Schema.org is a shared vocabulary started in 2011 by Google, Bing and Yahoo, with Yandex joining later that year. It defines hundreds of types (Dentist, Product, Event, Person) and the properties each one can have (openingHours, price, startDate, jobTitle). Schema markup is that vocabulary applied to your pages, usually written as JSON-LD in a script tag.
It’s the most common way of adding structured data, which is why the two terms get mixed up.
Why it matters for a local business
Brightside Dental’s website says, in plain text, that it is a dental practice at 210 Elm Street, open weekdays from 8am. A search engine can probably work that out. Schema markup states it outright, with an exact type (Dentist, a subtype of LocalBusiness), the address broken into fields, the phone number, hours, and links to the practice’s Google Business Profile and social pages. That consistency helps search engines and AI assistants connect the website to the same business they see elsewhere, which supports local SEO.
Example
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Dentist",
"name": "Brightside Dental",
"url": "https://www.example.com/",
"telephone": "+1-512-555-0142",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "210 Elm Street",
"addressLocality": "Austin",
"addressRegion": "TX",
"postalCode": "78701",
"addressCountry": "US"
},
"openingHours": "Mo-Fr 08:00-17:00",
"sameAs": ["https://www.facebook.com/example"]
}
</script>Choosing types
Use the most specific type that fits. Plumber, Dentist and CafeOrCoffeeShop all exist and are better than a generic LocalBusiness. For each page, mark up its main subject: Product on product pages, Article on blog posts, Service where it genuinely helps describe what you offer.
Common mistakes
- Copying a template and forgetting to change the phone number or address.
- Marking up information that isn’t visible on the page.
- Adding the same Organization block twice (once from the theme, once from a plugin) with different details.
- Expecting FAQ or HowTo rich results. FAQ results are now limited to authoritative government and health sites, and HowTo results were removed in 2023.
How to add and test it
WordPress SEO plugins add basic schema automatically, and you can build specific blocks with the free Schema Generator. Test the result in Google’s Rich Results Test before publishing. RankThat’s AI fixes can also draft page schema and Organization or LocalBusiness schema for review, which the WordPress Bridge plugin then adds to the page. The markup can make pages eligible for some SERP features, though Google decides when to show them.