We’re trying something new this week: our first-ever plugin review series! We’re kicking it off with adding Schema.org support to WordPress.
Schema.org? What’s that?
Schema.org is a joint project between Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. It’s a standard format for adding structured data to websites.
From the Schema.org homepage:
This site provides a collection of schemas, i.e., html tags, that webmasters can use to markup their pages in ways recognized by major search providers. Search engines including Bing, Google, Yahoo! and Yandex rely on this markup to improve the display of search results, making it easier for people to find the right web pages.
Relying on a single format makes maintenance easier for webmasters. In turn, this provides more useful data for search engines to use in their results. Google goes into more detail in their FAQs.
For example, here’s Schema.org markup in use for reviews:
Moz posted a great article last year on why you should be embracing Schema.org on your website.
Turning to Plugins
The easiest way to get started with Schema.org is with plugins. There are quite a few available in the WordPress plugin directory.
For this review, we want to look at Schema.org-specific plugins.
We gave the five most popular a test run. You can find their directory pages below:
- All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets
- Schema Creator by Raven
- Add Meta Tags
- Microdata Manager for Genesis
- itemprop WP for SERP/SEO Rich Snippets
The Review Criteria
We’re looking at the following for each plugin:
- First impressions. Does the plugin page look credible?
- Ratings & reviews. What are people saying?
- Support. What’s provided? What issues are in the forum?
- Installation. What was the experience like?
- Using the plugin. How intuitive is it? Are there any problems?
Check Out the Reviews
This list will be updated as the reviews are added. 🙂
