Schema Markup & Semantic SEO

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, schema markup and semantic SEO have become more critical than ever for the hospitality industry. This heightened relevance stems from the emergence of two new search channels:

1. Traditional Google bots scrape websites for information and advanced AI and machine learning algorithms. Schema markup ensures the hotel stands out in these increasingly sophisticated search environments. (chatgpt, gemini etc)
2. Additionally, with voice search set to become more refined through AI advancements, embracing schema and semantic SEO offers a crucial first-mover advantage, enhancing your online presence, visibility, and guest engagement, ultimately driving bookings.

What is Schema Markup?

Schema markup transforms unstructured data into structured data, making it easier for search engines to interpret a website's content. What is unstructured data? Text on a page, images on a page, and embedded videos on a webpage - these are all forms of unstructured data

Structured & unstructured data, and to the rescue- Schema!

You and I (humans) can process and understand unstructured data with ease. But machines struggle with this, bots (or website crawlers) don’t understand. Structured data is way that machines can process and understand all these complicated things that we have created.

Schema is how humans define what a 'thing' is. Imagine trying to describe your hotel to someone who has never seen it. "It is a building with many rooms." But a hospital, school, and an office building have many rooms.

Schemas are ways humans understand concepts and things. We use them every single day to disambiguate between similar things. Machines, on the other hand, need a lot of help to understand these concepts and things, and this is why schema markup is needed and this is why Schema.org was formed to create and support a common set of schemas for structured data markup.

Syntaxes OR Schema code

Syntaxes are types of coding (aka "languages") We use them every single day to disambiguate between similar things. Machines, on the other hand, need a lot of help to understand these concepts and things, 3 syntaxes are used to communicate

1. RDFa,
2. Microdata,
3. JSON-LD. (favoured for its simplicity and compatibility with web standards).

Schema Markup is a Lever!

Enhanced Search Visibility Or Organic traffic

• Rich Snippets - a rev mgrs favourite~!: Schema markup enables search engines to create enhanced search results like rich snippets. These can include reviews, ratings, prices, and more, making your listings more attractive to potential guests.

• Structured Data Benefits: Structured data can highlight important information directly in the search results, encouraging more clicks.

• Improved Click-Through Rates (CTR)Engaging Results: Rich snippets and other enhanced search features can significantly improve CTR by making search results more informative and appealing.
• Voice Search - the emerging channel: With the rise of voice search, schema markup helps search engines provide direct answers from your content, increasing the chances of being featured in voice search results.

Impact on Local SEO

• Local Business Information: Schema markup is crucial for local SEO, helping search engines display accurate information about your hotel, such as operating hours, locations, and contact details.
• Event Markup: For local events, schema markup ensures these events appear in relevant local searches and Google Events.

Relevance for Visibility via LLMs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT and Bard

Data Understanding and Extraction

• Content Clarity: Schema markup helps LLMs like ChatGPT and Bard understand the context and structure of web content more effectively, enabling them to extract and utilize information accurately.
• Enhanced Interaction: LLMs can provide more accurate and relevant responses when they have access to well-structured data, improving user interactions.

Direct Answer Features

• Answer Boxes: Schema markup can help your content appear in direct answer boxes or featured snippets, which are frequently utilized by LLMs to provide quick answers.
• Knowledge Graphs: Enhanced understanding through schema markup aids in the inclusion of your content in knowledge graphs, often referenced by LLMs (large language models / chat gpt etc ) for information.

Trends Over the Last Two Years

Increased Relevance

• AI and ML Integration: As AI and machine learning technologies advance, the importance of structured data has grown, making schema markup more relevant for both traditional SEO and AI-driven search experiences.
• E-A-T Factors: Schema markup contributes to demonstrating Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) by providing clear context and structured information.

Evolving Standards

• New Schema Types: introduction of new schema types to accommodate emerging content types and technologies has kept schema markup up-to-date and increasingly important.

