---
title: "5-minute guide to Structured Data"
url: https://themodernweb.co.uk/2017/02/5-minute-guide-to-structured-data/
description: "A beginner-friendly introduction to structured data, schema vocabulary, testing, and search visibility."
published: 2017-02-01
updated: 2017-02-01
---

# 5-minute guide to Structured Data

Published 2017-02-01

## [February 2017](https://themodernweb.co.uk/2017/02/)

Filed under: [SEO](https://themodernweb.co.uk/category/seo/), [Tips](https://themodernweb.co.uk/category/tips/), [Web Development](https://themodernweb.co.uk/category/web-development/)

A beginner-friendly introduction to structured data, schema vocabulary, testing, and search visibility.

## The problem it solves

A search engine reading a page sees text. It can infer a great deal, but it is inferring. Structured data lets the page state directly that this string is a publication date, that one is an author, and the page as a whole describes an article.

## Vocabulary and format

Schema.org provides the shared vocabulary: the type names and property names that describe articles, events, products, organisations, recipes and so on. The format that carries it is usually JSON-LD, a block of structured markup in the page head that does not touch the visible HTML at all.

That separation is the practical advantage of JSON-LD over the older inline approaches. Nothing in the layout has to change to add or correct it.

## Mark up what is really on the page

The rule that matters is that the markup must describe content the visitor can actually see. Marking up a rating or a date that appears nowhere on the page is the fastest route to having the markup ignored entirely.

## Test it

Validation tools parse a page or a pasted block and report what they understood, which errors are fatal, and which properties are recommended but missing. Running that check before publishing takes a minute and catches the bracket-level mistakes that otherwise silently invalidate the whole block.

Next entry: [A brief A-Z of web development acronyms](https://themodernweb.co.uk/2017/02/a-brief-a-z-of-web-development-acronyms/)

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