Structured data is code added to a page that states plainly, in a format machines can read, what the page is about: this is a business, this is its name, address, phone number and opening hours, these are the services it offers and the area it covers. A person reads that from the design; a search engine or an AI assistant reads it far more reliably from the markup.
It is frequently oversold. Adding schema will not move a weak page to the top of the results. What it does is remove ambiguity, which matters most exactly where businesses are easiest to confuse.
What we implement
| What it describes | Where it goes | |
|---|---|---|
| LocalBusiness or a specific subtype | Name, address, phone, hours, coordinates | Homepage and location pages |
| Service | Each service and the area it covers | Service pages |
| BreadcrumbList | Where the page sits in the site | Every page |
| FAQPage | Questions and answers genuinely on the page | Pages with visible FAQs |
| Organisation sameAs | Your official profiles elsewhere | Homepage |
It must match your Business Profile exactly
The most valuable thing structured data does for a local business is confirm, consistently, the same name, address, phone number and hours that appear on the Google Business Profile and across your listings. If the schema says one thing and the profile says another, it creates exactly the inconsistency it was supposed to remove. We check every detail against the profile before anything is published.
What not to mark up
Review markup describing your own business as rated five stars from reviews you collected yourself is against Google's guidelines for local businesses and can lead to a manual action. So is marking up content that is not visible on the page. We only describe what a visitor can actually see, which keeps the markup trustworthy.
Why it matters more with AI search
AI assistants increasingly rely on structured sources when assembling answers about local businesses. Clean, accurate markup that agrees with your profile and listings makes it easier for them to state your details correctly — and harder for them to confuse you with a similarly named business elsewhere.