Google Structured Data: Web Components and JSON-LD

How To Find Information Easier In Google & How To Make It Easier For People To Find Information In Google

What is structured data?

You might ask, what is structured data? Simply put, it’s information you want to know and visualize, in a structure or series, like a timeline, movie listings, or concert dates. And it’s useful information that you want to display on your website pages to your customers or followers. It can also show up right in the search engine results.

Examples of structured data are; a list of events at your store or where you can be seen and heard, a list of your locations, a table of your temperatures, a list of your employee’s or partners and so on… All of this information is typically stored in a list or a table. You might imagine uploading a PDF to your website to display this data.

Here is a visual example of what structured data looks like and how it appears in the search results. In this search for “minneapolis events calendar”, the result is a list of events on Tuesday, March 10th, provided by a news media source, City Pages.

You might also ask, what is that thick black bar, at the top, listing the upcoming local events? That is all a part of Google’s Knowledge Graph. To appear in knowledge graphs, it is recommended to use schema.org markup language and create structured data on your website. It’s all about the bigger conglomeration of how Google wants to enhance the search experience and provide an easier, better way to find and view structured data to your customers and to their customers, and all of us searching in Google. More recently, Google has been working on big changes with structured data and custom elements. Mostly, it's likely one piece of it's many efforts to prepare it's data mining AI models to find and index the best content.

Why Use Structured Data?

Google recommends implementing structured data to describe this content on your website to your customers and to the search engines. Therefore, you will have a better chance of ranking higher in the search results when someone is searching for an event or a product, or a temperature, and therefore, have a better chance of being found by your customers.

Google explains further that JSON-LD and Web Components are a nice easy way to implement this structured data. They also provide more links to information on structured data and custom elements. Reach out to us if you would like help understanding, navigating and building structured data for your website.

Written by Kathy Litt  Founder & Digital Marketing Consultant at Sync Search Digital

With over a decade of experience in SEO, digital strategy, and analytics, Kathy helps businesses strengthen their online presence through data-driven insights, creative optimization, and strategic growth.