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Using structured data on your website is a great way to let Google know all about the different elements of your business and help to display these in search results. By adding structured data to your website you’re letting Google know more about the type of website you have, your address and phone number details and review information.
Google are always testing and trying different methods to help users decide which search result is the most relevant result for their query, so it makes sense to have as much information as possible on your pages for Google to use in their search engine results pages (SERPS).
Google works hard to try and understand the content of your website pages so it can put your website in the correct search results for users’ queries. Mostly Google uses the page titles, meta data, URL structures and the content on your pages to get a clear understanding of what your page is about but there’s additional information we can include on our web pages to help Google understand your website better.
Putting this information in a structured format helps Google read, format, classify, show and ultimately understand the information you choose to display within the code of your pages.
Adding structured data to your pages helps Google to display a wide range of information on it’s search results pages from opening hours, phone numbers and address details through to review stars and links to your social media pages.
There’s a wide range of data you can add to your website in the structured data format from the type of business you are, your products, events you might be running, etc. If you’re interested in finding out more about the types of structured data available, head over to the Schema page about types and properties.
For the purposes of this article I’m going to be exploring adding standard business data that a majority of businesses will be able to use. This will include:-
This will cover most businesses that want to add structured data to their website.
If you’re wanting to add structured data to your website without having to install modules or plugins it’s a fairly straightforward process, however you will need to have access to your template files either through your template manager or FTP.
All of our website’s are built using Joomshaper templates so I’m going to focus on adding the structured data code to this type of template.
Here’s a sample of what we added to the Marketeam website – feel free to use this as a template for your own website:-
Please note you will need to put the code below in the following tags
<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"LocalBusiness","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressLocality":"Brisbane","addressRegion":"QLD","postalCode":"4000","streetAddress":"PO Box 7166 Brendale LPO Qld 4500"},"aggregateRating":{"@type":"AggregateRating","ratingValue":"4.9","reviewCount":"56"},"geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":"-27.473727","longitude":"153.002911"},"name":"Marketeam","openingHours":"Mo-Fr 08:00-18:00","foundingDate":"20090318","foundingLocation":"Brisbane","telephone":"07 3882 3375","areaServed":"Australia","image":"https://marketeam.com.au/Marketeam.jpg", "url":"https://marketeam.com.au/","sameAs":["https://plus.google.com/u/0/103120347282845457783","https://www.facebook.com/marketeamqld","https://twitter.com/marketeamqld"]}</script>
Let’s break down each section and what it does.
"address": {
This section is pretty straightforward – simply replace the address details in the fields with your own business address.
"aggregateRating": {
Add the amount of reviews and your star rating as listed in your Google My Business listing. If you don’t have a Google My Business listing simply remove this section of code or alternatively set up a listing and start getting some reviews for your business to help with your local SEO.
"geo": {
These are the latitude and longitude coordinates of your business address. Finding these coordinates is very easy. Simply type your business address into https://www.google.com/maps, right click on your exact address and choose ‘what’s here?’ from the list of options and you will be given the lat/long details for that address.
The rest of the details are pretty simple to fill out:-
If your template doesn’t allow you to make edits to the head section directly, you may need to go to Extensions / Templates / Templates then click the link ‘Yourtemplatename details and files’ and choose your templates index.php file and add your code just before the closing tag.
Please note you can also do this via FTP and your code editor of choice if you’ve got access.
The easiest way to test your structured data to make sure it’s correct is to run it through Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. Just add your URL into the box and click the ‘run test’ button and it will show you if there are any errors in your code.
Hopefully you’ve found this article helpful. If you need a Joomla web developer or design company to help you with your current or next project, we would love to speak with you. Call us on (07) 3882 3375 today for a chat.
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