Martha Van Berkel

Martha Van Berkel – CEO @ Schema App | Schema SEO

Guest Bio:

Martha spent 14 years at Cisco as an intrapreneur, product manager, leader, and program manager.

She is a seasoned leader and knows how to build teams, sell ideas, and explain complicated technology in simple terms.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Engineering from Queen’s University and a certificate in Strategy & Innovation from MIT.

She is the co-founder and CEO of Hunch Manifest.

Please welcome the face and voice of Schema App, Martha van Berkel!

======================================

Knowledge Bombs:

18:07- How does Martha get page one ranking on Google?

Writing specific content and doing awesome schema that delivers utmost performance is what made Martha get in the higher ranks on Google.

18:42 – Martha’s first steps into SEO

Martha got exposed into SEO when she worked at Cisco. Her role being in the technical side of things made her curious about how SEO works. Years pass by, she joined an agency where she dived more into the fundamentals of SEO with the help of like-minded people.

23:19 – How did Martha actually learn SEO?

Martha loves to get her hands dirty in learning SEO. This is where she started using tools such as AHERFS to know how it works and integrates into SEO. For her, it’s all about learning and doing her own stuff while encountering trail and errors along the way.

25:34 – Martha’s tips for newbies who wants to dive into schema

Keeping things simple is Martha’s forte. She suggests that one should treat schema as a language or vocabulary. And when one should use it, they must think how it can be used on a website and how it can connect with consumers by picking the right words to express in the name of schema.

28:19 – Does Martha have any schema courses?

Martha and her team have a lot in store for schema courses. For now, she has a free five-day course schema app that is essential for beginners. But she hinted that there is something more in the horizon that everyone should be excited about.

30:06 – Martha explains schema in the “SEO in 2022” book

As part of the contributing writers for the SEO in 2022 book, Martha shares a bit of sneak peek about schema for those who haven’t read this yet. This includes specificity as her key theme in the book regarding video, data, pages, and more.

32:41 – How does FAQ play a role in ranking power?

Basing ranking power through FAQ can be quite tricky, especially since it depends on where the FAQs are placed in the website. According to Martha, long-page FAQs are dead, and you are better of placing them somewhere else in your website as long as they feel relevant.

36:01 – The mana schema as explained by Martha

In this section, Martha gives us her insight about mana schema and how it can be used to pages. She focuses on having optimized structure data to get rich results, and at the same time having unique elements for your pages.

38:51 – Does Martha have certain schema that she has been testing recently?

Martha and her team have been testing FAQ on category. This allows her to see if there are relevant categories based on the FAQs of a website. Thus, letting her see if there are viable results that can be helpful for SEO overall.

40:28 – How can we tell if schema is manipulative?

Martha goes in-depth about schema drift, which is the act of having a schema markup doesn’t represent of what’s actually on the page. And for her, this type of drift becomes manipulative since you’re adding structured data that doesn’t actually align on the page. Thus, resulting to more problems between you and the page visitor.

42:14 – Is it okay to use “referencing” as a type of schema?

Referencing other pages to your page is perfectly fine to use without being manipulative, as what Martha had said. She calls this link entity recognition, which she also uses as well since it helps with clarity and specificity.

43:06 – Does Martha agree with monster schemas that are used by SEOs?

Martha says that the schema vocabulary has 842 different ways to describe things. And for her, it’s all about how you use this kind of “power” to get along with Google’s algorithm. This allows you to create a powerful structured data that provides utmost results.

45:10 – Keyword stuffing schema, how safe is this method?

From Martha’s standpoint, she doesn’t believe that his method works well in schema. Though it might be an easy method for some people to utilize, this can cause big problems for larger projects.

46:45 – Does schema help with e-commerce sites?

Yes, schema is a blessing for e-commerce sites. Martha said that she had previously worked with clients on some e-commerce sites such as Shopify and saw great results.

48:25 – Martha’s tips in getting massive real estate on a page using schema

According to Martha, it’s all about understanding what you need to put on the page to get that click. Page impression is key, and the best way to know how well your page’s impression is doing is by knowing how it looks like in the serp.

50:12 – Why was the schema app developed and what are its benefits?

In this section, Martha gives as an in-depth insight of her company’s schema app. The reason why this app is born is because she wants to provide an easy way for clients to use the whole schema vocabulary. Especially when big companies have started to reach out to them about all thing’s schema.

55:25 – Does Martha’s schema app have a WordPress plugin?

Yes, Martha’s schema app is available on WordPress for free. Though she also has a paid version too, which unlocks extra essential features.

59:21 – Martha’s advice in becoming an SEO professional

Aside from creating your own site and using it as your training ground for SEO, Martha also suggests joining communities. Be it virtual or real-life SEO communities, it’s really important to be involved with people that has the same niche as yours.

======================================

Google News:

At Google I/O, John Muller shared the latest Google search for site owners.

Let’s check out the new video page indexing report in Google Search Console

I’m a huge advocate when it comes to video marketing.

Video is a great way to connect with your audience, like I’m doing here today.

Does the “Read More” or “View More” button still work in SEO? John Lincoln shows us if your implementation is working.

John goes on to say this tactic is outdated.

This tactic still works like a charm if implemented using CSS. Particularly CSS accordions for FAQs

Speaking of SEO Chrome extensions, Chris M. Walker just released a new video on his top 20 chrome plugins.

This particular one I use every day, and it’s cheap

2 Other extensions I have installed on Chrome that I use regularly are SEO minion and Grammarly.

Internal linking tips from Bjon from Content distribution

We always talk about internal linking here on the show, and the other is Schema!