Dynamic CMS Schema Markup
In the past two articles we covered basics of structured data and spoke about static page structured data on Webflow websites. Be sure to read both of them if you haven’t as we are not repeating certain concepts in this series, but now it’s time to talk about scenarios when JSON code for structured data in your <head> has dynamic variables.
In this article we will review the basics of setting structured data code for many pages at once (mostly dynamic CMS Collection pages).
Let’s get started!
Structured Data for CMS Collections
The main difference between structured data for static pages and CMS Collection templates is that you can assign variable data fields to different entities.
For static structured data we used an example of organization (logo) or local business data.
That’s because in most cases these data types are mentioned in your code once across the whole website and you have only one instance of it that never repeats. Example: corporation contact details, address, logo and social media added to homepage <head> code.
Now for the CMS Collection templates we will take the most obvious example of structured data that every website will have many of: articles.
How to Add Structured Data to CMS Collection Template?
To add specific type of schema (structured data) to your dynamic Webflow page (CMS Collection template) - you will need to:
- Open CMS Collection template page settings
- Go to Custom Code section
- In the <head> section add your JSON code with all the schema markup you need
- Assign variable values to schema entities within the code
- Save page and publish website
As you can see, the main difference between static and dynamic schema is that you will need to assign variable values from CMS Collection fields that will be used for each collection item page.
Does Every CMS Collection Need Structured Data?
No. You have to understand that structured data is used not only on websites, but also within emails and other digital communication. It helps computers to understand context by attaching it to information that humans would understand easily.
Take for instance an invoice document, most humans will see the amount or price next to item name and will immediately understand this as an invoice or billing type document. But computers need that explanation about the data entity types. So explanation on what that number and product name belong to - so fields that specify price and product name.
In recent SEO history writers and SEOs were adding that extra information to their web pages for humans to see, which resulted in keyword stuffing. A practice that produced content that ranks well on search engines but is very difficult for humans to read as it’s filled with loads of unnecessary information aimed solely at crawlers.
Which brings us to structured data stuffing - similar practice when websites are adding as much structured data as they can to each page (i.e. adding company schema on every page). Don’t do that, you want search engines to trust your ability to classify data and don’t want to waste your crawling budget - after all that’s the deal we made with search engines…
We organize data for search engines and search engines reward us with organic traffic in return for making their life easier.
Types of Dynamic Structured Data
Based on most common structured data types that Google claims to understand perfectly - here’s a few examples of what data types can be added to Webflow builds.
- Articles
- Courses
- Recipes
- Datasets
- Events
- Fact Check (approval or disapproval of claims)
- FAQs (as in single question and answer to something regarding specific topic)
- How to’s (guide to “ doing something”)
- Job Postings (open positions within the company)
- Products (very important for e-commerce Webflow builds)
- Q&A (only user generated content, not to be confused with FAQ!)
- Review Snippet
- Subscription Content (gated content when you don’t want to get penalized for: the practice of cloaking, which violates Google’s spam policies)
- Videos or Learning Videos (learning = aimed at students)
Important: we advise reading Google’s structured data documentation and general data types, as well as visiting sources like schema.org or even learning about basics of knowledge graph planning.
In the last three articles (including this one) we barely touched the subject of structured data, and focused on fundamentals needed for Webflow developers, designers and website owners. Do know that there is so much more to learn on this subject!
If we can leave you with one idea let it be this:
Structured data is a way of thinking about your website from an information structuring and classifying perspective. Thanks to structured data… You don’t need to ruin user experience for your visitors by adding too much random information on page that is obvious to humans but needed for robots. We now use schema inside head code instead!
Because of structured data, SEO became a less spammy and more UX friendly!
