When talking with Rob, the idea of structured data came up in conversation – which funnily enough, is a topic that Mark Williams-Cook covered in his lecture. From what I had heard, I thought that structured data sounded like an interesting topic and thus I took it upon myself to study it further.

What is structured data?

Structured data is a (standardised) format for providing information about a particular topic, on Google; It can also be used to classify page content.

In the example above, an apple pie recipe has been searched and with that, the cooking time and calories have also been shown (as a way of providing more information that can be found on the site).

Why should structured data be added to a page?

• Allows search results that are more engaging to users and may even persuade them to interact more with the website (rich results).
• A higher click-through rate.
  • In a study conducted by Rotten Tomatoes, they found a 25% higher click-through rate on the pages that utilised structured data.
  • Nestlé found that pages which show rich results in the search have an 82% higher click through rate than non-rich result pages.