With top luxury brand websites constantly competing to reach the top of Google and Bing search results, a clear understanding of the underlying principles of search rankings has become increasingly crucial. It is likely that you will need to use a combination of SEO techniques to ensure that your website traffic stays consistent. Rich snippets are just one potent tool in your SEO arsenal that can drastically improve the visibility and impact of your website. In this article, we explore what rich snippets are, when to use them, and how you can combine them with a CMS like WordPress or Joomla.
What are rich snippets?
Whenever you search for something on Google, the response you get is a list of snippets that aim to communicate some information about the website they link to. Controlled by meta tags, a normal snippet is essentially a single block consisting of a hyperlinked heading, a web page slug (the site URL), and sometimes a post date. A rich snippet, on the other hand, encapsulates far more information and offers more interactability than a normal snippet.
The image above depicts an example of a rich snippet. It can have a diverse range of elements including images, ratings, software feature lists, luxury spa reviews, and even highly interactive event calendars. Surveys have shown time and again that rich snippets dramatically increase viewer engagement, web traffic, and conversion rates. In fact, Milestone Research, the research division of Milestone Inc., analyzed over 4.5 million queries to find users click on rich results 58% of the time, compared to a click-through-rate of 41% for non-rich results.
Basics of template creation in a CMS
Maintaining numerous rich snippets for a website can be a daunting task to even the most experienced SEO professionals. However, with popular CMS platforms such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, you can add plugins that help you add rich snippets to your website. These plugins make it incredibly easy to add rich snippets to your posts and also keep track of them.
For WordPress, the All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets plugin is an excellent tool. The tool gives a range of features and options that make creating and maintaining rich snippets a breeze!
Alternatively, you can also add rich snippets manually to WordPress. You will require a text editor to write the markup in the appropriate format. You can refer to Google’s structured data resource to understand the exact properties needed for a specific type of content.
An introduction to structured data and its implications for rich snippets
Structured data is a method of describing a website in order to make it easier for search engines to crawl it and understand the website’s purpose. To do this, the content must be presented in a specific manner that search engines understand. This is in the form of code, which search engines can read and display in a rich manner.
Structured data allows websites to ‘talk’ to search engines. For instance, if your private aviation company’s website has a page detailing the process of chartering, structured data can give search engines the answers to questions individuals might have about their first time using a jet charter service. Structured data can take various forms, depending on whether the website is an ecommerce platform, a review site, or perhaps a film database. Regardless, it is always in code format. The goal of structured data is to show more information to customers, ensuring that there is a higher likelihood of clicks. More clicks also results in an improved search engine ranking.
Testing your rich snippets
Have you added structured data into your website, only to find that search engines are not immediately picking up these rich snippets? This is where Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool comes in handy. You can enter your website’s URL or paste the markup code in the toolbox to review your structured data.
In luxury, particularly, adding rich snippets can truly improve SEO rankings and clicks. To do so, the content on these rich snippets has to be exactly what your target audience is looking for. For affluent consumers, time is one of the most valuable assets, so if they are able to find what they are looking for faster and in an easier way thanks to your brand’s rich snippet, they will be more likely to click on your company’s results rather than on your competitors’.
If you need advice on how to successfully add rich snippets for your luxury brand, do not hesitate to get in touch with us here
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