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Structured data for VideoObjects

Microdata helps search engines better understand the content of your website. They are the prerequisite for displaying rich snippets in search results pages. For example, rich snippets are thumbnails of videos and can increase the click-through rate (CTR) of your search results.

 

How to implement structured data for videos

Two steps are necessary to make your site eligible for video rich cards and rich snippets in search results:

1. include structured data about the video on the page that shows the video. The markup can be provided either in microdata or json-ld format on that page.
2. generate and submit a video-sitemap to the search engine. Once you have implemented step 1, you can use Screaming Frog and Excel to semi-automatically generate the video-sitemap.xml for you.

 

 

How to generate a video-sitemap.xml

There are several ways to generate a video-sitemap.xml file.

1. Option: once you have implemented the structured data VideoObject markup on your site:
   • Crawl your pages that contain videos with Screaming Frog and use custom extraction to extract the data fields needed for the sitemap
   • Export the data to Excel
   • Concatenate descriptive fields of the properties with the data to build the code for each individual page in one cell
   • Copy and paste the column into an editor and save file as video-sitemap.xml
2. Option: Generate video-sitemap via Google Docs:
   • Make a copy of this Google Sheet
   • Follow George Freitag’s step by step guide on how to use Google Docs to generate the video sitemap. We couldn’t explain it any better.
      

What is a Video Schema?

It is a markup for video content. With this structured data you provide an entry point for discovering and watching videos in Google Search. You can provide details such as the description, thumbnail URL, upload date, and duration by marking up your video with VideoObject.

How can i fix video markup?

In the Google Search Console you get an notification, if the markup is not correct. You can use the Video markup generator to generate a wellformed markup for YouTube videos.

How can I get Video rich results in Google?

You have to create a Video schema with this generator, insert the code on your page and place the Video visible on the page. Then the search engine bot will recognize it and index it.

Additional resources:

Make sure to check the official definition of fields for VideoObjects at schema.org.

For further information on the topic and common errors when implementing structured data for videos, check the Google Developers documentation.