In this Affiliate Summit East 2013 session, Schema: The Future of Affiliate Marketing, Jonathan Goodman, President of Halyard Consulting, introduced affiliate marketers to schema.org structured data and explained why semantic markup represents the next major evolution in search. Rather than relying solely on keywords, schema allows search engines to understand the meaning and intent behind content, helping them distinguish between similar terms such as “Apple”, the company, and “apple”, the fruit.

Jonathan demonstrated how schema works by breaking down real-world examples across content types, including companies, products, videos, books, people, and events. By explicitly defining attributes such as names, descriptions, authorship, dates, locations, and relationships between entities, the schema provides search engines with clear, machine-readable context. This structured approach allows engines to analyze and present information more accurately during intent-based searches.

The session emphasized that while schema markup does not guarantee higher rankings on its own, it plays a critical role in how content is displayed and interpreted in search results. Well-structured pages are more likely to appear with rich snippets, enhanced metadata, images, and detailed event or product information, all of which can significantly influence visibility and user engagement. As search engines evolve toward knowledge panels and direct answers, schema becomes foundational to participating in that ecosystem.

Jonathan also outlined practical tools available to marketers, including Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool, the Structured Data Markup Helper, Schema Creator, and WordPress plugins such as Yoast SEO. These tools reduce the technical barrier to entry, allowing non-developers to implement the schema effectively. He concluded by reinforcing that schema is not a short-term SEO tactic, but a long-term strategy for making content more discoverable, intelligible, and competitive as search continues to move toward semantic understanding.