How To Implement Organization Schema Effectively

What Is Organization Schema?

Organization schema can be identified as a type of structured data. It delivers information about your business or organization to the search engines. Since structured data offers information in a standardized format, it can be easily read by both humans and software. By describing your organization and its content using this structured data, you let search engines treat your website and its pages as a database.

Schema markup defines certain values in the HTML code of a website, giving search engine crawlers specific information. In simpler words, this schema markup is a vocabulary for developing structured data. With organization schema, you provide the key identifying elements of your organization, such as the company logo, formal name, the URL address of the website, contact details, and social media profiles.

Why Is Organization Schema Important for SEO?

Organization schema describes your company to search engines. Even though structured data is not considered a ranking factor, it often enables search engines to display your webpage for specific, relevant queries. By delivering the right set of information, organization schema also boosts the credibility of your organization for search engines as well as the users.

Moreover, organization schema helps Google showcase your business details as a rich result or knowledge panel. It also features images, links, and additional details. This enhances the search appearance of your organization and makes it more attractive and informative for the users. Since such rich results and knowledge panels occupy a larger space in the search engine results pages (SERPs), users can see what you do and choose your website over the competitors.

Organization Schema Essentials

As mentioned, organization schema helps Google understand a website (or webpage) better. While working on your organization schema, you need to focus on the following areas.

Include Name and Alternative Name:

The name of the organization and its alternative name (such as the brand name) are essential properties of the organization schema. Google displays these details above the title in search snippets. If your structured data does not have these properties, Google will display the domain name.

By adding the organization name or the brand name to the organization schema markup, you can build more recognition and trust as the name appears at the top of a search snippet. To help search engines better understand your company setup, add all associated brands in the schema markup.

Include your logo

By adding your company logo to the schema markup, you help Google understand what the right logo for your company is and display the correct image in your knowledge panel. For example, when you search “WordPress,” you will see the WordPress logo in the top right corner of the knowledge panel. In case you decide to rebrand or redesign your logo, do not forget to update the logo property in the organization schema.

Add more sameAs properties

The sameAs property in the schema describes the external channels managed by your organization, including your social media profiles. In several cases, Google adds the sameAs links in the knowledge panel. However, search engines prioritize the logo property more.

Description

Google has no set rules on properties such as keywords and descriptions from the “thing” and “web page” schema types, respectively. However, they both are quite popular and are often used by Google to understand the site better.

In order to implement organization schema, you will have to write the organization schema market and include it in your website. As mentioned before, you need to add key pieces of information to the schema. Here is a list of essential details that you need to include in your organization schema.

• Type of organization
• Name of the organization
• Website
• Official logo
• Address
• Unique identifying URL
• Social accounts
• Description

Now that you have a basic understanding of organization schema, you can implement it using one of the following ways:

JSON-LD

JSON-LD is a Linked Data format that is recommended by Google for adding schema markup. It is a lightweight format for writing structured data. You can either do it manually or use a plugin to include the JSON-LD markup on the website. Some of those plugins are SchemaPro, Yoast, and Rank Math.

If you want to add JSON-LD markup to the website manually, perform the following steps:

Write the code mentioned below on an HTML editor, such as Notepad or Notepad++.

<script type=”application/ld+json”>

{

“@context”: “https://schema.org”,

“@type”: “Organization”,

“@id”: “”,

“name”: “”,

“url”: “”,

“address”: {

“@type”: “PostalAddress”,

“addressLocality”: “”,

“addressCountry”: “”,

“postalCode”: “”,

“streetAddress”: “”

}

“logo”: “”,

“description”: “”,

“sameAs”: [

“”,

“”,

“”]

}

</script>

Next, you need to add specific information about your organization in every relevant field mentioned in the code. For example, you can add the type of organization you have in the “type” field. While “Organization” is the broadest, you can choose from the following subcategories:

• MedicalOrganization
• EducationalOrganization
• LocalBusiness
• Airline
• GovernmentOrganization
• LibrarySystem
• Corporation
• NGO
• PoliticalParty
• SportsOrganization
• Consortium
• FundingScheme
• NewsMediaOrganization
• WorkersUnion
• PerformingGroup
• OnlineBusiness
• SearchRescueOrganization
• Project

Once you have found the type that suits your organization perfectly, just copy and paste the pain text (as mentioned in the list, without space) into the category “@type”.

In the “@sameAs” field, you need to add social media links, company profiles on review sites, Wikipedia pages, professional association sites, and more. You can add as many of these as possible to optimum credibility and context. Remember to add each of these links in a separate set of quotation marks and on separate lines.

For the “@id” field, you will have to include a URL that is unique and will be used to identify your organization. Refrain from using your homepage as a unique identifier for your organization, as that can also be the unique identifier for your organization’s “Website” schema. So, use a unique anchor just for this reason. It does not even have to be a real page.

