Schema.org Structured Data Added to Event Espresso 4

In its simplest sense, structured data is information formatted in a way that can be universally understood. For web pages, this means search engines are more easily able to tell what a page is about, and the different elements it contains, allowing them to return more useful results to searchers.

Schema.org is the result of collaboration between Google, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo! to help you provide the information their search engines need to understand your content and provide the best search results possible. Adding Schema markup to your HTML improves the way your page displays in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) by enhancing the rich snippets shown beneath the page title.

Image courtesy of Moz

For example, the first search result above contains both a star rating and a publication date. Both of these can be added using Schema. The second example does not have rich snippets and instead displays either the meta description or other information chosen by Google.

Here is an search specific to “events in chicago”. The result are specific to the events happening now in Chicago, and the format is special for events.

Schema.org Structured Data Markup for Events

Without structured data, a web page is essentially all information with no context; adding structured data gives it that context.

At the request of our customers and support team, we factored in some relatively minor code changes so that the individual event detail pages generated by Event Espresso 4 include event schema markup data in the HTML page source. The addition of this event schema markup increases a search engines’ understanding of your site’s content and should enhance search visibility via rich snippets, featured snippets and Google Knowledge Graph results.

Schema markup takes the form of code that you can add to your web page to define what the different elements – like dates, images, opening hours or reviews – all mean.

Typically, you would add the schema markup code to your pages. However, nothing more is needed to implement the event schema feature in Event Espresso 4. The event schema feature became available in EE4 Core on January 17, 2017, when we released Event Espresso 4.9.26 and will be automatically generated for each event page.

Since there are no code changes needed on your part, please be sure to include featured images and venue information with your event details. Event schema markup data for the event dates, name, prices, and URL is automatically added to each event post.

I’m sure you are anxious to learn more about schema markup and how it can help boost your search engine rankings and overall search engine optimization. So here are some articles for when you are ready:

• How to Boost Your SEO by Using Schema Markup — One of the latest evolution’s in SEO is called schema markup. This new form of optimization is one of the most powerful, but least-utilized forms of SEO available today. Once you grasp the concept and method of schema markup, you can boost your website in the search engine result pages (SERPs).
• How to Use Schema Markup for SEO: Making Your Site Easier to Find for Stupid Machines — Including schema microdata in your web pages is a lot like eating well, exercising or getting a good night’s rest – you know you should be doing it, but actually following through can be harder than it sounds. Unless you’re a health nut, in which case please stop telling us about Crossfit.
• Learn about Schema Structured Data — Schema.org (often called Schema) is a specific vocabulary of tags (or microdata) that you can add to your HTML to improve the way your page is represented in SERPs.

Please let us know in the comments below if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the event schema markup feature. Our community chat room is also available for open discussion about Event Espresso features and best practices.