Your website is written for people. Schema markup is a second, invisible layer written for machines: a standard vocabulary (from schema.org) that states facts such as “this is a plumbing business, here is its phone number, these are its hours, this page describes its drain-cleaning service”. Search engines and AI assistants can read it without guessing.
What it does, and what it does not
- It does remove ambiguity about who you are, connect your website to your other profiles, and make pages eligible for some enhanced search results (such as breadcrumbs, review stars on products, or business details).
- It does not rank a page on its own, guarantee any rich result, or make up for thin content. Google can also ignore markup that does not match what is visible on the page.
The types most small businesses need
Organization or LocalBusiness
On the home page: your legal name, logo, URL, phone, email, address (or areas served), opening hours, and sameAs links to your official profiles such as your Google Business Profile, LinkedIn or Instagram. Use the most specific LocalBusiness subtype that fits (Dentist, Plumber, LegalService, and so on).
Service
On each service page: the service name, description, the business that provides it, the area served and, if you publish one, the price.
BreadcrumbList
Shows the page’s place in your site structure and often appears in search results instead of a raw URL.
Article
On blog posts: headline, author, publish and update dates. A real, named author with a profile page supports the experience and trust signals Google looks for.
FAQPage
On pages with genuine question-and-answer content. Rich-result display is now limited, but the markup still presents your answers in a clean, quotable format.
Review and AggregateRating
Only for reviews actually shown on the page, and not for self-serving reviews of your own business in LocalBusiness markup, which Google does not display.
Rules that keep you out of trouble
- Mark up only what visitors can see on the page.
- Keep facts consistent with your Google Business Profile and other listings.
- Prefer JSON-LD, the format Google recommends, placed in the page’s HTML.
- Update it when hours, prices or addresses change.
How to test it
Use Google’s Rich Results Test to see which rich results a page is eligible for, and the Schema Markup Validator (validator.schema.org) to check the markup is valid. After launch, Search Console’s Enhancements reports list errors across the site.
Why it matters more with AI search
AI assistants assemble answers from many sources. Clear, consistent facts about your business, stated in text and in structured data, make it easier for them to describe you correctly. More on that in generative engine optimization for small business.
Every site we build ships with Organization, Service, Breadcrumb, FAQ and Article markup set up and tested, as part of the $1,950-a-year package.