Structured Data as a Google Ranking Factor
We've been telling you for years how great rich snippets are for boosting your click throughs from the search results and now thanks to another new study from Blue Nile Research we will let their data drive it home:
"When we look at the overall click results across all three scenarios, we see that the rich-media‒ enhanced result in position 2 captures an average of 61% of clicks, versus 48% when the same unenhanced result is in position 1... In our research, users tell us loud and clear that they would sooner click further down the page on a search result enhanced with appealing rich media than on position 1 containing a plain, text-only link." - Blue Nile
There are so many ways to markup your site these days like Local Business Markup, Event Markup, Article Markup, Organization Markup and even the Recipe Markup that no matter your industry there is something for you.
But, if you still aren't inspired to markup your website then maybe this will help...Google's John Mueller recently mentioned that Google is "looking into making Structured Data a ranking factor."History has shown that when Google reps say things like this, even in passing, it's because they are ALREADY using that factor in some aspects. So let this be another subtle push to BE SURE TO MARKUP YOUR SITE AND CONTENT. It takes very little time to do this, and with statements like this, the benefits can only grow. If you don't know which markups to do or have any questions about the process be sure to use our FastAnswer system.
Here is from Mueller himself in the Google Hangout below, he starts speaking about this at the 21:40 minute mark.
...