Structured data

A person looking at your website immediately understands that "Mon–Fri 9:00–18:00" are your opening hours and that "£49" is the price of a product. A search engine has to infer that from the text, and it doesn't always manage. Structured data solves this: you add extra information to your page's code in a fixed format, so systems know unambiguously what each piece of data means.

For this you usually use the Schema.org vocabulary, a shared standard supported by Google, Bing and other search engines. The format Google recommends is JSON-LD: a block of code that sits in the page separately from your visible content and is easy to maintain.

Which types of structured data are useful for an SME?

• Organization or LocalBusiness: your business name, address, phone number, logo, opening hours and links to social profiles.
• Product: price, availability and possibly ratings, especially useful for online shops.
• Article: author, publication date and last modification of an article.
• BreadcrumbList: a page's place in your site's structure, in line with breadcrumbs.
• Event: date, location and tickets for an event.

What does it deliver?

Structured data can make you eligible for rich results, such as product prices, star ratings or event information directly in the search results. Google does say there is no guarantee such a display will appear, and that structured data in itself is not a direct ranking factor. Google has also scaled back some displays; for example, FAQ rich results have only been shown for a limited number of sites since 2023.

It also helps search engines correctly understand your business as an entity, with the right name, location and services.

Structured data in the age of AI search

Unambiguous information is valuable for AI systems such as Google AI Overviews, Gemini and ChatGPT too. How much weight each system gives structured data is not publicly known. Still, it makes sense that clearly labelled data, such as your opening hours or price range, is easier to pick up correctly than information scattered through a text. See it as a way to prevent misunderstandings, not as a miracle cure.

How to approach it

1. Start with the basics: Organization or LocalBusiness markup on your homepage or contact page.
2. Add relevant markup for each page type, such as Product for product pages and Article for blog posts.
3. Only mark up what is visible. Google requires structured data to match the content on the page.
4. Test your code with Google's Rich Results Test and monitor errors in Search Console.
5. Keep it up to date: if your opening hours or prices change, update the markup too.

An example: a garage in Yorkshire

A garage in Sheffield adds LocalBusiness markup with its address, phone number, opening hours and the car makes it specialises in. That data matches its Google Business Profile and contact page. The result is a consistent picture for search engines and AI systems. A technical SEO analysis checks whether your structured data is present and error-free, and where there are still opportunities.