What is Schema markup?
Schema markup is code added to a web page that describes its content to search engines in a standard machine-readable format.
Schema markup is code added to a web page that describes its content to search engines in a standard machine-readable format.
A search engine reading a page can see the words but has to infer what they mean. Schema markup states it explicitly: this is a local business, this is its address, this is a review with this rating, this is an FAQ with these questions, this is an article published on this date by this author. The vocabulary is defined at schema.org and is usually implemented in a format called JSON-LD.
It does not directly improve rankings. What it does is make a page eligible for rich results — star ratings in the results page, FAQ expanders, breadcrumb trails, business panels — which affect how much of the page you occupy and how many people click. It also makes your claims legible to AI answer engines, which need to resolve who published a statement before quoting it.
For local businesses the relevant types are LocalBusiness or a more specific subtype, Service, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList and Review. Marking up things that are not on the page, or marking up a business address that is not real, is a policy violation and can result in the markup being ignored entirely.
It is one of the few technical changes that visibly alters how your listing appears in results, and it is increasingly what determines whether an AI-generated answer can cite you as a source.
Marking up content that is not visible on the page. Search engines check, and mismatched markup is treated as an attempt to mislead.
Schema markup is part of website development
Understanding the term is the easy half. The service page describes what the work actually involves, and the free assessment says whether it is the thing your business should be spending on next — which is frequently a different question.
Things that come up alongside it
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