How do you add Article structured data to a blog post?

What is Article structured data?

Article structured data is a standardized way to provide information about a web page, helping search engines classify its content. For example, on a recipe page, structured data can specify ingredients, cooking time, and calorie count. For news, blog, and sports articles, this data helps Google understand the page and display better title text, images, and date information in search results, including on Google Search, Google News, and the Google Assistant.

Adding structured data can enable search results that are more engaging to users, known as rich results, which might encourage more interaction with your website. Article objects must be based on one of three schema.org types: Article, NewsArticle, or BlogPosting. The Article type covers various articles found in newspapers and magazines, while BlogPosting specifically refers to what is colloquially known as a blog post.

Schema.org does not list any required properties for Article structured data; instead, you should add properties that apply to your content. However, Google documents that you must include all required properties for an object to be eligible for enhanced display in Google Search. It is more important to supply fewer but complete and accurate recommended properties than to try to provide every possible property with incomplete or inaccurate data.

Which properties should you include for a blog post?

For a blog post, you should use the BlogPosting schema.org type. This type is designed for what was historically known as a "weblog" and is now commonly called a "blog." Key properties to include for a BlogPosting are the actual body of the article, the author, the publication date, and an image.

Specifically, Schema.org defines `articleBody` for the text content, `author` for the person or organization who wrote the content, and `datePublished` for the date of first publication. You can also include `image` to specify an image related to the article. Google recommends providing multiple high-resolution images with specific aspect ratios: 16x9, 4x3, and 1x1, with a minimum of 50K pixels when multiplying width and height.

Other useful properties for a BlogPosting include `sharedContent` for any creative work like an image, video, or audio clip shared within the post, and `commentCount` to indicate the number of comments the post has received. For the `author` property, Google recommends following specific author markup best practices to help it understand authors across various features.

How do you add structured data to your page?

To add structured data to your page, Google recommends using a format that is easiest for you to implement and maintain. In most cases, this is JSON-LD. All three common formats (JSON-LD, Microdata, RDFa) are equally fine for Google, as long as the markup is valid and properly implemented according to the feature's documentation.

When implementing structured data, it is crucial that the information you provide is visible to the user on the page. Do not create blank or empty pages just to hold structured data, and do not add structured data about information that is not visible, even if the information is accurate. This ensures that the structured data accurately reflects the user's experience.

Always follow the general structured data guidelines, as well as any guidelines specific to the Article structured data type. If your site violates these guidelines, your structured data might be ineligible for rich result display in Google Search, and Google may even take manual action against your site.

How do you test Article structured data?

After adding Article structured data to your blog post, you should validate your code to ensure it is correctly implemented. The Rich Results Test is an easy and useful tool for validating your structured data and, in some cases, previewing how a feature might appear in Google Search. Use this tool to identify and fix any critical errors in your structured data.

Once you have validated your code and fixed any errors, deploy a few pages that include your structured data. Then, use the URL Inspection tool to test how Google sees the page. This step helps confirm that Google can successfully crawl and parse your structured data after it has been published.

It is important to adhere to all guidelines for structured data. If your site violates one or more of these guidelines, Google may take manual action against it, which could affect your site's visibility in search results.

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