WordPress Microdata

Structured data – also known as microdata or schema information – complements your classic metadata in Google search results with opening hours, addresses, and the like. It makes your project more visible in the search results and improves click-through rates from Google. Microdata is also important to local SEO and a data source for voice assistant stations. In our SEO plugin you can define this data for each content individually or use the rating module to enable star reviews.

In addition to the star ratings you can currently structure the following information with our plugin:

• Videos, partially automated with the help of a built-in YouTube interface
• Places (for companies for local SEO)
• Projects (for references)
• cooking recipes
• Events
• Job adverts
• Persons (for employee profiles, for example)

There are even more structured data, but these are very special and can be better formatted on the theme and corresponding input fields, as you can read in the Google Search Gallery.

By the way: blog articles and WooCommerce products are automatically structured by WordPress. The breadcrumbs from the same module of our WordPress plugin are also automatically structured.

Optimization

In the content overviews of WordPress in the column SEO as well as in the header during content editing you now see the button Micro, if the module is active:

• If the Micro button is yellow, only the microdata for breadcrumbs, articles and products has been automatically optimized.
• If the button is green then you have manually entered microdata.

If you click on the microdata button, you can click on the blue plus button to select the information you want to structure:

When adding videos, only the insertion of the YouTube link is required after activating the YouTube API (instructions below), so that our plugin gets relevant information such as the preview image or the duration of the video. You can also use it to organize your own hosted or Vimeo-hosted videos by typing these data manually. The same applies to all other types of content.

So that Google really displays the data, you should also specify the information in the visible content of your page. This can be done in tables or in the body text. Only exception: YouTube videos. It’s enough if you insert the video in the content.

Settings

In the settings of our plugin you only need to enter the YouTube API key. You can get it after logging in to the Google API Dashboard.

There you first select a project or create a new one. Then you can search and activate the YouTube or “YouTube Data API v3” in the library.

Then open the “Credentials” tab in the “YouTube Data API v3” and click on “+ Create credentials”. Create credentials.

In the credential wizard, select the YouTube Data API v3, define the web browser (JavaScript) as the platform, and then select Public Data.

In the next step you will receive the API key, which you only have to enter in our plugin. Then do not forget to save and go into editing the content.

Validation

To test the ratings, use the Structured Data Testing Tool. It may appear after the publication of the respective contents no error. Hints that Google spends are not a problem. If there are any errors, please first check your theme, if there any SEO options are active. Otherwise, please contact our support.

In addition to our tool, you can use Google’s Data Highlighter in Google Search Console. Although this is not as strong as a sensible on-page structuring, it works without any programming. Google then guides you through the structuring and shows you what information the search engine expects. If there is no information in your page, you have to add it first and then restart the Data Highlighter.