Google search works to improve the search quality and provide information that is very relevant to the query. In order for the search engine to understand the content better Rich Snippets and Schema markup are used to mark up web pages with structured data. These require coding skills, developmental resources and time. But Google has introduced the incredibly simple and easy tool for the webmasters to mark up structured data. This is Data Highlighter Tool.
This is a browser-based tool which can be used by people authorized by the website owner to add markup structured data to the web pages. Let us see how this point-and-click tool can be used to promote your business.
It can be used for Articles, Book reviews, Movie reviews, Software, Restaurants, Products, Episodes of TV Series, etc.
This tool is very useful to the small business people to highlight their location pages. Also for those businesses which have just a few products.
It is the ideal tool when you are running short of time and are unable to insert Schema markup but want to see rich snippets.
You can use it to test the impact of your rich snippets and decide whether it is worth implementing Schema markup for your entire site.
However, this tool is available for only English language at present and to create structured data for events mainly.
There are some simple precautions you must take to get the maximum benefit of this Data Highlighter Tool that is explained below:
Always ensure that you accurately highlight all the data for which you are creating the tag.
When tagging more than one item you must tag each of them separately and not as a single highlight.
When multiple events of a page are to be tagged, you must start from the top and work your way down the page. The highlighter tool will be able to recognize and tag rest of events thus saving you time.
When an event that is tagged contains hyperlink text, Data highlighter tool will automatically use the URL of the link for the event. However, the Data highlighter tool uses the URL automatically if it points to a page which is a part of your page set.
If you list multiple events in a consistent format, Data Highlighter will automatically recognize them as you go. This is very useful.
Data Highlighter can be used for pages that have been crawled by Google already. If Google has not crawled your page or if it is not possible for it to crawl, for example, pages that open only after some personal data is entered such as subscribing or similar pages, then using this tool will not be possible.
Conclusion
On the whole, the Data Highlighter is very instinctive and simple to use. The data highlighter tool helps Google to interpret the data on your web page. It does not add any code. Adding Schema tags to your pages is the best way to implement structured data but you can begin with Data highlighter as a marker and work your way up to the Schema markup.