Archives week 22 of 2023

Local Business Schema Optimization Guide

A local business schema is a type of schema markup that provides structured data about a particular physical business or branch of an organization.

By implementing local business schema markup on a website, businesses can provide search engines with clear and consistent information about their business.

This can help search engines display accurate and relevant information and increase the business's visibility to potential customers in the local area.

LocalBusiness schema provides several benefits, including improved search engine visibility, increased click-through rates, consistent information, better customer experience, and a competitive advantage over larger, national brands.

By implementing a high quality and semantic local business schema, businesses can improve their online presence, attract more customers in their local area, and make informed decisions about whether to visit or contact the business.

Here is how to Improve your local business schema for better performance:

• Educate yourself about local business properties
• Avoid repeating the same local business schema on the same page
• Avoid repeating the same schema on every page
• Pick the right local business schema type
• If you can't find the right type for your local business, use additional type
• Link your local business schema with your Google Business Profile
• Utilize reviews and aggregate rating markup
• Use DefinedTerm to declare your keywords
• Use the hasOfferCatalog relation to add an OfferCatalog to your local business
• Use the knowsAbout property
• Use the address and areaServed fields correctly
• Use the brand property to showcase your brand
• Regularly monitor and update your schema
• Consider including a founder field
• Connect all your entities in one schema
• Remove the pre-existing schemas on the page
• Check your local business schema with rich result testing tools

Google has recently introduced new guidelines regarding shipping details and merchant return policies to enhance merchant listings experience. These guidelines have been added to the product structured data help section.

This update is significant for businesses selling products. By including merchant return policy and shipping details in their structured data, along with the product price, reviews, and other rich result properties, businesses can enhance their visibility and attract more attention within Google Search. This, in turn, may impact their click-through rates positively from Google Search.

If you have exceptional shipping details and return policies, it is advisable to emphasize them through the Google Merchant Center and structured data to ensure their visibility within Google Search.

OfferShippingDetails and MerchantReturnPolicy are key requirements for the Rich Result experience in the Merchant listings of the Product schema. Your schema must include these properties, in addition to other specifications such as offer and price, to ensure compliance with the Rich Result guidelines.

Google Tag Manager can be used as a convenient method for adding offer shipping details and merchant return policy to an existing product schema using JavaScript.

If you have a WordPress website with an existing Product schema that lacks the necessary requirements for a merchant listing experience, and you're unsure how to add them, this article is tailored to help you.

I would like to express my gratitude to my friend Marcelo for bringing this issue to my attention. It is an important matter since numerous WordPress users face the same problem. Marcelo, a professional SEO consultant from Uruguay who has found a paid yet straightforward solution to this problem. I personally recommend him if you are in need of assistance.

In this article, I will guide you step by step on how to optimize the merchant listing experience to successfully pass the rich result test with no errors or warnings.