Structured Data:
Tell Google What Your Content Means.

Structured data is code added to a web page that describes its content in a standardized, machine-readable format. In SEO, structured data typically refers to schema markup — a vocabulary defined at schema.org and implemented via JSON-LD. It allows you to explicitly tell Google what your content is: a local business, a FAQ, an article, a product, or a review. Google reads this alongside the page's visible content to better understand what the page is about and to determine eligibility for rich results in search.

Structured data is not a confirmed direct ranking factor, but it has significant indirect SEO value. It enables rich results — enhanced SERP appearances like FAQ dropdowns, star ratings, and event details — that increase click-through rate without changing your ranking position. Higher CTR sends positive behavioral signals to Google. For local businesses, LocalBusiness schema directly contributes to local pack data and Knowledge Panel information. Pages implementing structured data consistently see higher CTR than equivalent pages without it.

Yes — large language models like ChatGPT are trained primarily on unstructured data: raw text from the web, books, and other sources without consistent labeling or formatting. Structured data on your website (schema markup) is designed for search engines like Google, not for AI training pipelines. That said, as AI-powered search features (like Google's AI Overviews) become more prevalent, well-structured, clearly labeled content may have an advantage in being accurately parsed and cited by AI systems, though the mechanism differs from traditional schema markup.

The three most impactful structured data types for small business websites are: LocalBusiness schema (describes your business name, address, phone number, hours, and service area — directly supports local search visibility and Knowledge Panel data), FAQPage schema (marks up question-and-answer content to enable expandable FAQ results directly in the SERP, increasing real estate and CTR), and Service or Article schema (describes individual services or blog posts with relevant metadata like description, provider, and date).

A LocalBusiness JSON-LD block placed in the head of your homepage is one of the most common examples. It includes fields like @type: LocalBusiness, name, address (with street, city, state, and zip), telephone, openingHours, geo coordinates, and priceRange. When implemented correctly and validated with Google's Rich Results Test, this schema contributes to your business's Knowledge Panel appearance and local search eligibility. Another common example is FAQPage schema, which marks up a list of questions and answers so Google can display them as expandable dropdowns beneath your search result.