Technical SEO
Structured data: the schema markup that actually earns results
27 July 2026 · 9 min read · Coselli, Bournemouth
Schema markup is how you explain your business to machines in a language they cannot misread. Here are the types worth your time and the mistakes that invalidate them.
Structured data does not make a page rank better on its own. What it does is remove ambiguity — it tells search engines and AI systems exactly what a page is about, who published it, what it costs and where it applies. In a world where machines summarise your business to customers, that is worth a lot.
Use JSON-LD, always
There are three syntaxes; only one is worth using. JSON-LD sits in a script tag, is separate from your markup, and is the format Google explicitly recommends. Microdata and RDFa tangle structure into your HTML and break the moment a designer touches a template.
The types worth implementing
| Type | Use on | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Organization / LocalBusiness | Homepage | Establishes identity, location, contact, service area |
| WebSite | Homepage | Enables sitelinks search box, names the site |
| Service | Service pages | Clarifies what is offered and where |
| Article / BlogPosting | Editorial pages | Author, date, publisher — key for AI attribution |
| Product + Offer | Shop pages | Price, availability, reviews in results |
| BreadcrumbList | Deep pages | Cleaner result display, clearer hierarchy |
| FAQPage | Genuine Q&A | Machine-readable answers, widely used by AI systems |
Getting LocalBusiness right
- Use the most specific subtype available — Plumber, Dentist, HairSalon — rather than the generic LocalBusiness where one exists.
- Include name, address, geo coordinates, telephone, openingHoursSpecification, areaServed and a sameAs link to your Google listing and social profiles.
- Mark it up once, on the homepage or a dedicated contact page, with a stable @id you can reference from other schemas.
The rules that keep it valid
- 01Only mark up content that is actually visible on the page.
- 02Never invent reviews, ratings, prices or availability. Fabricated review markup is a manual-action risk.
- 03Keep the markup in sync with the page — stale prices in schema are worse than no schema.
- 04Validate with the Rich Results Test and Schema.org validator after every template change.
Structured data and AI search
AI assistants build answers from sources they can parse confidently. Explicit entities — a named organisation, a dated article, an author, a priced service — are far easier to quote accurately than prose alone. Schema is not a ranking hack for AI; it is a reliability signal that makes you a safer source to cite.
Treat structured data as documentation of your business for machines. Accurate, current, unambiguous.
Frequently asked
- Will schema markup improve my rankings?
- Not directly. It improves how your results are displayed, increases click-through, and makes your content easier for AI systems to quote accurately — all of which affect traffic.
- Is FAQPage schema still worth adding?
- Its rich result was largely retired for most sites, but the markup remains valid and is widely consumed by AI systems. Add it where you have genuine questions and answers, not as a ranking tactic.