Enhanced SEO Options & Considerations

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This article discusses PowerReviews' three Enhanced SEO options and considerations. If you've already decided on an option and want to learn more about implementing Enhanced SEO, click here.

If you are utilizing Shopify as your eCommerce platform, please see Shopify SEO.

Option 1: Use PowerReviews' out-of-the-box solution to create schema markup automatically

PowerReviews can provide structured data for the AggregateRating and Review Schemas through a configuration setting that is enabled on our side. Enabling this setting means that JSON-LD markup is automatically injected into the page upon loading, along with the review display.

Considerations:

• This option benefits a wide range of our clients, as it allows for PowerReviews to create and manage the AggregateRating and Review schemas, with no development work needed.
• This allows for PowerReviews to adapt to any changes in search engine criteria.
• Do you have any structured data on your site? If not:
  • This option will be able to deliver AggregateRating markup to product pages without the need for additional development work.
  • Adding product data will create a product schema with nested ratings and reviews schemas from PowerReviews.
  • An example of this can be seen here at the PowerReviews Demo Store website.
• You must be using the current PowerReviews Display 4 to show reviews on your PDPs.

Option 2: Using the 'on_render' callback functions to create your own schema markup

By using a callback function in the pwr("render") function from PowerReviews, it is possible to take the data that is returned for the display to be used in the creation of your own AggregateRating schema, showing the average rating and review count for a product.

Considerations:

• This is a good option if you want to have full control in customizing your Rich Snippet solution, including your own AggregateRating schema, while incorporating the value of PowerReviews ratings data.
• Do you have development resources? If not, you may wish to consider Option 1, as this callback option requires modification to the page source code on individual product pages.
• Do you have a product schema on the page already?
  • If yes, you should make adjustments if using this solution in order to pull the aggregate rating and review count into the product schema.
  • If not, it is highly recommended that you create one, with either Option 2 or potentially Option 3 below.
• Is your site on Shopify? If yes, this option cannot be used, as the on_render callback is not compatible with this platform. See options 1 or 3.
• You are responsible for identifying any future changes by search engines, as well as making any necessary updates to your site.
• This option provides only the aggregate rating and review count, which is the Google-required minimum. See Option 3 below for the full list of review data you can inject into your schema.
• You must be using the current PowerReviews Display 4 to show reviews on your PDPs.

Option 3: Using the API to create your own schema markup

Data that is used for PowerReviews' Display 4 can be retrieved in order to create your own AggregateRating schema with review count, as well as schemas for the Review List. This is the option for those who wish to have full control and management of their schema creation.

Considerations:

• This is a good option if you want to have full control in structuring your Rich Snippet solution and over the code on your website, incorporating the value of all available PowerReviews ratings data.
• If you are not using the current PowerReviews Display 4 to show reviews on your PDPs, you must use this option.
• You must have development resources. Using the API requires the highest level of development effort to integrate with your platform, regardless of the desired functionality.
• You must have API access in your contract.
• You are responsible for identifying any future changes by search engines, as well as making any necessary updates to your site.
  
  
  

Other Helpful SEO Considerations

Structured Data

Structured Data is the overarching term enabling a website to help search engines better understand the contents of its pages. There are three formats:

• JSON-LD
• Microdata
• RDF

JSON-LD uses its own format within <script> tags. Microdata is built into a page inline as HTML attributes. For more information about Structured Data, see Google's Intro to Structured Data.

SEO and Your Review Display Version

PowerReviews uses schema.org standards for our SEO. As search engines have matured, their ability to read and understand the contents of websites has increased dramatically. Before, search engines needed the content to be in the static source code of webpages to understand it. Now, search engines like Google can crawl sites that add content dynamically with JavaScript.

Google now recommends using JSON-LD whenever possible, so our current Review Display (Display 4) utilizes this technology and dynamically injects SEO in the JSON-LD format.

The legacy Review Display (referred to as Display 3) uses Inline SEO (ILSEO) in Microdata format. Because of this, you must provide the Microdata on the page via a Server Side Include (SSI) from your ZIP file.

To generate your own product schema, follow Google's guidelines here.

Inline SEO

If you are on our legacy Review Display (Display 3) and are utilizing Inline SEO, the files are in Microdata format. PowerReviews provides the files in raw HTML, which is then Server Side Included onto the page. Cartridges like Demandware and Magento do this automatically.

These SEO files live within your ZIP file. pwr > XXXXX > inline

To find an Inline file for a given Page ID, go to the debug.html and search for the Page ID. This tells you the path directory of where that page's Inline file is located within pwr > XXXXX > content.