Video schema markup uses structured data to help search engines interpret your video’s content, details, and attributes. Structured data improves video visibility and ranking relevancy in search results due to its compatibility with machine learning.
In other words, structured data is how you speak Google’s language.
72.8% of first-page search results include structured data, yet only 18% of organizations use structured data. Furthermore, roughly 80% of all website data is unstructured. This gap provides a significant opportunity for your content to stand out.
Video schema is an often overlooked video SEO strategy, but this article makes it easy for technical and non-technical video professionals to take advantage of its benefits.
We’ll discuss the difference between structured and unstructured data with examples showcasing why video schema markup is important.
You’ll learn how to implement video schema markup easily. We’ll also explore why structured data is important to discoverability in the era of artificial intelligence.
What Is Video Structured Data?
Video structured data is categorized information about your video (title, description, thumbnail, upload data, and more) that machine learning can easily understand.
Search engines like Google use structured data to understand video content more quickly and easily, ensuring it appears for all relevant search queries.
Without structured data, search engines must interpret the content based on text, headers, referral links, and basic video metadata. Therefore, structured data makes it easier for search engines to find and organize your content among billions of other videos online.
Example Of Structured Versus Unstructured Data
Imagine looking for a specific family photo in a box of unsorted albums.
You’d need to go through each album individually, and you’d likely not know (or be able to remember) everyone in the images, when they were taken, or where they were captured.
The process is inefficient and unlikely to provide all the information you need.
Now, consider a system where every photo is meticulously cataloged—grouped by people, dates, and locations. Finding a specific photo becomes straightforward, and all relevant information is readily accessible.
This example illustrates the difference structured data makes.
Search engines face the monumental task of indexing billions of videos; therefore, adding structured data helps ensure your content is easier to find, understand, and rank.
The Benefits of Structured Data for Video SEO
Adding video schema markup doesn’t directly increase video page rankings. Yet structured data is compatible with the machine learning used to interpret, categorize, and organize information. Therefore, this increased understanding of your video content can lead to:
- Competitive Advantage: Boost your videos by making it faster and easier for search engines to understand, index, and rank your content.
- Rank For More Keywords: Improve traffic relevancy by ranking for a greater range of keywords that bring traffic directly to your video content.
- Video Enhancement In Search: Display rich results (see example below) on Google search engine results pages (SERP), increasing visibility and click-throughs.
SERP Examples of Video Content: Structured Versus Unstructured
This example showcases why adding structured data to your video pages can increase visibility and click-throughs from search engine result pages (SERP).
SproutVideo makes it easy to gain these benefits by automatically adding JSON-LD structured data to videos in most cases.
Video Content Example With Structured Data
This example showcases the video thumbnail, title, description, and upload date—all of which are part of the structured data.
It’s like offering viewers a pre-printed label on a package detailing what’s inside so anyone can understand without opening it.
Video Content Example Without Structured Data
Without structured data, it’s not immediately apparent this page even includes a video.
While some information is provided through video metadata, this video page would be easy to overlook among enhanced video results.
How to Implement Video Schema Markup
Video schema is implemented by adding structured data to the video page where your video is embedded.
You can use three types of structured data: JSON-LD, Microdata, and RDFa. However, Google prefers JSON-LD because it is easier to add and maintain at scale.
To implement video schema markup, add JSON-LD structured data to the HTML in the head or body of your video watch page.
Alternatively, SproutVideo allows you to skip this process—we automatically add JSON-LD structured data to SproutVideo-hosted Video Websites and embedded videos with Embedded Media Discovery.
If you implement structure data manually, note that it must be unique to each video yet consistent across all sources (sitemap, meta tags, structured data) for that video.
For example, if your video title is The Basics of Adobe After Effects, the video schema markup must include the same title in the structured data.
Learn More: Optimizing Videos for SEO — The Complete Guide
4 Ways to Generate Video Schema Using Structured Data
You can implement structured data without prior programming knowledge or with a developer. Here are a few different ways to generate JSON-LD structured data for videos.
- Choose a video host like SproutVideo that automatically adds structured data to video pages. No need for programming knowledge or a software developer.
- Generate structured data using a free third-party tool like HoneyNJam. No prior programming knowledge is necessary; simply provide your video information.
- Hire a developer once to set up JavaScript that generates structured data.
- Employ a developer to code structured data for each video.
When done, you can validate the structured data on Schema.org and use Google’s Rich Results Test to confirm you’ve enabled support for rich results.
Video Schema Example Using JSON-LD Structured Data
Here’s an example of the essential structured data you might add to the head or body of a video watch page.
<html>
<head>
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "VideoObject",
"name": "Introducing Kloob: The Latest Innovation in Wearable Technology",
"description": "A revolutionary new product in wearable tech.",
"thumbnailUrl": [
"https://example.com/photos/1x1/kloob.jpg",
"https://example.com/photos/4x3/kloob.jpg",
"https://example.com/photos/16x9/kloob.jpg"
],
"uploadDate": "2024-05-31T06:00+8:00",
"duration": "PT5M23S",
"contentUrl": "https://www.example.com/video/kloob/explainer-video.mp4",
"embedUrl": "https://www.example.com/embed/hello-kloob",
</script>
</head>
</html>Check out the full list of VideoObject properties that you can include in a video’s structured data. VideoObject properties allow you to communicate even more details about your video content.
Note: Using structured data, you can implement additional rich results for videos (e.g., key moments, LIVE badge, etc.) in SERPs. For a complete list, visit Google’s documentation on video structured data.
Why Video Schema is Key for Generative AI & Voice Search
Video schema leads to discoverability in the generative AI and voice search era because structured data organizes information in a way artificial intelligence easily understands.
Structured data is a proactive way to ensure your video content is visible as the search landscape shifts. Therefore, in addition to the regular benefits of structured data, video schema’s compatibility with artificial intelligence maximizes:
- AI Model Interpretation: Provide AI models with abundant detail about your video content that they can use to determine relevance.
- Voice Search Compatibility: Support voice- and conversation-driven search with highly organized content as users shift how they search for information.
- AI-Generated SERP Snippets: Ensure AI models consider your content when producing search response snippets at the top of results pages.
Using video schema markup ensures your video content remains or becomes highly visible with the shifting search landscape.
How To Automatically Add Structured Data To Videos
With a SproutVideo account, we add video schema for you.
JSON-LD structured data is automatically added to SproutVideo-hosted pages and embedded videos with Embedded Video Discovery.
Learn more about Video SEO with our other resources:
