In 2025, structured data for SEO is a bit like your old schoolmate who suddenly got a high-flying job and moved to abroad — once quietly dependable but slightly dull, now unexpectedly interesting.

The reason?

Everyone’s talking about how structured data can help optimise content for large language models (LLMs) and AI-powered search. What was once a technical box-ticking exercise has become a frontline strategy for staying visible in a search landscape increasingly shaped by conversational AI, voice assistants, and generative answers. If you’ve been putting off learning about schema markup, now’s the time to pay attention.

Read on to discover what structured data is, why it’s important, and how to use it to support your SEO.

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What structured data (schema) means in SEO

In SEO, structured data, also known as schema, is a standard format of code you add to a webpage to help search engines understand what your content means and how it fits together.

It gives explicit clues about your content’s context – whether a number is a price, a string of words is a product name, or a line of text is a review. With that context, search engines can show your content in richer formats, like rich snippets, knowledge panels, and other enhanced listings that draw more clicks.

Most websites use the shared vocabulary at Schema.org, which defines common content types – from articles and recipes to events and products – so your pages speak the same structured language that search engines understand.

How structured data works on your website

Structured data sits in your webpage’s code, describing what’s on the page in a way machines can reliably interpret. Most sites today use a markup format called JSON‑LD, which stands for ‘JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data’. It’s the preferred format recommended by Google because it’s clean, flexible, and doesn’t interfere with the visible content of your page.

Here’s what actually happens behind the scenes:

  1. You add the markup: Developers or SEO teams insert a short block of JSON‑LD code in the <head> or <body> of a page. That code lists key properties, such as product name, review rating, price, author, or publication date.
  2. Search engines read it: When a search crawler visits your site, it identifies the JSON‑LD block and parses its contents. Each property is mapped to a definition in the shared Schema.org vocabulary, which ensures a consistent meaning across the web.
  3. Data gets connected: Because JSON‑LD is machine‑readable and linked, search engines can connect your page to other web entities: organisations, people, places, or events. This builds a clearer understanding of your site within Google’s broader Knowledge Graph.
  4. Enhanced results get generated: Once your structured data is validated and matches visible content on the page, search engines can use it to produce rich results – the visual listings that display stars, images, FAQs, and more.

Unlike older formats such as Microdata or RDFa, JSON‑LD doesn’t need to be woven through your HTML tags. It sits separately, making it easier to maintain, edit, and validate.

Schema.org provides a standardised vocabulary for structuring data on web pages to help search engines better understand and display information.

Schema.org provides a standardised vocabulary for structuring data on web pages to help search engines better understand and display information.

Is structured data a ranking factor? Is it good for SEO?

Structured data isn’t a direct ranking factor. Search Advocate at Google, John Mueller, has confirmed it doesn’t make a page rank higher on its own. Unfortunately, that means you can’t mark up a paragraph and leapfrog competitors overnight!

But that doesn’t mean it has no SEO value. In practice, structured data supports search performance in several important ways:

  • Better context and relevance: It helps Google understand what your content means, not just the words on the page. That deeper understanding can improve how accurately your pages match search intent.
  • Rich results and higher click‑through rates: Marked‑up content can appear with reviews, pricing, FAQs, or event details, which make results more engaging and attract more clicks.
  • Improved entity recognition: Schema ties your brand, people, and products to specific entities in the Knowledge Graph, strengthening authority and connections across the web.
  • Voice and AI search readiness: Structured data helps conversational search and AI-based search systems pull correct, context‑rich information from your site.

So while it might not boost rankings directly, structured data quietly amplifies the signals that do – clarity, credibility, and user engagement.

The most common types of structured data and what they’re used for

As of late 2025, there are over 800 types of schema defined at Schema.org, but Google only supports a subset of these for rich results. Rather than getting lost in that full catalogue, it’s more useful to think of schema in terms of common use cases – the content types you’re most likely to mark up on a real website, like products, events, local businesses, and articles.

