Technical foundations · 7 min read
Structured Data That Helps AI Tools Understand You
Structured data is a machine-readable summary of facts already on your page. It will not make up for a weak page, but it removes ambiguity about who you are.
The short answer
Structured data (schema.org markup, usually JSON-LD) states facts such as your business name, address, hours, products and prices in a format machines parse reliably. Search engines document using it to understand pages. It does not decide whether an AI tool mentions you, but accurate markup that matches your visible text makes your business less ambiguous to read.
What structured data is, in plain terms
Structured data is a block of code, usually JSON-LD placed in the page's HTML, that describes the page using a shared vocabulary from schema.org. Instead of a crawler having to infer from your footer that '305-555-0100' is your phone number, the markup says so explicitly.
Google documents that it uses structured data to understand page content and to power certain search features. Bing documents similar support. The AI tools themselves say less about it publicly, so the honest framing is this: markup makes your facts easier to parse for any system that reads it, and costs little to get right.
The types worth getting right first
Most small and mid-sized businesses only need a few types, and the value comes from accuracy, not quantity. Start with the one that describes the business itself, then add types that match the content of specific pages.
- Organization: your legal or trading name, logo, website, and the profiles you control (sameAs)
- LocalBusiness, or a more specific subtype such as Dentist, Plumber or LegalService: address, phone, hours, service area
- Product, with Offer: name, price, currency and availability, for businesses that sell online
- FAQPage: question and answer pairs that also appear as visible text on the page
- BreadcrumbList: where a page sits in your site structure
The rule that matters most: match the visible page
Markup should describe what a visitor can see. If your schema says you are open until 8pm and your contact page says 6pm, you have created exactly the kind of contradiction that makes your facts harder to trust. Google's guidelines say structured data must represent the visible content of the page, and that markup describing hidden or misleading content can lead to manual action.
This is also why plugins that generate markup automatically deserve a check. Open a page, view the source, find the JSON-LD block, and read it. Wrong hours, an old address or a placeholder business name are common.
FAQ markup, honestly
Google restricted FAQ rich results in search to a small set of authoritative government and health sites in 2023, so for most businesses FAQ markup no longer produces the expanded result it once did. That does not make it useless. A page with clearly separated questions and answers is easy for any reader, human or machine, to quote from, and the markup labels that structure.
Write the questions the way customers ask them, answer each in two or three self-contained sentences, and keep one FAQPage block per page. Two competing FAQ blocks on one page send a confusing signal.
Avoid the things that backfire
Review markup on your own business is a common mistake. Google does not show self-serving review stars for LocalBusiness and Organization pages, and marking up a rating you collected yourself, especially on every page, is the kind of thing its spam policies target. Show real reviews on the page if you like; be careful about what you claim in markup.
Do not mark up services you do not offer, cities you do not serve, or awards you did not win. The markup is a statement of fact, and an inaccurate one can only hurt you.
Validate, then measure
Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator at validator.schema.org will both read a live page and report errors. Run your homepage, your contact page and one service or product page through each.
Then let some time pass. If you track a question like 'who offers emergency plumbing in Coral Gables', Found in AI's report shows whether the answers name you and link your site, scan after scan. Markup is one input among many, so judge it on the trend, not on one week.
Your checklist
- Add Organization markup with your name, logo, URL and the social profiles you control
- Add LocalBusiness markup with the most specific subtype that fits your trade
- Compare every fact in your markup against the visible page and fix mismatches
- Read the JSON-LD a plugin generates instead of trusting it blind
- Keep a single FAQPage block per page, matching questions that are visible on it
- Remove self-assigned aggregate rating markup from your own business pages
- Run three key pages through the Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator
Common questions
Will adding schema get me into AI answers?
No single change does that, and no one can promise what an AI tool says. Accurate markup makes your facts easier to parse. Whether an answer names you depends on many other things too.
Do I still need FAQ markup if Google no longer shows FAQ rich results?
It is optional. Clearly written questions and answers on the page are what matter most. Markup that matches them is a reasonable addition, not a requirement.
Which format should I use?
JSON-LD. Google recommends it, it sits in one block rather than being woven through your HTML, and it is the easiest to check and maintain.
Read next
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Read the guide →Bing Webmaster Tools and Why Bing's Index Matters
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Read the guide →What Does It Mean to Be Found in AI?
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Read the guide →See where you stand today.
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