Video Schema

Video Schema

The Video schema is perfect for websites looking to organize information about all video related content, such as movies, TV shows, and online clips. This setup makes it easier for search engines to understand your video content, ensuring it stands out in search results. Just like when you use schemas for music, movies, or books, adding a Video schema is all about sharing those juicy details with search engines. When you pop a Video schema onto your site, you’re highlighting all the important bits – such as video titles, who directed it, when it was released, and a neat little summary. This extra detail not only improves how your videos appear in search results but also offers a quick preview of your video to viewers.

For video content listings, the Video schema includes both mandatory and optional fields, as follows: 

Mandatory Fields:

name: The title of the video.

director: The director of the video.

Recommended Fields:

datePublished: The release date of the video.

description: A brief summary of the video.

genre: The genre of the video.

image: Images associated with the video, like posters or stills.

actor: The main actors featured in the video.

duration: The length of the video.

trailer: A link to the video trailer or a teaser.

Adding these required fields proves your video is real, and including suggested fields makes it better for users by offering more details about the video. This detailed setup can help your video show up higher in search results, making it easier for people to find and get what your video is about.

Here is an example of Video schema looks like:

How to access Video schema using Rich Snippets

Access it from METAs – Rich Snippet – Video

Clicking on the “+” symbol will open up a panel where you can start editing and customizing your Schema Template.

A pop-up will appear

Add your data, a question and its answer.
Mandatory fields will have small red starlike symbol (*) added to them:

Headline – best practices for SEO and usability suggest keeping titles concise and informative, thus this should be a maximum of 60 characters or fewer.

This field is imported automatically by Squirlly SEO

You can apply this template, featuring the placeholder “{{title}}”, to embed a title: “{{title}}” This placeholder automatically fetches the title from your video details, but you have the option to substitute “{{title}}” with any title or text that suits your needs.

Description – a good practice is to aim for a description length of about 150 to 160 characters
This field refers to a short portion or snippet of the description that is meant to give viewers a quick overview or highlight of what the video is about.

Upload date  –  is the specific date and possibly the time when the video was uploaded or published to a platform or website. The format should be in ISO 8601 format (e.g., “YYYY-MM-DD”)

Content URL: a direct link to the video file itself. This URL points to the location where the video is hosted and can be accessed or streamed by a user. You can find tips and suggestions by accessing Google here:

Embed URL: refers to a specific web address (URL) that allows the video to be embedded on other web pages or platforms. 

Unlike the Content URL, which directly links to the video file, the Embed URL is used to insert the video into the HTML code of a website, enabling the video to be played within the context of another page without needing to direct the viewer to the original hosting site.

Duration: the length of the video, recommended format is ISO 8601 (eg: 1M20S)

Views: it’s recommended to use a numerical format, which allows for precise quantification of how many times a video has been watched. 

Video Thumbnail: a small, representative image used to depict the content of the video before it is played.

HasPart:  used it to indicate that the video includes one or more distinct segments, parts, or elements that you wish to describe separately,  useful for outlining chapters, sections, or various content pieces within a single video, providing a more detailed understanding of its structure and content.

Name: the name for a particular part

Start offset: indicates when the segments start, for example, if you set 120 seconds, the video starts at 2 minutes

End offset: indicates the length of the segment, if you set it for 300 seconds, it indicates that the segment will end at 5 minutes
URL – the link for the video

Make sure to click on Save

With this you have a Video schema set up. All there is left to do is check it up and see if it works as expected. This is easier than you imagine, and Squirrly will help with the 

Verify Markup

After saving your changes, you can verify that the Software schema markup has been added correctly by viewing the page or post source code. Look for the JSON-LD markup representing the Software schema.

1. Click on JSON-LD Code – Validate JSON-LD

2. A new page / tab will open you will get you test code, click on TEST CODE

3. A small pop-up appears, and you will have to wait a few moments for the data to be processed
4. Once data is processed, you will be able to see your work, test it, share it and use it to enhance your work.

For further details, we recommend referring to the following resources

Video

Video (VideoObject, Clip, BroadcastEvent) structured data

The Squirrly SEO Patterns List