By definition, rich snippets are the structured data mark-up that website operators can include to their website’s HTML, which helps search engines to understand what kind of information is present on each page of the website. Most of the leading search engines have taken to the next level, and have started using this mark-up to feature enhanced search results, thereby enabling people to find the precise the information they are looking for, in a better way.
Consider this – under a regular scenario, when your business shows up on search engine results page, the search engine displays the website’s title, it’s URL, and the meta description that you have assigned to the website. However, when you employ rich snippets, the search engine will now able to display more information about the your business in the same page, including whether the particular result is a person or a product, some review, a business and even more.
Supported Content Types
Rich snippets can be used on a variety of content types:
- People – try searching for a person online and you’ll be able to understand how Google shows so much information about the person using his or her Linked In profile. You can set up rich snippets in the same way
- Products – this is arguably one of the most important uses of structured data mark-up with special offers and other products offered by merchants online. A search result for a designated product on Google can also tell you the highest and lowest selling prices for it on different websites.
- Reviews – all kinds of reviews are supported, individual and aggregate ones, with separate properties used.
- Businesses –properties for these can include the address, the website, the phone number, the logo and maybe even key people.
- Events – you can use rich snippets for upcoming events. The search results can include the start date, the end date, the duration, the tickets, and the event location.
- Music & Videos – add rich snippets to show information related to the media file such as previews, where to buy it or rent it, the cost, etc.
What are the Key Benefits?
Some of the key benefits of employing rich snippets can be directly related o the way your business or website is featured on the search engine results page.
- The search engines are able to return more accurate and higher details
- Users are able to have more information without particularly having to look out for details – this means that they’re bound to have a better first impression and thereby a higher conversion ratio for your website!
- Increased click-through rates and lower bounce rates – this is because the users already have a fair idea of the information and thereby they’re less likely to end up not engaging with your site