Rich Snippets: What They Are and How to Implement Them

What Are Rich Snippets?

Rich Snippets, also known as enriched results, are a type of search result with additional information in them, whether images, videos, reviews, or any other type. This information comes from structured data that has been previously added to the page through HTML so that Google can read it.

Below, you can discover in detail all the types that exist:

Types of Rich Snippets

Currently, there are 31 types of rich snippets that Google has officially published. Some are in testing mode, others were removed, and it is a list that is constantly evolving. That's why we will keep it updated with all the news and changes so we can always offer the latest available information.

In order to give you the maximum amount of information, we have added:

• ›Summary of each type
• ›Google requirements

Article

Whether it's an article, a sports news piece, or a blog on a particular topic, article data markup will allow us to access featured sections such as the news carousel, larger thumbnail images, and greater visibility from mobile devices.

Visibility of articles with AMP and structured data implemented on mobile.

To perform this markup, we have two options:

• ›Data markup with AMP: If we implement AMP and structured data, we have a great possibility of seeing our content in the featured news blocks since Google favors this type of result.
• ›Data markup without AMP: Even if we don't have AMP, we can mark our content with article enriched data, and despite having less visibility from Google, we'll have more reach than if we didn't have data markup.

?️ Article Rich Snippet Requirements

Book

Through book data markup, users can discover new works and authors, while book producers can have a new marketing channel since users can purchase them directly from the search results.

View of a book with all the information organized in tabs.

Thanks to this new format, users can easily read a summary about the book, see reviews and ratings, information about the author, and much more in a dynamic and very well-organized way.

?️ Book Rich Snippet Requirements

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs could be defined as the internal web hierarchy. We want to communicate to Google how our website is organized in order to improve user navigation and the crawling of search engine bots.

Breadcrumbs help define the page hierarchy even in search results.

To see it clearly, if we take as an example a guide on "How to play Chess," we could frame it as follows:

Home > Articles > Beginner's Guides > How to play chess

The last element of the breadcrumb should never carry a link since it would link to itself, but the previous 3 should carry it to ensure that if the user wants to continue browsing, they can do it comfortably.

?️ Breadcrumb Rich Snippet Requirements

Carousel

Carousel enriched data will allow us to show several articles or sections of our website within the same search result. With this, we will achieve much greater visibility and consequently higher CTR.

AMP carousel within a single search result.

?️ Carousel Rich Snippet Requirements

Corporate Contact

With the corporate contact data snippet, we can add highly relevant business-level data (phone, website, customer service departments...).

Corporate information of a business without being inside the Google My Business package.

?️ Corporate Contact Rich Snippet Requirements

Course

If we have courses within our website, getting users to these pages can be quite a challenge. However, thanks to this data markup, our courses will have great visibility and will be easily accessible from search results.

Display of the rich snippet with all the cooking courses that Emagister is offering.

?️ Course Rich Snippet Requirements

Critic Reviews

Thinking about watching a movie and don't know if it will be good or not? Thanks to this data markup, we'll be able to see the ratings from reference websites about it. In the event that we offer these ratings on our website, it can be a unique opportunity to have great visibility.

Ratings of a movie directly in the search results from 3 different media outlets.

?️ Critic Review Rich Snippet Requirements

Dataset

Datasets or DataSets will allow us to show statistical information and other values in search results.

?️ Dataset Rich Snippet Requirements

Employer Overall Rating

Entering a company's selection process is quite a challenge since we don't know what we will find. Thanks to this tool, we can see the ratings of this company and what its employees think. In the same way, if we want to increase the transparency of our company, we can add this data markup and see what our team thinks.

?️ Employer Rich Snippet Requirements

Events

Dozens of websites offer events and activities in cities around the world. Thanks to this markup, we can get our activities promoted at the top of search results and attract quality traffic to our website.

List with the most recent events (geolocated, sorted by date, and at the top of the search results)

?️ Events Rich Snippet Requirements

Fact Check

Is the earth flat? Do years have 365 days? Many of these questions only have one possible true answer. That's why Google has added data markup to verify certain questions or facts.

?️ Fact Check Rich Snippet Requirements

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Although the frequently asked questions (FAQ) data markup was designed for something else such as resolving doubts about specific and probably somewhat technical topics, thousands of companies around the world are literally flying to use them and give more visibility to their search results. An example of this is Edreams for the keyword "flights to barcelona." Instead of having a limited result, they took advantage of the FAQ data to have incredible visibility.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ) section in a flight query.

?️ FAQ Rich Snippet Requirements

How-To

There are certain questions that always have the same answer: "How to tie a tie, how to light a bonfire..." These are what we call "How-To" keywords, or keywords about how to do certain things. Google has a special data markup that will give us great visibility and allow us to see all the steps without entering the page directly.

It should be noted that although the visibility we'll get will be very great, this can drastically reduce the CTR since the query could be resolved without needing to enter the article.

How to tie a tie step by step with the How-To markup.

?️ How-To Rich Snippet Requirements

Jobs

Looking to expand your team or have a job listings website? Thanks to this data markup, all the offers you publish will appear highlighted at the top of search results, greatly increasing their visibility and potentially their traffic.

List with the latest SEO job postings.

?️ Jobs Rich Snippet Requirements

Jobs (Trainee)

New feature! Those companies that want to give an opportunity to newly graduated people will be able to do so with this data markup.

?️ Entry-Level Jobs Rich Snippet Requirements

Live Events

Do you broadcast live events on your website? Thanks to this data markup, you'll increase the visibility of your videos since they will not only have a prominent position in the search results but will also carry the "live" badge on them.

In the search results, we can see the "live" tag, indicating that the event is being broadcast live.