If you want, you can add additional fields that may seem relevant to your company. You can click through the specific schema type from the Schema.org list to see the various properties that can be added. You can also use the Schema.org markup validator to test your JSON-LD markup. It will identify the errors which you can fix later.

Once you are satisfied with the JSON-LD markup, you can add the code snippet to the website. It is recommended that you add the company schema to your website homepage. Adding it to this single page will do the job. You may also include the <head> tag, if possible. However, if you are unable to do that, you can add anywhere on the page, including the body content or the footer.

Microdata

If you find the JSON-LD format a little complicated, you can use the microdata format to add structured data. This format defines structured data attributes using HTML markup. However, you need to have a basic understanding of HTML markup. You will have to add a markup to your existing content in order to add organization schema to your website with the use of microdata.

Here is what you need to do:

 

1. Log in to the backend of your website, where you will be able to edit the code.

2. Find where your company’s key details are listed. In most cases, the details can be found in the footer, contact page, or homepage.

3. Then, add the opening tag <div itemscope itemtype=”https://schema.org/Organization”> directly before the key information.

4. The next step involves adding the attributes for various properties. For example, when you mark up the name of the company using a tag, it describes the company name to the search engines. You will have to add the “name” attribute for that.

5. In order to add an attribute, you must add a small snippet of code to the tag supporting the particular piece of data. For example, if the company name is in an H1 tag, such as <h1>Company name</h1>, you will have to add the code to the opening tag right after the H1.

6. Type itemprop=”” with the property name within the double quotation marks to the relevant opening tags to add your attributes. Here is an example:

<h1 itemprop=”name”>Company name</h1>

<p itemprop=”description”>Description of the company.</p>

7. You will have to add an additional <div> tag while marking up the address since “address” is a schema category of its own. The address markup must look something like this:

<div itemprop=”address” itemscope itemtype=””>

<span itemprop=”streetAddress”>2035 Sunset Lake Road</span>

<span itemprop=”addressLocality”>Newark</span>,

<span itemprop=”addressRegion”>Delaware</span>

<span itemprop=”postalCode”>19702</span>

<span itemprop=”addressCountry”>USA</span>

</div>

8. When you are done adding all the necessary attributes, add a closing tag </div>, as mentioned in the example.

9. After putting everything together, the organization schema of your website should appear something like this:

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Organization”>

<h1 itemprop=”name”>Digital Web Solutions</h1>

<p itemprop=”description”>Digital Web Solutions is a digital marketing agency that offers specialized solutions in SEO, PPC, Web Design & development, and video production to help fulfill the marketing needs of small and large businesses.</p>

<div itemprop=”address” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/PostalAddress”>

<span itemprop=”streetAddress”>2035 Sunset Lake Road</span>

<span itemprop=”addressLocality”>Newark</span>,

<span itemprop=”addressRegion”>Delaware</span>

<span itemprop=”postalCode”>19702</span>

<span itemprop=”addressCountry”>USA</span>

</div>

<span itemprop=”telephone”>+1-6692383118</span>

<span itemprop=”url”>https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/<span/>

<span itemprop=”sameAs”>https://twitter.com/DWS_Global</span>

<span itemprop=”sameAs”>https://instagram.com/dws_global/</span>

<span itemprop=”sameAs”>https://youtube.com/channel/UC7mpMO0pmxNd09zVlPW4avA</span>

</div>

RDFa

Resource Description Framework in Attributes (RDFa) is also another effective way to add organization schema. Similar to microdata, this format also uses HTML to create structured data. This is an older type of markup and is considered more complex than microdata. Using this format makes sense when you are already using a platform that uses RDFa, e.g., Drupal.

Here is how you can implement schema using RDFa:

1. Locate the company information on your website backend. It is usually found on the homepage, the footer, or the contact page.

2. Add the opening tag: <div vocab=”http://schema.org/” typeof=”Organization”> right before the company information.

3. Start adding the attributes for various properties. Similar to microdata, you will have to add these to the opening tag before every important piece of company information.

