Recently, an article about creating a VP of Finding / Discovery speaks to the rapid evolution of how customers find your brand. Let’s dig into some of the finer details of how search is changing and why one area, Schema Markup, needs to be a priority for “Finding” leaders.
Schema was created by founding companies Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex along with developers around the world to create structured data to help search engines decipher information on websites. If you haven’t already, you can see what schema looks like on your website with the Schema Validation Tool.
How Does Schema Help AI Search?
Plain and simple, AI uses schema markup to get a more structured understanding of your website. Data is used to help organize information that is easier to parse than just crawling a site. Some data that Schema can help organize include –
- Identify products, organization, events, and others without relying on keywords
- Provides context around numbers – e.g. is 4.50 a price or a rating? Schema helps search engines provide more detail around random numbers and other information on a page
- Helps natural language processing (NLP) distinguish between nuanced content. For example, is Apple the company or the fruit? Or a record company founded by The Beatles?
- Schema markup is very beneficial for voice search and AI search to provide more conversational responses. For an event, the voice search assistant can wrap a conversational tone around the schema
As AI becomes more prevalent, we’ll see a shift from keyword-based to entity-based search. An AI search assistant will know context unlike today’s search engines that are focused on exact match keywords and past user behavior.
What Types of Schema Markup Will Help GenAI Search?
Some schema markup will help Generative AI Search Engines like ChatGPT and Google Gemini more than others. Let’s review what you should focus on –
- Product Schema – these highlight price, availability, reviews, and more allowing search to add rich snippets and provide very clear information to the user
- Local Business and Organization Schema – improve your business listings with hours of operation, location/s, customer service, and more.
- FAQ, HowTo, and Review Schema – Help your customers get direct answers more quickly for how to use your product and other critical pieces of information
- Event Schema – ticket availability, event dates, and more can allow GenAI to surface your event to the top on general questions like “What is there to do near me next week”
Structured data for these four areas allows GenAI to create very readable (or voiced) content that your users will find much more helpful. Focusing on personalized and conversational search interfaces will be critical for finding success over the coming years.
Stay tuned for future articles covering best practices in implementing Schema in the AI Age.