Schema markup that earns results
Structured data used to be about getting stars in a search result. It is now about being legible to systems that answer instead of listing.
Organization and LocalBusiness on the site, Article or BlogPosting on content, FAQPage where real questions are visible on the page, Product and Service where you sell, and Breadcrumb everywhere. Mark up only what a visitor can see, and never invent ratings or prices.
Schema tells a machine what a page is, in a format it does not have to infer. That mattered moderately when the output was ten blue links. It matters more when the output is a generated answer assembled from sources, because the sources that are easiest to parse correctly are the ones most likely to be used.
What to implement, in order
- Organization once, on every page, with the real name, logo, contact and profiles. This is how your brand becomes an entity rather than a string.
- LocalBusiness with address, hours and coordinates for anyone with a physical location.
- BreadcrumbList on every page below the home page. Cheap, and it changes how the URL displays.
- Article or BlogPosting on content, with dates that are true and kept current.
- FAQPage where the questions are genuinely on the page and visible to a reader.
- Product or Service where you sell, with only the attributes you can evidence.
The rule that keeps you safe
Mark up what is visible. Structured data describing things a visitor cannot see is a policy violation and a manual action risk, and the most common version is invented review counts and ratings. The rich result is tempting. It is not worth the penalty, and reinstatement takes months.
Where it helps with assistants
Clear entity markup, consistent naming across sources, and FAQ content that answers a question in a sentence rather than four paragraphs. The discipline overlaps almost entirely with writing clearly, which we set out in AEO and GEO.
Checking it
Validate with the rich results test, then watch Search Console for the enhancement reports. A valid markup that produces no enhancement report is usually a type Google does not surface for your page type, which is fine: legibility is still the point.
Questions we get asked
Does schema markup improve rankings?
Not directly. It improves how a page is presented and understood, which affects click-through and how often a page is used as a source.
Can schema markup get a site penalised?
Yes, when it describes content a visitor cannot see. Invented ratings are the most common cause of a structured data manual action.
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