?️ Live Events Rich Snippet Requirements

Local Businesses

If we register our company on Google Business Profile and also correctly implement all the data markup for local businesses, we'll see how our company's visibility takes off, since the sidebar of search results—which is always blank and has no elements—will be filled with our company's data.

Local business profile in the search results.

?️ Local Businesses Rich Snippet Requirements

Logo

Does an old logo of your company appear in the search results? Thanks to this data markup, you can ensure that the most recent data appears and Google picks up your most up-to-date logo.

?️ Logo Rich Snippet Requirements

Movies

Best movies of 2019? Movies currently in theaters?

Google will always show us the most recent movies in theaters, and even the showtimes and ratings.

Thanks to data markup, you'll be able to browse the search results as if you were inside the cinema website, see summaries, ratings, and much more...

?️ Movies Rich Snippet Requirements

Media Actions

Looking for a song? Thanks to this markup, we can see information about the song, its author, and view several platforms on which we can play it.

Search results obtained for a song with the possibility of playing them from different platforms.

?️ Media Rich Snippet Requirements

Occupation

What's the average salary of an SEO Manager in the United States? What's the salary difference between a Junior SEO and a Senior SEO? Thanks to this data markup, we can see all the data directly in the search results.

?️ Occupation Rich Snippet Requirements

Product

Product markup is probably the most used today. In it, the user can see availability, stock, information, user ratings, and price.

Thanks to product markup, users can see the average rating, number of reviews...

It's probably the most important data markup for Ecommerce.

?️ Product Rich Snippet Requirements

Q&A (Questions & Answers)

Pages with Q&A (Questions and Answers) format are structured in such a way that there is one question and several answers, and the user can see everything in a structured and very visible way in the search results.

?️ Q&A Rich Snippet Requirements

Recipe

What are the easiest vegan recipes? Thanks to this data markup, we can see many available recipes from various sources, their preparation time, difficulty, steps required... As Sistrix reported a few weeks ago, these domains have experienced great growth and it seems Google is favoring them greatly.

Recipes are probably one of the products that are gaining the most visibility lately.

?️ Recipe Rich Snippet Requirements

Review Snippet

Review snippets can be about books, recipes, movies, products, local businesses, or applications.

?️ Review Rich Snippet Requirements

Sitelinks Search Box

Search boxes are a tool at our disposal that allows us to add a search box directly in the search results of our company so that the user can perform the search directly on our site.

?️ Search Box Rich Snippet Requirements

Software App

Many of the searches performed are for brands or applications directly. Instead of sending the user to the official website so that they then download the app, Google adds a Google Play box in the search results so the user can download the app they want directly.

When searching the name of an app, a Google Play box appears directly in the search results that allows us to access its download page directly.

?️ Apps Rich Snippet Requirements

Voice Search

Voice searches appeared not long ago and are becoming a true revolution. In many cases, they don't involve having a screen, and adapting to this new model is crucial to ensuring the success of our SEO strategy. Through this markup, we can ensure that voice assistants can read our content and transform it into speech.

?️ Voice Rich Snippet Requirements

Subscriptions and Paywalled Content

Do you offer quality content through a subscription or membership? The New York Times or other newspapers are clear examples of the success of this model. Thanks to this markup, we can ensure that Google doesn't penalize us for not offering all the content, and search engines understand that it's protected content.

?️ Paywalled Content Rich Snippet Requirements

Top Places List

What are the most spectacular attractions or places to visit in Cancún? The best restaurants in Barcelona? If we meet the requirements of this feature, we can get our content selection to appear in featured sections of the search results.

Google directly displays a list of places of interest when searching for city names.

?️ Top Places List Rich Snippet Requirements

Video

Many queries can be resolved much more effectively through a video than through a text result. That's why Google already understands this, and in certain queries, it ranks video blocks above all other results.

Video box within the search results.

?️ Video Rich Snippet Requirements

How to Implement Rich Snippets

The implementation of rich snippets will depend on the platform. If we have our site built in Wordpress, our life will be much less complicated than if we have done it "by hand" without a CMS.

Wordpress

If we have used Wordpress to develop our website, we have a multitude of tools at our disposal to implement enriched data markup. One of the most interesting options is Rank Math, which is not only a complete plugin at the SEO level but also comes with a really comprehensive data markup package.

Even so, we have all kinds of alternatives so you can choose which one best suits you.

List of some of the best plugins to perform Schema implementation in Wordpress.

Other Platforms

In the event that we have decided to develop our platform from scratch without using any CMS, we will have to manually implement all the rich snippets that apply to our business. To do this, we'll take the JSON-LD snippets of each rich snippet and implement them in the header of the page.

Although we have detailed the necessary snippet in each section, below we show you an example:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "NewsArticle",
  "mainEntityOfPage": {
    "@type": "WebPage",
    "@id": "https://google.com/article"
  },
  "headline": "Article headline",
  "image": [
    "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg",
    "https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg",
    "https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg"
   ],
  "datePublished": "2015-02-05T08:00:00+08:00",
  "dateModified": "2015-02-05T09:20:00+08:00",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "John Doe"
  },
   "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Google",
    "logo": {
      "@type": "ImageObject",
      "url": "https://google.com/logo.jpg"
    }
  },
  "description": "A most wonderful article"
}
</script>

How to Validate the Implementation of Rich Snippets

To validate the implementation of Rich Snippets, we have Google's official structured data testing tool at our disposal. In addition, we also have Chrome extensions to validate this even more quickly.

Using Google's tool, we can validate all our structured data, both at the code snippet level and via URL.

Also, once the data markup has been implemented and validated, we can monitor its evolution in Google Search Console.

Monitoring rich snippets in Search Console is very easy and we also receive alerts if errors are detected.

References

• ›Rich Snippets Gallery in Google
• ›Structured Data Tool