A Game-Changer for SEO: Harnessing the Power of Google Rich Content results
Published: 2023-06-25 17:53:51

SEO is pretty important these days and the more tools we utilize to gain more visibility the better. That is why we are going to look at Google Rich Content today and how to implement it on our websites.

## **What is Google Rich contents results?**

In simple terms Google is basically a crawling machine that reads URLs and its contents and tries to understand how to query this content so its visible for everyone on the web. 

To help google understand our content better and show it to the end user in a more presentable way we can **provide google with structured markup data that describes certain features of our website**. This structured data is then used by google to create Rich content results 

![Google rich results articles](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/u8ecipyha1jkq6a0g8zs.png) <center><small> [**Google rich results articles**](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/article) </small></center><br>

**Research has show that using Google Rich Content has increased the CTR of many big companies. According to Google one of those is Nestlé**.

<blockquote>
Nestlé has measured pages that show as rich results in search have an 82% higher click through rate than non-rich result pages.
</blockquote>

<small><center>[Case studies of websites that have implemented structured data for their site](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/intro-structured-data)</center></small><br>

## Types of supported rich content

Google supports a variety of markup data that generates rich content results. Some of my favourite are

- [Article] (https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/article) 📚
- [Event](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/event) 🎫
- [FAQ](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/faqpage) 🤔
- [Local Business](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/local-business) 👨‍💼
- [Logo](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/logo) 🏢
- [Product](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/product) 📦
- [Q&A](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/qapage) ❓
- [Recipe](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/recipe) 👩‍🍳
- [Video](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/video) 🎥

## **Implementing Google Rich Content**

To implement rich content we will need to use the [Schema org](https://schema.org/) data structure for our markup and add it inside our HTML. Let's look at an example of implementing the JSON LD data type.

```javascript
    <script type="application/ld+json">
    {
      "@context": "https://schema.org",
      "@type": "NewsArticle",
      "headline": "Title of a News Article",
      "image": [
        "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg",
       ],
      "datePublished": "2015-02-05T08:00:00+08:00",
      "dateModified": "2015-02-05T09:20:00+08:00",
      "author": [{
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Jane Doe",
          "url": "https://example.com/profile/janedoe123"
      }]
    }
    </script>
```

The above example is from the schema type of *NewsArticle*. You can search for the data type in [Schema org](https://schema.org/) to see all the available fields.

**However you MUST include the required minimum fields from the Google documentation otherwise Google won't able to extract the necessary information to validate the data.**

Some more important points to note is that **the content that is described by the JSON should be visible to users on the website they are visiting.** 

For example if you are going to create a JSON that references an article it should be visible to users in your frontend.

## How do i check if my website has rich content results?

Alright, you have created your neat JSON objects and you are ready to showcase your articles, videos and more on your search results. But how do you know if you implemented the JSON correctly and that google is actually aware of it?

Don't sweat because Google has created [**a neat little tool**](https://search.google.com/test/rich-results) for us to test if our website supports rich contents and to warn us if we have a mistake on our JSON.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/fdxc2hdxt3l9q9m1390a.png)

## Closing thoughts

Think about ways you might add content as rich results in google. Maybe add Q&A content on your page or some videos that showcase your product.

Google rich contents are a great way to showcase your website in a more robust and colorful way. Take up more space on the search results and get your CTR up!

Important links:
- [Structured data markup that Google Search supports](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery)
- [Does your page support rich results?](https://search.google.com/test/rich-results)
- [Schema.org](https://schema.org/)