What it looks like
The code sits invisibly in the page and lists facts such as your company name, address, opening hours or prices. Search engines read it alongside the text.
The types most small businesses need
- Organization or LocalBusiness: name, logo, address, contact and the area you serve
- Service and Offer: what you sell and from what price
- FAQPage: questions and answers that are visible on the page
- Article or BlogPosting: headline, author and dates
- BreadcrumbList: where a page sits within your website
Rules that matter
- Mark up only what visitors can see on the page.
- Keep it true and current.
- Test it with Google’s Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator.
What it can and cannot do
Structured data can make your pages eligible for richer results in Google, and it makes your facts easier for AI assistants to pick up. It is not a ranking trick, and Google does not show every rich result for every site. FAQ results, for example, only appear for a few well known government and health websites. The markup still helps machines read your answers.
On our websites
Every website we build includes structured data for the company, its offers, the FAQ and the articles. It is generated from the content itself, so it stays right when the text changes. This blog works the same way.
Questions and answers
Do I need a developer for structured data?
For a few pages, a template does it once. On our websites it is generated automatically from the content.
Can wrong markup hurt?
Markup that does not match the page is usually ignored, and misleading markup can lead to a manual action by Google. Keep it honest.