Can Product markup be used for a services page?

• We are a consulting company that offers services. We want to SEO the structured data markup on the pages where our services (which cannot be purchased online] are described.

  Since the SERVICE markup is not recognized by Google, we're thinking the PRODUCT markup might work. However, we're concerned about using this strategy because we do not have a barcode or a fixed price. What would you recommend?

Answer:

Yes, we have successfully used /Product markup for companies that offer services. When doing that you want to be sure that you clearly state on the page a Starting at price for each service and then use that price in your markup, as Price is required for rich results.

You may even consider creating an entry level service with a set price, perhaps an entry consultation, 2 hours of review with followup 30 min call — whatever seems to make sense. It's also something you can use to qualify customers.

When you're adding markup to each page, you're going to be aware that you're going to get some Warnings. This is when I want to remind you that warnings Are NOT Deal Breakers and you're going to see them because your service doesn't have a barcode, SKU etc. You will have all the data points to avoid Errors.

However, to get full advantage of it, you really need aggregate reviews/product reviews to get your rating stars in the search results. Remember to publish the reviews in whole or partial on the services page, be sure they're unique and not used anywhere else and only use reviews that are specific to each service - NOT a business wide, general review.

Here's a great How to Guide on Product Markup you can leverage. Of course, as you might expect, this requires a bit more work. If successful, you'll have a rich product result that displays in search, which may also help your CTR.

Is having the markup a big deal? Probably not but it draws attention to a listing. It also ...