AuthorNicole Bingham
LinkedIn
How to add schema tags to Shopify
What are schema tags?
Schema is a form of structured data that can be used to mark up different types of content on a website. Adding structured data markup gives search engines more information about your site and its content. This means that search engines will be able to read and understand your site better, it will also make your content eligible for rich results which means more information can be displayed in the SERPS as you can see from the example below it is pulling through the price and the availability of the product.
Structured data can be used to mark up different items such as products, videos, events, and even recipes. You can find what type of structure data is available and the correct code using schema.org or Google search for developers. We recommend you read Google guidelines for structured data before you implement it on your website, to ensure you are using the site schema tag to markup the right content on your site.
There are two types of structured data formats, RDFa & JSON-LD, however, it is recommended by Google to use JSON-LD. If you are using RDFa you should consider migrating to JSON-LD. JSON-LD as it is easier to add and update and it is compatible with dynamic data. In addition, if you use JSON-LD, you don’t have to change your HTML code to indicate where the structured data is. As JSON-LD is recommended by Google it may be possible that Google will also drop RDFa in the future. Please note that Google does not support microformats anymore, if you are using this format you will need to migrate to JSON-LD.
How to add schema tags to Shopify
Manually add schema to your Shopify site
There are two main ways you can add schema tags to Shopify. The first option would be to manually add the schema tag. To do this you would first need to login to the backend of your Shopify store and go-to online store>Themes>Action>Edit Code.
If you wanted to add a product schema tag you will then need to go to your product.liquid which can be found under Templates.
You can then paste the product schema code at the top of your liquid. Once the code has been implemented you will want to preview the product page to make sure the page did not break, you can also test if the code is correct by using Google’s data testing tool.
This is the same process if you want to implement and test any other schemas such as FAQ, breadcrumb, location, etc. You will just need to make sure that the tag is implemented in the corresponding liquid file, for example, breadcrumb schema tags. You will just need to implement the schema in the breadcrumb.liquid and check you are using the correct code.
However, we would only recommend doing this if you are familiar with Shopify liquid, HTML and JSON. If you are not familiar with this then we would recommend the second option as doing it this why there is a possibility of introducing errors to your website.
Install a plugin to help implement Schema on your Shopify site
The second (and easier) option is to install a plugin, there are many apps that can add schema tags to your site. However, we recommend using Smart SEO or Schema Plus for SEO. Smart SEO will automatically provide Search engines, including Google with detailed structured data in JSON-LD format. For example, it generates structured data for every product on your collection pages.
If you’re looking to learn more about Shopify check out our Ultimate Guide to Shopify SEO.
