There are many elements that factor into search rankings, and it requires vigorous research to stay on top of the developments and insights that are constantly released. Luckily, there are a few things a business owner can do that will prove to be valuable over the course of time. This includes inputting structured data into your website and ramping up relevant social media sites. You can begin building these two focus points into your marketing plan today and confidently expect to see positive results tomorrow.

Understand and Use Schema.org

The more data you give to search engines, the better the chance of boosting your search results ranking. Schema.org allows the biggest search engines (Google, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo) to collect data about your website and, in turn, better understand your website. Through Schema.org, you will be able to tag and describe properties of your products, reviews, and local listings.

This gives you a huge advantage because this data can benefit you in more ways than one. It can be used to raise your search results ranking, and be used as rich data in certain placements. The search engines will also be able to better determine your relevancy from the data that you input. Schema.org gives website managers a little bit more flexibility and control when it comes to keyword targeting.

Hint for Local Businesses: If you are pressed for time and can’t dedicate enough energy to your website, at a minimum add your address details using Schema.Org so that Google can factor in your geographical distance from users searching for a nearby business with your profile.

JSON-LD Makes Using Schema.org Easier

Instead of embedding structured data into your HTML code like you were once obligated to do, JSON-LD is an application that allows you add a block of JavaScript anywhere on your page to achieve the same effect. JSON-LD and Schema.Org pretty much go hand-in-hand, but it is important to research the proper ways of implementing them into your website.

Yelp and Facebook

Another long-term-value addition to your marketing plan should be utilizing local business and social media listings. Google uses sites such as Google My Business and Yelp to determine your local impact. These websites have a huge influence over potential new customers simply because they are already household names that consumers trust. This just reinforces the case to continue putting effort into maintaining a solid reputation on these channels respectively.

Facebook is also important and used for collecting data, so you’ll want to create a business page and maintain it. Facebook and Yelp are two of the most influential factors because of the high amount of reviews and engagement they can generate. This is a very important because prominence is something that weighs heavily in the formula for Google search rankings.

Now that you know these SEO ranking tips, it’s time to start applying them. As I stated before, these are great implementations because they will provide value even as search results change their algorithms. Structured data and local and social listings are going to continue to be huge factors as the world of SEO continues to expand.