How do you structure data for search engine crawling?

1 Use HTML tags and attributes

One of the simplest and most important ways to structure your data for search engine crawling is to use HTML tags and attributes correctly. HTML tags and attributes are the building blocks of web pages, and they provide semantic and contextual clues to search engines about the content and purpose of your web pages. For example, you should use <h1> to <h6> tags for headings, <p> tags for paragraphs, <img> tags for images, <a> tags for links, and <meta> tags for metadata. You should also use attributes such as alt, title, and href to provide additional information about your elements.

2 Use schema markup

Another way to structure your data for search engine crawling is to use schema markup, which is a standardized vocabulary that you can add to your HTML code to describe the type and properties of your content. Schema markup helps search engines understand the meaning and context of your data, and it can also enhance your appearance on search engine results pages (SERPs) with rich snippets, such as ratings, reviews, prices, availability, and more. For example, you can use schema markup to indicate that your web page is about a product, a person, an event, a recipe, or a book, and provide specific details about each entity.

3 Use XML sitemaps

A third way to structure your data for search engine crawling is to use XML sitemaps, which are files that list all the URLs of your website and provide information about their priority, frequency, and last modification date. XML sitemaps help search engines discover and index your web pages, especially if you have a large, complex, or dynamic website with many pages, links, or parameters. You can create and submit XML sitemaps to search engines using tools such as Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools, or using plugins or generators if you use a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress or Shopify.

4 Use robots.txt files

A fourth way to structure your data for search engine crawling is to use robots.txt files, which are files that tell search engines which pages or directories of your website they can or cannot crawl. Robots.txt files help you control the access and visibility of your web pages, and prevent search engines from wasting their resources on crawling irrelevant, duplicate, or sensitive content. You can create and edit robots.txt files using a text editor or a tool such as Google Search Console, and place them in the root directory of your website.

5 Use canonical tags

A fifth way to structure your data for search engine crawling is to use canonical tags, which are HTML elements that specify the preferred version of a web page that has multiple versions with similar or identical content. Canonical tags help you avoid duplicate content issues, which can harm your SEO performance and confuse search engines and users. You can use canonical tags to indicate the original or authoritative source of a web page, or to consolidate multiple versions of a web page with different URLs, such as those with different parameters, domains, or protocols.

6 Use hreflang tags

A sixth way to structure your data for search engine crawling is to use hreflang tags, which are HTML elements that indicate the language and region of a web page that has multiple versions with different languages or locales. Hreflang tags help you target and serve your content to different audiences, and improve your SEO performance and user experience in multilingual or multinational markets. You can use hreflang tags to tell search engines which version of a web page to show to users based on their language or location preferences, or to avoid duplicate content issues with translated or localized content.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?