Entity and SEO

An entity can be a physical thing (eg, chair), something we cannot see but know exists (eg, electron), or even something fictional (eg, Harry Potter). One way of understand entities is the following: If it is a noun, it is an entity.\

Getting started? - 5 schemas

To get started with schema markup, identify the key information about your hotel that potential guests are looking for. This typically includes:

1. Basic Information: Name, address, contact details
2. Amenities: Free Wi-Fi, parking, gym, pool
3. Room Details: Types, pricing, availability
4. Reviews and Ratings: Customer feedback and ratings
5. Special Offers: Promotions and packages

Useful Schemas to Boost Hotel Sales and Engagement

Here are ten schemas that can help increase room bookings, suite sales, reduce abandonment rates, increase corporate account sign-ups, increase wedding event enquiry form submissions, and book online appointments with sales:

For non-technical users, implementing these schemas can be simplified by using tools like Google's Structured Data Markup Helper, or by installing schema plugins if you use a CMS like WordPress. Here’s a brief guide:

Key Properties for Accommodation Schema Markup

Here are some of the essential properties you should include in your schema markup:

• name: The name of the property.
• address: The physical address of the property.streetAddressaddressLocalityaddressRegionpostalCodeaddressCountry
• telephone: The contact number for the property.
• url: The website URL of the property.
• aggregateRating: The average rating based on multiple reviews.ratingValuereviewCount
• priceRange: The price range of the rooms or services.
• amenities: Amenities offered by the property, such as free WiFi, pool, spa, etc.
• checkinTime: The check-in time.
• checkoutTime: The check-out time.
• room: Information about the types of rooms available.namedescriptionbedoccupancy
• image: URLs of images of the property.

SOP adding schema to your Wordpress website:

Decide what key details about your hotel you want to highlight, such as room types, special offers, and contact information.

1. Use Google's Structured Data Markup Helper: Check out (https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/).Select the type of data you want to markup (e.g., "Hotels and Accommodations").
2. Enter the URL of the page you want to markup or paste the HTML code of your webpage.
3. Highlight and Tag Data: Highlight different elements of your client webpage (e.g., hotel name, address, amenities) and tag them using the tool.
4. Generate the appropriate JSON-LD code based on your selections, Once you've tagged all relevant information, click "Create HTML." Copy the generated JSON-LD code snippet.
5. Insert the Code into Your Website:

- Access your website's content management system (CMS).

- Navigate to the HTML editor for the page you are marking up.

- Paste the JSON-LD code snippet into the <head> section of the HTML code.

- Save and publish your changes.

Ask your developer to give you admin access to your CMS ? Strategically Implementing these schemas (check out what keywords are driving your competitor traffic and reverse engineer), a hotel can enhance its digital presence, improve user engagement, and drive more conversions across various objectives.

In summary

• Schemas are mental models humans use to define what an entity is. An entity can be anything, but what makes one thing different from another? It's the attributes that make it unique, allowing machines to disambiguate between similar things .
• These attributes form the vocabulary that Schema.org defines. This vocabulary can be expressed in one of three syntaxes: JSON-LD, RDFa, and Microdata. When syntax is combined with Schema.org vocabulary, it turns unstructured data, such as words, into structured data (i.e., schemas that machines can understand without confusion).
• Schema.org Types are used to describe specific entities. A person is in theory an entity but there are 7.89 billion people on earth. The Person Schema.org Type comes with a set of vocabulary to help machines understand who a specific person is. Vocabulary such as name, alumniOf, gender, worksFor, memberOf, sibling, sameAs, and relatedTo let you describe who a person is and disambiguate them from someone else with the same name. Using the JSON-LD syntax, you can give search the information they need
• THere are some 803 types of schema - Of these, you will most likely describe Organization, Person, Event, CreativeWork and Product Schema.org Types. These are all specific schema Types that sit under the Schema.org Type called "Thing". And within many of these Types are more specific schema Types. No hierarchy in using these, but these put together describe an 'Entity' which finally leads to what is known as a knowledge graph. In the coming editions, we can briefly touch base with these concepts.