Structured data helps search engines and other systems understand and interpret your site better.
The SEO Framework embraces structured data via Schema.org with the JSON-LD scripting markup standard. These scripts are invisible to your visitors, and they are compatible with every theme and plugin because structured data collision resolves itself via a “first displayed” policy.
In the left-hand menu on Google’s structured data reference page, you’ll find all supported types under the “Feature guides” accordion tab.
Implemented data types
The SEO Framework’s product family currently implements these types, which are the absolute maximum we can do abiding by Google’s structured data policies:
- Article:
- Delivered via the Articles extension.
- Affected pages: Only outputted on posts that meet all requirements, not pages.
- Annotation: The post’s headline, description, publishing and updated time, author, and more.
- Usefulness: This seems to bind sites with the same authors together. News publishers benefit from Carousel (see below).
- Delivered via the Articles extension.
- Breadcrumb:
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin. You can find the toggle in the Schema.org settings box, under “Structure”.
- Affected pages: All singular post types are supported. Support for archives is being worked on.
- Annotation: The page’s URL hierarchy and related images.
- Usefulness: Prominently displayed in search engines. It helps potential visitors and search engines understand your site’s hierachy.
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin. You can find the toggle in the Schema.org settings box, under “Structure”.
- Carousel (N.B. these docs do not explicitely list “news articles” for carousel, even though they exist):
- Delivered via the Articles extension.
- Affected pages: Same as Article.
- Annotation: This is implied by Article.
- Usefulness: Higher click-through rate in search engines on contemporary (expiring) content, like news articles.
- Delivered via the Articles extension.
- Corporate Contact (official documenation merged into “Local business”):
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin. You can find the toggle in the Schema.org settings box, under “Presence”. Further expanded by the Local SEO extension.
- Affected pages: Only the homepage. For Local SEO, the homepage and every matched department URL on the same site.
- Annotation: Only when the website represents an Organization, the name, logo, and connected social networks are listed. More details are annotated with the Local SEO extension.
- Usefulness: Prominent brand display. Only reputable and well-established websites seem to benefit from this.
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin. You can find the toggle in the Schema.org settings box, under “Presence”. Further expanded by the Local SEO extension.
- Local Business:
- Delivered via the Local SEO extension.
- Affected pages: The homepage and every matched department URL on the same site.
- Annotation: General business details, including the business type, opening hours, food delivery options, and more.
- Usefulness: Prominent brand display. Only trusted websites seem to benefit well from this. You can gain trust via Google My Business.
- Delivered via the Local SEO extension.
- Logo:
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin. You can find the settings field in the Schema.org settings box, under “Structure”.
- Affected pages: Same as Corporate Contact. Only applies to sites representing an organization.
- Annotation: This is brought via Corporate Contact. Note that, from TSF v5.0, Google will no longer report this type in Search Console because we now output Schema.org in a graph. This is a bug at Google.
- Usefulness: Little to none. We have yet to see this being utilized via structured data. Most logos are taken from Wikipedia.
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin. You can find the settings field in the Schema.org settings box, under “Structure”.
- Sitelinks Searchbox:
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin. You can find the toggle in the Schema.org settings box, under “Structure”.
- Affected pages: All pages since TSF v5.0.
- Annotation: The site name, alternative name (if the blog name differs from the “Presence” name), and the WordPress search endpoint.
- Usefulness: Only top ranking websites are prone to get this displayed on the search engine result pages. Moreover, we speculate only large and convoluted websites are eligible.
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin. You can find the toggle in the Schema.org settings box, under “Structure”.
- Social Profile:
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin and may be populated with the author’s name, Twitter (X) and Facebook profile links, and bio.
- Affected pages: All pages that have an author since TSF v5.0, and the homepage if the site represents a person.
- Annotation: The name and bio of the author is gathered from the website’s description if the site represents a person. All pages with a registered WordPress user as author will use their profile instead.
- Usefulness: Prominent social links display. Only reputable and well-established websites seem to benefit from this.
- Delivered via The SEO Framework plugin and may be populated with the author’s name, Twitter (X) and Facebook profile links, and bio.
It’s not just us
Not only The SEO Framework outputs structured data. Many themes may annotate markup information via inline formats. Some plugins may also output structured data; for example, WooCommerce outputs the Product markup.
Don’t overdo it
Not all structured data is useful, as such, we don’t include everything. This is because some types may be redundant–for example, we don’t require to annotate the document language, because WordPress annotates this already via the <html lang="ll-CC"> tag.
Structured data is powerful, but you must follow Google’s strict policies in order to be eligible for this. If you fail to comply, they’ll flag your website for spam. Because of this, we want to give users as little control as possible over the markup. It is also why we remain clear from the Review snippet markup, as it is often abused.