The type of schema you use depends on what your pages are actually about. Here are the most frequently used types in SEO:

  • Article schema: Used for blog posts, news stories, and editorial content. It provides details like headline, author, publication date, and featured image, helping search engines surface your content in Top Stories, news carousels, and article-rich results.
  • Product schema: Essential for e-commerce pages – and to a lesser extent, B2B product pages. It displays product name, price, availability, and customer review ratings directly in search results, making listings more compelling and informing purchase decisions before the click.
  • FAQPage schema: Formats frequently asked questions so they can appear as expandable rich snippets in search results. It’s particularly useful for voice search, as well as for capturing featured snippet positions and AI citations with clear, structured answers.
  • LocalBusiness schema: Critical for brick-and-mortar businesses, but always useful to have regardless of your business type. It showcases your address, opening hours, phone number, and service area in local search results and Google Maps, making it easier for nearby customers to find and contact you.
  • Service schema: Describes specific services offered by a business, including service type, area served, and provider details. It’s particularly valuable for service-based businesses like tradespeople, consultants, or agencies that want to highlight what they offer beyond basic business information.
  • Event schema: Provides key details for concerts, webinars, conferences, and other happenings – including date, time, location, and ticket information. Marked-up events can appear in dedicated event carousels and Google’s event search features.
  • Review schema: Adds star ratings and review counts to products, services, or businesses in search results. These visual trust signals increase click-through rates and help users make faster, more confident decisions.
  • HowTo schema: Structures step-by-step instructions and tutorials so they appear with numbered steps, images, and estimated time in search results. It’s ideal for practical guides, recipes, and DIY content.
  • VideoObject schema: Helps search engines understand and index video content on your pages. It can generate video thumbnails, duration, upload date, and descriptions in search results, improving visibility in both standard and video search.
  • Person schema: Identifies individuals and their credentials, roles, and affiliations. It’s commonly used for author bios, team pages, and expert profiles, helping establish authority and connect content to its creator within the Knowledge Graph.
  • ImageObject schema: Provides detailed information about images on your page, including creator, license, and caption. It helps images appear more prominently in Google Images and ensures proper attribution, which is increasingly important for visual search and AI-generated summaries.

Each of these schema types serves a specific purpose, and many pages benefit from combining multiple types – for example, an article that includes a video and an FAQ section.

Table: The most common structured data (schema) types for SEO

Schema type What it’s used for When to use it
Article Blog posts, news stories, editorial content Any informational or journalistic page with an author and publish date
Product E-commerce listings, product pages Pages selling or describing a specific product with price and availability
FAQPage Frequently asked questions Pages with a list of questions and answers, support content
LocalBusiness Physical business locations Local service pages, store locators, contact pages for brick-and-mortar businesses
Service Specific services offered by a business Service pages for consultants, tradespeople, agencies, and service providers
Event Concerts, webinars, conferences, classes Any page promoting a scheduled event with date, time, and location
Review Customer ratings and testimonials Product, service, or business pages featuring user reviews
HowTo Step-by-step guides and tutorials Instructional content, recipes, DIY guides
VideoObject Video content embedded on pages Any page with a video you want indexed and displayed in search results
Person Individual profiles, author information Author bios, team pages, expert profiles, bylines
ImageObject Detailed image information and attribution Pages with important images, photography portfolios, visual content

How to implement structured data: A step-by-step guide

Implementing structured data doesn’t require advanced technical skills, but it does need care and attention to detail. Follow these steps to add schema markup to your site, validate it, and start seeing results in search.

Step 1: Choose the right schema markup for your content

Start by identifying what type of content you’re marking up. Is it a blog post, a product page, a local business listing, or an event? Match your content to the appropriate schema type using the guidance at Schema.org or the table above.

Don’t overthink it – most pages fit neatly into one or two common types. Adding too much schema or overcomplicating your markup can actually have a negative impact, creating confusion for search engines or triggering errors that prevent rich results from appearing. If you’re unsure, look at what competitors or similar sites are using, or check Google’s structured data documentation for examples.

Step 2: Write your schema manually, with a generator, or by using AI

You can write schema markup manually by following the specifications at Schema.org, but it’s more complex and technical than it might first appear. The syntax needs to be precise – a misplaced comma or bracket can break the entire block – and you need to know exactly which properties are required, recommended, or optional for each schema type.

That’s why it’s often easier nowadays to use generative AI to help you get it right the first time around. Tools like ChatGPT or (if you’re really cool) Definition AI can generate clean, valid JSON-LD markup based on a simple description of your content. Just provide the key details – product name, price, author, event date – and the AI can structure it properly, saving time and reducing errors.

You can also use schema generators available online, or refer to Google’s own structured data examples for templates you can adapt to your needs.

