid structured data, it might create a rich snippet providing that summary information from the review.
When to use it: When reviewing the listed content types (and subtypes).
What to add: The author, itemReviewed, name and reviewRating are required.
author: The byline for the person who wrote the review.
itemReviewed: What is being reviewed (a book, event, movie, etc).
reviewRating: This will contain the ratingValue (either a number value for the rating or text).
reviewBody: The body of the review.
name: A title for the review.
Google documentation: Review snippet
Here’s what the reader sees:
Here’s what schema is being provided:
How-to
What it is: A HowTo article provides instructions to complete a task or achieve a result by following a set of steps.
When to use it: Since this is a common content type for evergreen SEO, it’s unlikely the process will change. You can use the HowTo schema when creating a guide that is a series of steps – like painting walls, applying for a new job or deleting duplicate rows in Excel.
What to add: The How-to schema and the BreadcrumbList schema have very similar use cases (lists of steps, in short). For the HowTo schema, name and step are required.
name: The Text name of the piece (How to paint walls).
step: A list of HowToStep elements that make up the full instructions. It’s useful to include an image, the name (title) for the step, and a url to that specific section of the page (site.com/paint-walls#step1). It’s recommended by Google to also include the estimatedCost, image, supply, tool, totalTime and a video for rich results.
Google documentation: Add Structured Data To Your How-To Pages.
Here’s what the reader sees:
Here’s what schema is being provided:
Best practices:
Make sure all article pages have NewsArticle/Article schema.
To the best of your ability and capacity, use the FAQ, HowTo, Recipe, Review structured data on relevant pages (and other other schemas, like LiveBlogPosting, where relevant).
Test and iterate your approach to land a featured spot in search results.
✔️ Action item: Use tools like Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper or Bing’s Guide to Marking Up Your Site to make sure your website is giving the search engine the information they need.
The bottom line: Structured data can be incorporated into files – but be sure to strategize the best workflow for experimentation so you don’t overcommit to manually adding schema before you know it’s worth the extra effort.
THE JOBS LIST
These are roles across the globe we see that are audience positions in journalism. Want to include a position for promotion? Email us.
SEO Manager at Mansueto Ventures (Remote)
Associate Editor, SEO/Commerce at NJ Advance Media (New Jersey)
Project Coordinator, News Revenue Hub (Remote)
SEO Editorial Manager, Springer Nature
Vox is looking for an associate editor, optimization
RECOMMENDED READING
Google's John Mueller confirmed that bolding words can help with SEO. Of course, the strong tag conveys semantic meaning - and should only be applied to the important words or phrases in a sentence.
Adding keyword-rich alt text may not be as effective as you may think.
This look at SEO strategy types is interesting to learn where your focus should go (hint: Publisher integrator is us).
10 Google Analytics tips for SEOs to help you track performance better.
Have something you’d like us to discuss? Send us a note on Twitter (Jessie or Shelby) or to our email: seoforjournalism@gmail.com.
(Don’t forget to bookmark our glossary.)
Written by Jessie Willms and Shelby Blackley