4. You can add property=”” with the property name with the double quotation marks in order to add an attribute. For example, property=”name”, property=”address”. You need to add each property with the opening tag for every information piece, as mentioned in the following example:

<span property=”name”>Company name</span>

<span property=”description”>Description of the company.</span>

5. While you have to add an additional tag for the address with microdata, you use the following code in RDFa:

<div property=”address” typeof=”PostalAddress”>

<span property=”streetAddress”></span>

<span property=”addressLocality”></span>,

<span property=”addressRegion”></span>

<span property=”postalCode”></span>

<span property=”addressCountry”></span></div>

6. When every detail is put together, the organization Schema in RDFa looks something like this:

<div vocab=”http://schema.org/” typeof=”Organization”>

<h1 property=”name”>Digital Web Solutions</h1>

<p property=”description”>Digital Web Solutions is a digital marketing agency that offers specialized solutions in SEO, PPC, Web Design & development, and video production to help fulfill the marketing needs of small and large businesses.</p>

<div property=”address” typeof=”http://schema.org/PostalAddress”>

<span property=”streetAddress”>2035 Sunset Lake Road</span>

<span property=”addressLocality”>Newark</span>,

<span property=”addressRegion”>Delaware</span>

<span property=”postalCode”>19702</span>

<span property=”addressCountry”>USA</span>

</div>

<span property=”telephone”>+1-6692383118</span>

<span property=”url”>https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/<span/>

<span property=”sameAs”>twitter.com/DWS_Global</span>

<span property=”sameAs”>https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./</span>

<span property=”sameAs”>https://instagram.com/dws_global/</span>

<span property=”sameAs”>https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mpMO0pmxNd09zVlPW4avA</span>

</div>

How to Test Your Organization Schema

In order to see what schema is already there on your website, you may need to run tests. You also have the option to test the organization schema that you have implemented. Here is what you should do:

Site Audit

You can check the structured data for your website using a site audit tool. There are plenty of options available for such tools. Most of them have similar applications. You can choose the one that suits your needs. Here’s what you need to do:

Once you have opened the site edit tool, you will have to choose the site you want to test. If you have an existing project for the website you want to test, you can start by clicking on that. For a new project, you will have to select the relevant domain to get started.

Creating a new project will automatically run a site audit. If you have clicked on the existing project, it will take you to the “Overview” page. Navigate to the “Markup” section and click on View details”.

On the next screen, you will find the following details:

• The number of checked pages on the website have schema markup
• The type of schema markup found on those pages
• Invalid schema markup (if there is any)

You can find a table titled “Structured Data Items” when you scroll down on the screen. If there are any invalid items, you can find them by clicking on “View all invalid items” at the bottom. You can find out the specific errors in every issue identified by the tool by clicking on any entry in the “Affected Fields” column.

You can learn about the errors and fix them properly. There is also a section called “Why and How to Fix It” where you can find more information about fixing the errors. Once you are done fixing the errors, you can rerun the audit to see if the issues have been corrected.

Schema.org

You can also use the Schema.org validator tool to test the organization schema of your website. Once you have added organization schema to a webpage, you can test its organization schema by entering the webpage URL in the field under “FETCH URL” and clicking on the “RUN TEST” button.

If you want to test a code snipped that you have developed but haven’t yet implemented, you need to visit https://validator.schema.org/ and navigate to the “Code Snippet” tab. There, you will have to paste your code in the given box and click on “RUN TEST.” The tool will highlight the errors or warnings, which you can identify and fix easily.

Organization Schema Example

If you want to know what the filled-out version of an organization schema looks like, here is a proper example of that:

<script type=”application/ld+json”>

{

“@context”: “http://schema.org”,

“@type”: “Corporation”,

“name”: “Semrush”,

“description”: “Digital Web Solutions – a digital marketing agency”,

“logo”: “https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/logo.png”,

“address”: {

“@type”: “PostalAddress”,

“addressCountry”: “USA”,

“addressLocality”: “Newark”,

“addressRegion”: “DE”,

“postalCode”: “19702”,

“streetAddress”: “2035 Sunset Lake Road”

},

“email”: “mailto: hello@digitalwebsolutions.com”,

“telephone”: “+1-6692383118”,

“url”: “https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/”,

“sameAs”: [“https://twitter.com/DWS_Global”,

“https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./”,

“https://instagram.com/dws_global/”,

“https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mpMO0pmxNd09zVlPW4avA<“]

}

</script>

Best Practices for Using Organization Schema

While using organization schema, consider performing the following measures for the best results.

• Use JSON-LD format when you have the option since it is recommended by Google.
• Always use accurate and the most up-to-date details. Make sure the details match the other information about your organization available on the internet. This includes the information available on your website and social media profiles, as well as your Google Business Profile.
• For the organization schema to be effective, provide as much relevant information as possible. If you choose the subcategory “LocalBusiness”, you will be able to add details like prices, opening hours, geo-location, and more.
• It is recommended that you add all the available “@sameAs” links, as this practice improves the credibility of the schema and provides more contextual information.
• You should also closely follow Google’s spam guidelines. Never use the structured data to mislead the audience. Always provide truthful and accurate information about your organization.

Conclusion

With a basic organization schema in place, you can clarify your business offerings and services to both search engines and users. Moreover, it offers you a competitive edge by helping you stand out in the crowd. Now that you have a basic understanding of organization schema and how it is implemented, you should start taking the necessary measures to use structured data to your advantage.