Structured data for a small business, in plain words

What is structured data?

A person reading “Open Monday to Friday, 9 to 6” knows what it means. Software has to guess. Structured data tells it directly: this is the name, this is the phone number, these are the hours.

Google describes it as “a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content” (Google Search Central, Introduction to structured data markup, 10 Dec 2025). The labels come from schema.org, a shared vocabulary started by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex (Schema.org, About), which is why it’s also called schema markup. Google recommends the JSON-LD format, a block inside the page that visitors never see (Google Search Central, Introduction to structured data markup).

The one rule: the block must describe what the page already shows. Google’s guidelines say “Don’t mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page” (Google Search Central, General structured data guidelines, 10 Jul 2026).

What does structured data do in Google, and what doesn’t it do?

Google uses it “to understand the content of the page” (Google Search Central, Introduction to structured data markup), and it can make a page eligible for rich results, such as a business’s details in a knowledge panel or an article’s image and date (Google Search Central, Local business structured data, 8 Sep 2026; Article structured data, 8 Sep 2026).

“Google does not guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly according to the Rich Results Test” (Google Search Central, General structured data guidelines). The same page keeps markup apart from ranking: a page penalized for misusing it loses its rich results, and the penalty “doesn’t affect how the page ranks in Google web search.” None of the Google pages we read promise a ranking boost.

Some rich results have gone

In August 2023 Google limited FAQ results to “well-known, authoritative government and health websites”, and that September it stopped showing How-to results altogether (Google Search Central Blog, Changes to HowTo and FAQ rich results, 8 Aug 2023, updated 14 Sep 2023). FAQ results then ended for every site on 7 May 2026 (Google Search Central, Latest documentation updates, May 2026). Unused markup “does not cause problems for Search, but also has no visible effects”, Google said in 2023, so old FAQ code can stay. It just earns nothing.

Leave your own star ratings out, too. Google recommends rating markup on a local business only “for sites that capture reviews about other local businesses” (Google Search Central, Local business structured data).

Do AI assistants read structured data?

We found no published test showing that it gets a business named in AI answers. Of the companies we checked, only Microsoft says schema helps AI systems understand a page.

• Google says “Structured data isn’t required for generative AI search, and there’s no special schema.org markup you need to add”, though it still recommends it for rich results (Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, 10 Jul 2026).
• Krishna Madhavan of Microsoft Bing wrote that schema “helps search engines and AI systems understand your content” (Microsoft Advertising blog, Optimizing your content for inclusion in AI search answers, 8 Oct 2025).
• OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity haven’t said either way. Their crawler pages for site owners don’t mention it (checked 5 Oct 2026: OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity).

Ahrefs, which sells search tools, tracked 1,885 pages that added schema between August 2025 and March 2026, and their citations in ChatGPT and Google’s AI features barely moved. Those pages were already cited often, so results may differ for pages AI ignores today (Ahrefs, We Tracked 1,885 Pages Adding Schema. AI Citations Barely Moved., 11 May 2026). searchVIU, another SEO software firm, tested one page in October 2025: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode all missed a price that appeared only in its JSON-LD. searchVIU notes search engines may still use markup when they index (searchVIU, Schema markup and AI in 2025, 2 Dec 2025).

So write every fact in the visible text first, and let the markup label it. Our guide to why AI assistants don’t recommend your business covers the steps that move AI answers more.

Which types does a local business need?

We’d start with these six. The last two depend on what you sell.

• LocalBusiness, in its most specific form. Google asks for “the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible”, requires a name and address, and recommends hours, phone and web address (Google Search Central, Local business structured data). Schema.org lists dozens of sub-types, such as Dentist, LegalService, RealEstateAgent and ProfessionalService (Schema.org, LocalBusiness). Use one per branch. Put your opening hours inside it as openingHoursSpecification, one entry per set of days.
• Organization, on your home page or about page, which helps Google “disambiguate your organization in search results” (Google Search Central, Organization structured data, 8 Sep 2026). If customers never visit you, we’d use it in place of LocalBusiness.
• BreadcrumbList, which shows where a page sits in your site. Since January 2025 Google shows breadcrumbs only on desktop (Google Search Central, Breadcrumb structured data, 8 Sep 2026; Latest documentation updates, 22 Jan 2025).
• Article, on your blog posts and guides, which helps Google “show better title text, images, and date information” (Google Search Central, Article structured data, 8 Sep 2026).
• Service, which schema.org defines as “A service provided by an organization” (Schema.org, Service). Google’s list of the features it supports has no entry for it (Google Search Central, Structured data markup that Google Search supports, 15 Jun 2026), so it only describes your work.
• Product, only on pages that sell something; Google treats pages where customers can buy differently from pages where they can’t (Google Search Central, Product structured data, 10 Dec 2025).

What does LocalBusiness markup look like?

This one is for an imaginary clinic. Every value is a placeholder, marked “Example” or written in zeros. Replace each with your details exactly as your page shows them.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Dentist",
  "name": "Example Dental Clinic",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "telephone": "+971-4-000-0000",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "Office 000, Example Building, Example Street",
    "addressLocality": "Dubai",
    "addressCountry": "AE"
  },
  "openingHoursSpecification": [
    {
      "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
      "dayOfWeek": ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday"],
      "opens": "09:00",
      "closes": "18:00"
    }
  ]
}
</script>

Change “Dentist” to your own type, and add a postal code or a second hours entry if you need them. If your site runs on WordPress or a website builder, Google notes that “it may be easier to use a plugin that’s integrated into your CMS” (Google Search Central, Local business structured data).

We ran this example through the Schema Markup Validator on 5 October 2026, and it returned no errors or warnings.

How do you check your structured data?

Two free tools do it.

1. Paste your page’s address into Google’s Rich Results Test. It shows “which Google rich results can be generated by the structured data on your page” and lists any errors (Google Search Central, Schema markup testing tools; Local business structured data). Fix the critical ones first.

2. Run the same address through the Schema Markup Validator. It checks all schema.org markup “without Google feature specific warnings”, so it also catches mistakes in types Google doesn’t show, such as Service (Google Search Central, Schema markup testing tools; Schema.org, Schema Markup Validator).

3. Compare each value with what a visitor sees. Name, phone, address and hours should match word for word.

4. Once the page is live, open it in Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to see how Google reads it (Google Search Central, Local business structured data). Check again whenever your hours, phone or address change.