Schema markup, usually written as JSON-LD, is structured data added to a page. It states plainly what the page contains: this is a business, these are its services, this is the price, this is a question and this is its answer.
Why it matters now
It always helped search engines understand a page. It matters more since AI assistants started answering questions directly. A clearly labelled fact is far easier to lift than one buried in a paragraph.
Types that matter for a local business
LocalBusinessfor the business itself and the areas it serves.Servicewith anOfferfor what you sell and what it costs.FAQPagefor questions customers actually ask.
Adding schema markup to your site
Typically, we add schema markup as part of every web design build, rather than as an afterthought bolted on later.
For example, the official schema.org vocabulary lists every type available, though most local businesses only need a handful of them.
Specifically, validate the markup after every site change. Do not assume it survived a redesign, since a single missing field can silently break a whole type. Similarly, keep the data consistent with what a visitor actually sees on the page. Notably, search engines can penalise data that misrepresents the page it sits on.
However, a developer who understands the business rarely gets every field right without a second pair of eyes checking it. Instead, treat markup as part of the content itself, reviewed every time the page changes.
Notably, most content management systems now offer plugins that generate the basic types automatically, which removes the excuse for skipping this step entirely. A small amount of setup time here tends to pay for itself many times over across a year of search visibility.
For example, a quick test after launch confirms everything renders exactly as intended. That is far faster than discovering a gap months later through lost visibility.
