In the ever-changing e-commerce landscape, standing out from the competition has become crucial to attracting potential customers and generating sales. Structured data, often overlooked, represents a powerful tool to achieve this. By providing search engines with clear, organized information about your products and website, you can significantly improve your visibility in search results and provide an optimal user experience.
What is structured data?
Structured data (to find out more: see the article) are defined as a standardized format for organizing and presenting information on a web page. They allow search engines, such as Google, to easily understand the content of your site, which results in more relevant and informative search results for Internet users.
Think of structured data as clear, organized labels placed on your products and website, allowing search engines to identify and categorize them instantly.
The advantages of using structured data for an e-commerce site
Implementing structured data on your e-commerce site has a multitude of considerable benefits, including:
- Improved click-through rate (CTR): By enriching your ads in search results with additional information, such as images, prices, and ratings, you make them more attractive and encourage more users to click on them.
- Increasing product and brand visibility: Structured data allows your products to appear in advanced search features, such as product carousels and image search results. This significantly increases the visibility of your brand and products among a targeted audience.
- Improving the user experience: By providing clear, organized information about your products, you make it easier for users to navigate your site and help them find what they're looking for faster. This seamless user experience results in increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Facilitating the analysis of user behavior: Structured data can be leveraged to track user interactions with your products and website. This valuable information allows you to refine your marketing strategies, optimize user experience and improve your overall performance.
- Increased conversions and sales: By improving your product visibility, user experience and click-through rate, you generate more qualified traffic to your website, increasing your chances of conversion and sales.
Types of structured data for e-commerce
The richness of structured data lies in its diversity. You can in fact adapt its use to different aspects of your e-commerce site, in particular:
- products: Name, description, price, images, reviews, brand, availability, technical information, etc.
- Brands: Name, logo, URL, description, history, values, etc.
- Offers: Prices, discounts, validity dates, conditions of use, promotional codes, etc.
- Breadcrumb navigation: Site structure, category hierarchy, links to main pages, etc.
- Customer Reviews: Customer name, date of review, rating, content of review, image of the product concerned, etc.
- Events: Dates, times, locations, descriptions, links to booking pages, etc.
- Blog: Articles, authors, publication dates, categories, images, etc.
- Recipes: Ingredients, preparation steps, cooking time, difficulty level, etc.
By choosing the most relevant structured data for your business and implementing it correctly, you considerably optimize the visibility and performance of your e-commerce site.
How to implement structured data on an e-commerce site
Implementing structured data on your e-commerce site can be done in different ways, depending on your technical skills and the e-commerce platform you are using. Here are some options:
- HTML tag : You can add structured data directly to your HTML using microdata, RDFa, or JSON-LD. This method requires coding knowledge and can be tedious for sites with many products. Fortunately, more accessible alternatives exist.
- Tag management tools: Platforms like Google Tag Manager or AT Internet Tag Manager allow you to add structured data to your site without directly modifying the HTML code. These tools provide intuitive interfaces and predefined templates for structured data relating to products, reviews and offers.
- Extensions for CMS: Many extensions dedicated to structured data are available for popular e-commerce platforms such as PrestaShop, WooCommerce and Shopify. These extensions make it much easier to add structured data to your product pages, categories, and brand pages. Some extensions even offer automated configuration features to further simplify the process.
Best practices for using structured data in e-commerce
To get the most out of structured data and optimize their impact on your natural referencing, it is essential to follow some best practices:
- Follow Google's guidelines for structured data: Google Search Central offers detailed and regularly updated guidelines on how to properly implement structured data on your site. These guidelines cover aspects such as formatting, syntax, and supported data types. By scrupulously respecting them, you avoid implementation errors that could harm your SEO.
- Make sure structured data is accurate and up-to-date: Inaccurate or outdated data can have a negative effect on your SEO. Make sure the information in your structured data fully matches the information displayed on your website. Regularly update prices, inventory, descriptions, and customer reviews to ensure consistency.
- Test and validate the structured data implementation: Google Search Console offers a structured data testing tool which allows you to check the validity of your implementation. This tool allows you to identify possible errors and correct them before they are indexed by Google.
- Monitor structured data performance: Once structured data is implemented, track its impact on your SEO. Use Google Search Console tools to analyze the evolution of your positioning in search results, the number of clicks and impressions generated by your product pages. This data allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your structured data and identify potential areas for improvement.
Structured data in a nutshell
Structured data is a powerful and under-exploited tool for improve the visibility and performance of your e-commerce site. By implementing them correctly, you can attract more potential customers, improve their shopping experience and boost your sales. Feel free to explore available resources, such as those offered by Google Search Central and Schema.org, to learn more about structured data and their optimal use in the field of e-commerce.
Esteban Irschfeld, SEO Consultant at UX-Republic
