Schema (structured data)
Schema is invisible markup you add to your web pages that tells search engines and AI assistants — in their own format — exactly what your content is about.
What it is
Schema — also called structured data — is a small block of code (almost always written in a format called JSON-LD) that you embed in a page. It tells search engines and AI assistants what kind of thing the page is: a local business, a service, a FAQ, a product, an article, an event. Once they know the type, they know which fields to look for: business name, address, hours, services offered, FAQ questions, ratings.
The most common schema types for a local business are LocalBusiness (or one of its sub-types like Plumber or Electrician), Service, FAQPage, and BreadcrumbList. Schema doesn't change what the user sees on the page — it lives in the page's HTML head — but it dramatically reduces ambiguity for the systems trying to understand and quote your content.
Why it matters for your business
Schema improves extractability. When you mark a section as FAQPage with explicit question/answer pairs, search engines can quote those answers directly in AI Overviews or expandable result snippets. When you mark a page as LocalBusiness with consistent name/address/phone, you reinforce entity clarity — the same signal that makes AI assistants confident enough to recommend you. The catch: schema only helps when it matches the visible content. Marking up FAQs that don't appear on the page can trigger a manual penalty.
Example
A landscaper added Service schema to each of their seven service pages (with prices ranges, area served, and provider attribution) plus FAQPage schema reflecting the visible FAQ at the bottom of each page. Within a month, their pages started winning expanded result snippets in Google for question-style queries — and the same FAQ blocks began appearing as cited sources in Google AI Overviews and Perplexity answers.
Related
- Guides: Google SEO for Local Businesses, AI Discovery Surfaces (AEO/GEO playbook)
- Related terms: Extractability, Entity clarity, SEO, AEO