Earlier this year in May, Google introduced Rich Cards, which augment the user experience on their always-evolving mobile search results pages. Using schema markup, rich cards display images over relevant links for specific search queries. When rich cards were first announced, mobile users searching for things such as recipes, would be presented with a carousel of different recipes including corresponding images from specific websites that included these recipes. While their use of rich cards was previously limited, it was clear from Google’s initial press release that the prevalence of rich cards would be expanding.
Now, Google will be using rich cards for search queries pertaining to local restaurants as well as online courses. Rich cards triggered by queries for local restaurants, much like with recipes, will display a carousel of restaurants, which includes each restaurant’s name, an image of the restaurant, and its style of cuisine.
For mobile users searching for online courses, a vertical three-pack will be displayed containing information from a variety of courses offered by sites such as Coursera, Edureka and Udacity. While AMP pages aren’t required in order to take advantage of these rich cards for your business, Google highly recommends setting up AMP HTML pages for users to navigate once they click on your business’ rich cards.
Learn how to implement these rich cards by visiting Google’s Developer Site, which provides webmasters with the tools necessary to use Google’s expanding mobile features.