You have probably noticed that some Google results have extra detail — star ratings, prices, opening hours, expandable questions — while others are just a blue link and two lines of text.

That difference is usually schema markup, and it is one of the most under-used things available to a small business website.

What It Actually Is

Your web page shows a human being that you are a plumber in Halifax, open until six, charging from £60 a callout. A search engine sees text and has to infer all of that.

Schema markup is a block of code — invisible to visitors — that states it explicitly:

  • This is a LocalBusiness
  • Its name is X
  • Its address is Y
  • It opens at 08:00 and closes at 18:00
  • Its price range is ££

No guessing. It is written in a format called JSON-LD, sits in the page's head section, and takes the place of a search engine's inference with a statement of fact.

What You Get For It

Schema makes you eligible for rich results — the enhanced listings that take up more space and attract more clicks:

  • Star ratings on products and services
  • Prices and availability in shopping results
  • Expandable FAQs directly beneath your listing
  • Opening hours and location in local results
  • Breadcrumb trails instead of a raw URL
  • Event dates, recipes, job listings and other specialist formats

None of this raises your ranking directly. What it does is make your existing position more attractive. A result at position four with star ratings and expandable questions frequently gets clicked more than a plain result at position two.

The AI angle

Schema has become more valuable, not less, as AI-generated answers have spread. When a system is deciding which business to name in an answer, structured data is the cleanest, most reliable source of facts about you. See how to show up in AI search.

The Types That Matter for a Small Business

LocalBusiness

The foundation. Name, address, phone, hours, geographic coordinates, service area, price range. Every local business site should have this on every page. There are more specific subtypes — Dentist, Plumber, Restaurant, LegalService — and using the right one is better than the generic.

Service

What you offer, who provides it, where you provide it, and what it costs. One per service page.

FAQPage

Marks up a question-and-answer section so it can appear expandable in search results. This is the easiest visible win available, and it works well because most pages already have an FAQ section that just is not marked up.

BreadcrumbList

Turns the URL under your listing into a readable trail. Small, cheap, tidy.

Product and Review

For anything you sell. Price, availability, ratings. This is what produces the star ratings and price displays in shopping results.

Organization

Site-wide identity — logo, social profiles, contact details. Helps Google connect your website to your other online presences.

How to Check What You Have

Two free tools, thirty seconds each:

  • Google's Rich Results Test — shows which rich results your page qualifies for.
  • Schema Markup Validator — shows everything detected, valid or not.

Paste your homepage in. Most small business sites come back with nothing at all, which means every one of these opportunities is currently unused.

Getting It Added

Options, roughly in order of cost:

  • WordPress: Yoast, Rank Math and similar generate basic schema automatically. Adequate for LocalBusiness and Breadcrumbs, limited beyond that.
  • Squarespace and Wix: some is generated automatically, with limited control. Custom schema can usually be injected via code blocks on higher plans.
  • Custom sites: written directly into the page, which gives full control over exactly what is declared.

One Rule

Only mark up what is genuinely on the page and genuinely true. Schema describing reviews you do not have or prices you do not charge is a policy violation that can earn a manual action. Accurate markup carries no risk whatsoever.

If you are not sure what your site currently declares, a free website audit includes a structured data check alongside everything else.

Common Questions

Is schema markup a ranking factor?

Not directly. Google has been clear it does not boost rankings on its own. What it does is make you eligible for rich results — stars, prices, FAQs, opening hours — which significantly increase click-through rate, and that has real downstream effects.

How do I check if my site has schema?

Paste your URL into Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator. Both are free and show exactly what is detected and whether it is valid.

Which schema types matter most for a local business?

LocalBusiness is the foundation. Add Service for what you offer, FAQPage for question sections, BreadcrumbList for navigation, and Product plus Review if you sell things. That covers the majority of small business needs.

Can bad schema hurt my site?

Incorrect schema simply gets ignored. Deliberately marking up things that are not on the page — fake reviews, false prices — is a policy violation and can result in a manual action. Accurate schema carries no risk.