Understanding Rich Text Snippets in SEO

Through our SEO Agency Optimize 360

What are Rich Text Snippets in SEO?

---

When it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization), there is a highly effective technique for improving the visibility of your web pages on search engines, such as Google:

Rich Text Snippets. But what exactly are these snippets and how can they help boost your SEO strategy?

We'll explain it to you in 10 key points.

1. What is a Rich Text Snippet?

A Rich Text Snippetalso known as a rich extract, is a short description of a web page that enables users and search engines to quickly understand its content. It is displayed directly in the search engine results, usually under the page title.

Rich Text Snippets are often accompanied by stars for customer reviewsadditional information such as the cooking time for a recipe, or the price of an item available for sale.

2. Why use Rich Text Snippets in SEO?

Enriched extracts have several advantages for your natural referencing strategy:

• They improve the visibility of your web pages in search results, by making them more attractive to web users with their additional information.
• They increase the click-through rate (CTR) and therefore generate more traffic to your website.
• They reduce bounce rateThis is because visitors know what to expect before they click on your link, and are therefore less likely to leave the page quickly if it doesn't live up to their expectations.

3. How do Rich Text Snippets work?

To set up enriched extracts, you need to include the following in the code HTML your web pages with specific structured tags, called microdata or schema.org. These tags enable search engines to identify the important information that you wish to highlight in search results. They can relate to different types of content, such as recipes, articles, events or customer reviews.

4. What are the Rich Text Snippets formats?

There are several formats for structuring the data in your enriched extracts:

• Microdata a format based on HTML5 attributes that is placed directly in the existing elements of your code.
• RDFa (Resource Description Framework in Attributes) : an extension of the HTML language that allows additional information to be added to existing tags.
• JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) a lightweight, extensible format, recommended by Google, which takes the form of a script separate from your code.

5. How do I create a Rich Text Snippet?

Step 1: Choose the type of enriched extract

First of all, you need to decide what type of content you want to showcase with your enhanced extract: a recipe, a news item, etc.? customer advicea product, etc. See the full list of available types at schema.org.

Step 2: Structure the data using the appropriate tags

Next, integrate the structured tags corresponding to your type of rich extract into the HTML code of your web page. You can use one of the formats mentioned above (Microdata, RDFa or JSON-LD).

Step 3: Validate and test your enhanced extract

Once you have added your structured tags, use Google's Rich Results Test tool to check that your code is correctly interpreted by the search engine and that it generates a rich extract in line with your expectations.

6. Mistakes to avoid with Rich Text Snippets

Here are some common mistakes to avoid when setting up your enriched extracts:

• Using irrelevant structured tags Make sure you choose those that really correspond to the type of content you want to promote.
• Lack of precision in your tags For example, for a customer review, don't forget to indicate the total number of reviews and the average rating, in addition to the stars.
• Neglect the visual aspect of your enhanced extract Make sure that it is displayed correctly in the various search engines and respect the recommended dimensions for images, videos or associated icons.
• Attempting to artificially manipulate results Google penalises sites that misuse enriched extracts to mislead users, for example by displaying false reviews. So stay honest and transparent!

7. Rich Text Snippets and local SEO

Enriched extracts can also help to improve your local referencing strategy. By structuring the data relating to your business (address, opening hours, telephone number, etc.), you can make it more visible in geolocalised search results and on platforms such as Google Maps.

8. Compatibility with voice assistants

Finally, Rich Text Snippets also play an important role in voice search engine optimisation. Voice assistants such as Google Assistant, Siri or Alexa use this structured information to provide precise answers to user queries in the form of spoken content.

9. The internationalisation of Rich Text Snippets

If you are targeting an international audience, remember to adapt your rich extracts to the different languages on your site. Use attributes Hreflang and the corresponding structured tags to indicate to search engines the language version of each page and thus optimise theuser experience.

10. Monitoring developments in Rich Text Snippets

Search engines are constantly evolving and so are their expectations when it comes to rich extracts. So keep up to date with the latest recommendations from Google and other market players so that you can adapt your strategy accordingly and maintain a good position in the search results.

In short, Rich Text Snippets are an invaluable asset for optimising your natural referencing and boosting your website's visibility on search engines. Don't hesitate to implement these techniques now to improve the attractiveness of your web pages and generate more traffic to your site!