Step 3: Add the structured data to your website

There are several ways to add schema markup, depending on your technical setup and comfort level:

  • Manual HTML (JSON-LD): The most flexible and Google-recommended method. You add a <script type=”application/ld+json”> block directly into the <head> or <body> of your page. This gives you full control and works on any website, but requires access to your site’s code.
  • Content Management System (CMS) plugins: Platforms like WordPress or Joomla offer plugins that automatically generate structured data based on your content. Popular options include Yoast SEO, Rank Math, and Schema Pro. These tools let you add markup without touching code.
  • Custom CMS fields: If you’re working with a custom-built CMS or want more control than plugins offer, consider asking your web development team to build a dedicated schema field into your page templates. This allows editors to add or modify JSON-LD markup on a page-by-page basis without needing developer access for every change.
  • Google Tag Manager: If you want to add or update schema without editing your site’s HTML directly, you can deploy JSON-LD blocks through Google Tag Manager. This is especially useful for dynamic content or testing markup before committing it to your codebase.

Whichever method you choose (at Definition, we use a custom CMS field!), make sure the structured data accurately reflects what’s visible on the page. Misleading or hidden markup can result in penalties.

Step 4: Validate your implementation

Before you publish, test your markup to catch errors and confirm it’s being read correctly. Copy and paste your URL or code snippet into either Google’s Rich Results Test tool or Schema.org’s Schema Markup Validator. These tools will show you what structured data they detect, whether it’s eligible for rich results, and flag any warnings or errors.

Fix any issues it identifies – this might include missing required fields, incorrect formatting, or mismatched data – then retest until it’s clean.

Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool allows users to test and validate their webpage’s structured data to ensure it’s correctly implemented and understood by search engines.

Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool allows users to test and validate their webpage’s structured data to ensure it’s correctly implemented and understood by search engines.

Step 5: Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console

Once your markup is live and validated, head to Google Search Console and submit or resubmit your sitemap. This prompts Google to crawl your updated pages and discover the new structured data.

If you’ve only added schema to a handful of pages, you can submit individual URLs for indexing using the URL Inspection tool instead. But if you’re implementing structured data across many pages at once – say, rolling out product schema across your entire catalogue – resubmitting the whole sitemap is more efficient.

You don’t need to wait for Google to stumble across your changes – submitting the sitemap or individual URLs speeds up the indexing process and ensures your markup gets noticed.

Step 6: Monitor performance and fix issues

After a few days or weeks, check the Enhancements section in Google Search Console to see how your structured data is performing. In this section you’ll find reports for rich results, product snippets, FAQs, and more, along with any errors or warnings Google has detected.

Keep an eye on impressions, clicks, and the appearance of rich results in search. If something isn’t working as expected, revisit your markup, check for updates to Google’s guidelines, and make adjustments as needed.

Remember adding schema for SEO isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it task – it requires ongoing monitoring and maintenance as your content and Google’s requirements evolve.

It’s also important to note that your structured data may not increase your content’s visibility – every if its correct! Official Google documentation makes it clear that: “Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results.”

“Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results.”

Google Search Central

A couple of examples of structured data for SEO

To give you a clearer picture of what structured data looks like in practice, here are two real examples from the Definition website – one for our B2B SEO services page and one for our ‘What is B2B SEO? The essential guide‘ blog post.

Example 1: Service schema on our B2B SEO services page

This Service schema helps search engines understand what we offer, who it’s for, and how it connects to other pages on our site.

Key elements:

  • @type: “Service” – Tells search engines this page describes a service, not a product or article.
  • provider: “Definition” – Identifies our agency as the service provider.
  • serviceOutput – Lists the specific deliverables we provide, like “B2B SEO strategy” and “Technical audits,” giving Google a detailed understanding of what the service includes.
  • audience: “Founders, CMOs and marketers” – Specifies who the service is designed for, helping match the page to relevant search intent.
  • isRelatedTo – Links this service to related content on our site, like our B2B SEO training page, strengthening internal connections within the Knowledge Graph.

This markup doesn’t just describe the page – it positions it within a network of related services and audiences, making it easier for search engines to surface it in the right context.

Here’s the schema in full:

<script type=”application/ld+json”>{

“@context”: “http://schema.org/”,

“@type”: “Service”,

“provider”: “Definition”,

“name”: “B2B SEO agency”,

“serviceOutput”: [ “B2B SEO consultancy”, “B2B SEO strategy”, “B2B SEO measurement”, “B2B SEO copywriting”, “B2B PR-led link building”, “Technical audits”, “B2B keyword research”, “B2B on-SERP SEO” ],

“URL”: “https://comms.thisisdefinition.com/services/b2b-seo”,

“description”: “We design B2B SEO strategies that deliver rankings, leads and sales.”,

“image”: “https://comms.thisisdefinition.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/B2B-SEO-agency.png”,

“audience”: “Founders, CMOs and marketers”,

“isRelatedTo”: [ “https://comms.thisisdefinition.com/services/b2b-seo-training”]

}</script>

Example 2: BlogPosting schema on our ‘What is B2B SEO? The essential guide’ blog

This BlogPosting schema marks up one of our cornerstone content pieces, helping it appear in article-rich results and connecting it to the author.

