It is not a new thing to know but the latest news in the SEO world reported that Google has been working upon improving the mobile user experience for its searchers. Latest report also pointed out the Google’s new content presentation technique to its mobile users and it was called as “Rich Cards”. Rich Cards are like condensed search results that are presented in carousels at the top of the page. Hence, it is easy to note that it is highly going to appease recipes websites and movies.
Google is starting off by showing rich cards for two categories, namely recipes and movies. Like visually rich snippets, rich cards display condensed information in a more visual and easy on the eyes format than ever before. Just like rich snippets, they also use schema.org structured markup data. These rich cards can be selected from the same site or from different other sites to display. Rich cards are a great way to increase awareness about your website.
Google has been experimenting with providing the publishers with a visually rich preview of their content. Following statement by Google supports the fact:
“We’re starting to show rich cards for two content categories: recipes and movies. They will appear initially on mobile search results in English for google.com. We’re actively experimenting with more opportunities to provide more publishers with a rich preview of their content.”
What Developers need to work upon for rich cards
Since this is a major change that Google has been working upon, it is important that developers take note of a few things in order to make rich cards work for their client’s website:
Test and accordingly make changes in your markup
- Google has strongly recommended to use JSON-LD in the website’s implementation.
- Developers need to find out about which fields are important for markup in order for a rich card to appear in search.
- To see how the rich card will appear in search or if to see any errors in real time while tweaking your markup, you can use Google’s structured data testing tool– which by the way is available only for recipes and movies for now.
Check your indexed rich cards
- If you wanna check how many of your rich cards are currently indexed, then you can use the new search console rich cards report by Google. The error report will look like this:
- To help Google discover all your marked-up content, you need to submit a sitemap.
- In the rich cards report you can see which of your cards can be enhanced by marking it up with additional fields. This will help you in finding new opportunities for Google rich cards.
What it means for marketers?
Though rich cards are available on an experimental basis for recipes and movies, marketers can still work out on visualising the rich cards and is a very effective way to entice users to click to your site. They show right at the top of the page, which is obviously a good thing.
For example, as I searched for “ Top rated Hollywood Horror movies” :
Users are becoming more reliant on visual appeal these days. Hence, Google did not back off from cashing on the opportunity. You can use images through your blog site or a web page. So be sure to use your best images, and really is catchy. However it is done, either by getting a photograph clicked by using a real camera instead of a smartphone or by getting the help of a professional photographer, you need the high quality images to draw people to your website.
Since many people and brands are going to compete for the top spot, doesn’t mean that you have a lesser chance to rank in rich cards. Google is for sure going to show the most expert, authoritative, and trustworthy sources from the eligible pool of candidates. So if your recipes or movie review site, or any other site since others will surely follow, uses high quality information, you’ll definitely have a higher chance of being picked up for Google rich cards section.
Getting Good Reviews is important as this is going to be an indicator for Google that a website is trustworthy.
Your schema markup needs to be perfect. All the right fields need to be filled out, which can lead to a good rich card being generated. Keep an eye on those errors in the Google rich cards report, test in the structured data testing tool, tweak your markup and then you are good to go. If you do it all right, you must be sure that your website will be like a beacon to attract new visitors.
