What is schema markup?

Google has never actually read your website the way a person does. A customer looks at your site and knows right away which number is your phone. They know which line is your address and which stars are your reviews. Google is a machine. It has to guess at all of it.

(Schema is one piece of on-page SEO — here's how on-page and off-page fit together.)

So what is schema markup? It is how you stop making Google guess. Once you see what it does in search results, you'll see why every good website has it.

What schema markup actually is

Schema markup is a small block of code on your website. It labels your facts in a language search engines are built to read. Your visitors never see it. To them, your site looks exactly the same. But to Google, each key fact now wears a name tag:

• "This is our business name — and we're a personal injury law firm."
• "These are our hours. This is our service area."
• "This is a real customer review, and it's 5 stars."
• "These are the questions customers ask, and here are the answers."

The labels come from a shared standard called Schema.org^[1] — a shared set of words. Google, Microsoft, and the other search companies built it together. It lets websites describe themselves clearly. Think of it as the food label on your website. The food is the same, but now the machine knows just what's in it.

You will also hear the words structured data. Structured data means facts written in a fixed format so a machine can read them. Schema markup is structured data that uses the Schema.org words. For a business owner, the two terms mean the same job.

Schema.org started in 2011. Google, Bing, and Yahoo launched it together, and Yandex joined later that year. Today it has hundreds of types, from a whole business down to a single event or product.

What it gets you

Have you seen that some Google results show star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, or prices? Others are just a plain blue link. Those better listings are called rich results. Schema markup is what lets your pages show up that way.

That matters for one simple reason. A listing with stars and extra detail takes up more space. It gets more clicks than a plain link right next to it. Schema isn't about tricking Google into ranking you higher. It's about winning the click once you're on the page. It also fills space on the page that your competitor doesn't.

And there's a newer reason to care: AI search. I've written before about AI Overviews and AI Mode answers. That's machines answering customer questions directly. Those tools are built to read clearly labeled facts. Schema doesn't promise the AI will quote you. But it gives the machines no reason to get your business wrong.

The types that matter for a local business

There are hundreds of schema types. A local service business needs just a few:

• LocalBusiness — your name, address, phone, hours, and service area. For law firms there's a more exact Attorney type. The more exact, the better.
• Service — each service you offer, labeled on its own. That way "water damage restoration" and "mold remediation" read as two services, not one.
• Review — your ratings, labeled so they can show up as stars in search.
• FAQ — the questions customers really ask. They can show as dropdowns right in your listing.
• Article — for posts like this one, so Google knows who wrote what and when.

How it gets on your site

The honest answer: this is not a job for the business owner. Schema is written in a format called JSON-LD. That's a block of code that sits hidden in your pages. First it gets built and added to every page. Then it gets checked with Google's own testing tool. After that, it has to be updated when your hours, services, or reviews change.

Here is a small example. This is what schema markup looks like for a made-up plumbing company:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Plumber",
  "name": "Example Plumbing",
  "telephone": "+1-555-555-0100",
  "openingHours": "Mo-Fr 08:00-17:00"
}
</script>

Each line is one label. @type says what kind of business this is. Plumber is one of the more exact types that sit under LocalBusiness. The other lines give the name, the phone number, and the hours: Monday to Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM. A real site adds more, like the address, the service area, and the reviews.

JSON-LD is the format Google recommends. It sits in one block, apart from the words people read. That makes it easier to add and easier to keep up to date.

If you have a web person, it's fair to ask them about it. If you don't, know this. Schema is one thing that sets apart a website that was "launched" from one that's really kept up. Old schema stops working without a sound. Nobody sends you a warning.

Where we come in

Every website we build comes with full schema markup on every page. That means LocalBusiness, Service, Review, FAQ, all of it. It's part of the local SEO that comes in the base system. It's set up to stay matched with your reviews as they come in. We keep it working as Google changes. No add-on, no extra charge. It's simply how a website should be built.

FAQs

Sources & references

The numbered links in this article point to the sources below.

1. 1
   Schema.org — the shared vocabulary for structured dataschema.org