Key elements:

  • @type: “BlogPosting” – Identifies the page as a blog post, making it eligible for article-related rich results.
  • author – Includes structured information about the author, Matthew Robinson (that’s me, by the way!), with his name and LinkedIn profile. This connects the content to a real person and builds authority through entity recognition.
  • headline – The title of the post, which search engines use to understand the topic and display in rich results.
  • datePublished and dateModified – Shows when the content was first published and last updated, signalling freshness and helping Google prioritise current information.
  • image – Provides the featured image URL, which can appear in search results and social shares.

This markup ensures the blog post is recognised as authoritative, up-to-date content written by a named expert – all signals that matter for visibility and trust.

Here’s the schema in full:

<script type=”application/ld+json”>

{

“@context”: “https://schema.org”,

“@type”: “BlogPosting”,

“author”: {

“@type”: “Person”,

“givenName”: “Matthew”,

“familyName”: “Robinson”,

“sameAs”: “https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewrobinson6/”

},

“headline”: “What is B2B SEO? The essential guide”,

“image”: “https://comms.thisisdefinition.com/wp-content/uploads/d310c05e-89f1-4469-ae95-e7b17c4750fb-1.png”,

“datePublished”: “2020-07-01T15:40:00+01:00”,

“dateModified”: “2024-02-21T14:00:00+01:00”

}

</script>

Both examples show how structured data translates visible content into machine-readable context. It’s not about adding more information – it’s about making what’s already there clearer, more connected, and easier for search engines to use.

Get started with structured data to support your SEO

Structured data might not be the flashiest part of SEO, but it’s one of the most practical. It helps search engines understand your content with precision, connects your pages to the broader web of entities, and opens the door to richer, more engaging search results.

You don’t need to be a developer to get started. With the right schema types, a clear implementation plan, and tools like AI or CMS plugins to help you along the way, adding structured data is more accessible than ever. And once it’s in place, the benefits compound – better visibility, higher click-through rates, and a stronger presence in voice and AI-driven search.

If you haven’t implemented schema markup yet, now’s the time. Start small, validate carefully, and monitor the results. Your content deserves to be understood – and structured data is how you make that happen.

Need some help driving brand visibility and leads with SEO? Get in touch with our experts today.

Get in touch

Frequently asked questions about structured data for SEO

1. Does using structured data increase my website’s visibility in LLM and AI-search results?

Yes. Structured data helps AI systems and large language models extract accurate, context-rich information from your site. When your content is clearly marked up, it’s more likely to be cited in AI-generated answers, voice search responses, and conversational search results. While it’s not a guarantee, schema gives AI tools the clarity they need to confidently reference your content.

2. What happens when you get structured data (schema) wrong?

If your schema contains errors – like missing required fields, incorrect syntax, or mismatched data – search engines may ignore it entirely, meaning you won’t get rich results. In more serious cases, if your markup is misleading or doesn’t match visible content on the page, Google can issue a manual penalty and remove rich results from your site. Always validate your markup before publishing to avoid these issues.

3. I have a small, niche website – is it still worth adding structured data?

Absolutely. Structured data isn’t just for large sites or e-commerce platforms. Even small, niche websites benefit from clearer context, better entity recognition, and the potential for rich results. In fact, smaller sites often see a bigger relative impact because structured data helps them compete more effectively in search, especially for long-tail queries and voice search.

4. Is there a difference between structured data and schema?

Not really – the terms are often used interchangeably. Structured data is the broader concept: any standardised format that helps machines understand content. Schema (or Schema.org) is the specific vocabulary most websites use to create that structured data. So when people say “schema,” they usually mean “structured data using Schema.org markup.”

5. Do I need to know how to code to add structured data to my website?

No. While knowing basic HTML helps, you don’t need to be a developer. Most modern CMS platforms offer plugins that generate structured data automatically, and tools like Google Tag Manager let you add markup without touching your site’s code. You can also use AI tools or online schema generators to create valid JSON-LD markup, then simply paste it into your page.

Matthew Robinson, SEO Lead

Written by Matthew Robinson, Senior PR and SEO Strategist at Definition on 14/10/2025