Structured data
Structured data: how to help AI understand your business
Structured data (schema.org markup in your website code) tells search engines and AI models exactly what your business is called, what you offer, where you are located, and how you can be contacted, without the model having to interpret its way there. That reduces uncertainty, and uncertain models cite less often.
Most websites write information for people: a heading here, opening hours there, a phone number in the footer. A human understands it instantly. A language model, on the other hand, has to read the text, interpret the context, and guess at what is actually fact and what is marketing language. Structured data removes that guesswork by packaging the information in a format (JSON-LD is the most common variant today) that is unambiguously machine readable.
Why this matters more for AI visibility than for traditional SEO
Google has used structured data for many years, among other things for rich search results with star ratings and prices. That is familiar territory for most people who have worked with SEO. What is new is how heavily generative models seem to weight this kind of explicit data when deciding whether a source can be trusted. Where a traditional search algorithm can compensate with link signals and user behavior over time, a language model visiting your page for the first time has little else to go on than what is actually there, structured or not.
The most important types for most businesses
- Organization or LocalBusiness: name, logo, address, contact info, and social profiles. This is the foundation most other types build on.
- LocalBusiness with subtypes (Restaurant, Dentist, Plumber, and similar) if you have a physical location customers visit.
- Product or Service with price and availability, if you sell something concrete.
- FAQPage for questions and answers you already have on the website, since this matches well with how people actually ask an AI model.
- Review or AggregateRating if you have genuine customer reviews to showcase.
You rarely need all the types at once. Start with Organization or LocalBusiness, since that is what AI models and search engines use to establish who you actually are.
Common mistakes that make the markup worthless
Structured data only helps if it is accurate. The most common mistake is that the markup says something different from what actually appears on the page, for example a price in JSON-LD that no longer matches the price list. That causes models to lose trust in the data, and in the worst case in the entire website. The second most common mistake is adding the markup once and never updating it when opening hours, address, or services change. Outdated structured data is often worse than none at all, because it actively spreads incorrect information further.
How to implement it without a developer team
- Use the schema generator to fill in the right fields for your industry and get finished code out.
- Paste the code into the <head> section on the homepage, and on subpages where relevant (the contact page, service pages, product pages).
- Test that the code is valid. Most CMS platforms and website builders have built-in validation tools, or you can check manually in the developer console.
- Set a reminder to update the markup every time basic facts change, not just when you redesign the website.
Structured data is one of several technical foundations AEO builds on, along with actually letting crawlers read your pages and keeping facts consistent across the web. We cover the full picture in What is AEO.
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