Why SMART Technologies Came to Schema App for the Tech and Stayed for the Partnership

Mitigating Traffic Loss Risk During Website Restructuring

As SMART prepared for a major website restructuring, their primary goal was to minimize traffic loss by ensuring search engines could accurately interpret the changes. This restructuring presented an opportunity to boost organic visibility and attract more qualified visitors, but the team identified a critical gap in their strategy: the absence of Schema Markup.

SMART knew implementing Schema Markup would help search engines understand and ensure their content was easily searchable during and after the site restructuring. Without it, SMART risked missing the opportunity to fully optimize their web content for search engines and future AI-based search experiences, which is essential for long-term digital success.

Lack of Resources Due to a Small Team

With a small web team and no prior Schema Markup in place, SMART needed a scalable Schema Markup solution to improve how search engines understood and presented their content. This solution had to:

• Integrate seamlessly with their new site architecture
• Deploy Schema Markup easily on their site
• Scale alongside their website’s growth

Realizing the complexity of implementing structured data, SMART saw their restructuring phase as an ideal moment to partner with experts who could guide them through the process. Beyond the technical implementation of Schema Markup, they also wanted to partner with a team that would provide them with guidance and expertise to enable them to learn and pivot with the changing search landscape.

After meeting the Schema App team at a conference, SMART’s leadership recognized a promising alignment with their needs. Schema App offered the high-touch support and scalable tools required to implement a Schema Markup solution that matched SMART’s SEO needs and goals.

The initiative was led by Allan Lefebvre, Team Lead for Web Experience, and Tiffany Scott, Senior Manager, Business Technology, who worked with Schema App to design a solution that not only addressed immediate restructuring needs but also positioned SMART for future growth as search continued to evolve.

Schema App’s partnership with SMART kicked off with a collaborative approach, starting with key questions to build a customized Schema Markup strategy. From the beginning, Schema App’s team worked closely with SMART, helping them align Schema Markup implementation with their core objectives, including:

1. Enhancing search visibility and understanding through Schema Markup.
2. Achieving rich results (e.g., Product and Review Snippets) to drive more traffic.
3. Staying competitive as AI search evolved.

Ensuring Rich Result Eligibility on Key Pages

In the first month of their partnership, Schema App deployed Schema Markup at scale across SMART’s website using the Schema App Highlighter tool. This initial deployment yielded quick wins, with SMART achieving rich results like Product, Review, and FAQ snippets within the first 3 months.

SMART was also assigned a Schema App Customer Success Manager (CSM) who worked closely with them to manage their Schema Markup on an ongoing basis while providing quarterly reviews to track performance and adjust their Schema Markup as needed.

Schema App’s insights also helped SMART navigate the volatile changes in Google’s search algorithms, especially when rich results like FAQ snippets, which SMART was achieving through Schema App’s efforts, were deprecated, and AI-driven search experiences were on the rise.

Perform Entity Linking for Improved Semantic Understanding

On top of using Schema Markup to describe their entities and content, SMART’s Schema App CSM proposed they utilize entity linking to link the entities mentioned on their site to external authoritative knowledge bases. This would enable search engines to disambiguate SMART’s entities with greater confidence and provide users with more accurate and relevant search results.

Schema App’s External Entity Linking became a key feature in this journey. By deploying External Entity Linking on SMART’s product pages, Schema App enhanced search engines’ understanding of SMART’s content, resulting in a 186% increase in click-through rate (CTR) for targeted keywords linked to specific entities.

This semantic understanding, combined with well-implemented Schema Markup, helped them articulate the nature and context of their pages more clearly to AI systems, resulting in more relevant and qualified traffic to their site.

A Trusted Partnership

In addition to this, Schema App provided expert insights to help SMART understand not only what changes were happening in search but also how to navigate them to leverage new opportunities and optimize for emerging AI-driven search experiences.

As such, SMART’s experience with Schema App extended beyond SEO results. The collaboration with Schema App’s Customer Success team provided SMART with strategic insights, industry expertise, and peace of mind.

We joined Schema App to leverage Schema Markup for SEO benefits, and we continue to stay because of the collaboration, support and improved SEO results.
– Tiffany Scott, Senior Manager, Business Technology

Allan added, “At SMART, we always talk about enabling ‘connections that matter,’ and this relationship embodies that mission.”

SMART continues to see value in Schema App’s proactive support and ability to evolve their strategy in line with the changing digital landscape. Whether it’s interpreting new industry trends or addressing technical challenges, SMART knew that they could rely on Schema App to provide them with the tools and knowledge to succeed.

Higher Quality Traffic

By improving how search engines understood their content and aligned it with relevant queries, SMART attracted more engaged, high-quality visitors to their site, contributing to more leads and higher conversion rates.

Growth in Team Expertise

SMART also benefited from Schema App’s educational resources, which deepened their understanding of entities, Content Knowledge Graphs, and how these concepts contributed to their digital growth. Schema App’s hands-on approach proved to be one of the most valuable elements of the partnership.

“When I log into work and see an issue in our Google Search Console, before I’ve even had a chance to think about it, Schema App has fixed it. The action is hands-off, thanks to our Customer Success Manager. This isn’t something just any system or plugin can do. Schema App has our backs and is invested in our ongoing and long-term success.”, said Allan.

By leveraging Schema App’s solution, SMART has not only increased their search visibility and traffic but also gained a trusted partner they can depend on to shape their digital presence for the future.