AI
Schema Markup for Small Businesses: What to Add and What to Skip
By the Coast Creative team5 min read
Schema markup is one of those things most small business owners have heard of and almost none have checked. It's a block of code on your site that states plain facts about your business in a format machines can't misread: your name, your address, your hours, what you do, and where you do it.
Visitors never see it. Google does, and so do the AI assistants people now ask for recommendations. When your schema is missing or wrong, those systems have to guess. Guessing is how a business ends up with the wrong hours in search or left out of an answer.
Here's what to add, what to skip, and how to check your own site in about ten minutes.
What schema actually does
Your website already says you're a roofing company in Torrance that's open until 6 p.m. A person reading the page gets that instantly. A machine sees a pile of text and has to work out which number is the phone, which line is the address, and whether "Torrance" is where you're located or just a town you mentioned in a blog post.
Schema removes the guesswork. The standard format is called JSON-LD, which is a short, labeled list of facts tucked into the page's code. Search engines and AI tools use that list to confirm what they think they understand about you.
It won't rank a weak site on its own. It makes sure the systems reading your site get the facts right, which matters more as people get answers from summaries instead of links.
The one block every local business needs
If you only add one thing, make it LocalBusiness schema on your homepage, or better, the most specific subtype that fits you. Schema.org has types for Plumber, Electrician, RoofingContractor, RealEstateAgent, Restaurant, Dentist, HairSalon and dozens more. Use the specific one. "Plumber" tells a machine far more than "LocalBusiness" does.
Fill in these fields at minimum:
Name, exactly as it appears on your Google Business Profile. Address, formatted the same way it is everywhere else online. Phone number, the same one listed on your profile and directories. Opening hours, kept current, including holiday changes if you can manage it. Your website URL and logo. Area served, listing the actual cities or neighborhoods you work in. And sameAs, which is a list of links to your Google Business Profile, Yelp page, Facebook, LinkedIn and any industry directories you're on.
That last one is underrated. The sameAs links tell machines that the business on your site and the business on Yelp are the same entity.
Other schema worth adding
Once the basics are in, a few more types earn their keep.
Service schema on each service page describes what that page offers and where. A contractor with separate kitchen and bathroom remodel pages should mark up each one.
Article schema on blog posts gives the author, publish date and update date. AI tools care about freshness and authorship, and this hands them both.
Person schema on your About page works well for owner-led businesses, agents and consultants, where the person is the brand. Include the name, job title and links to professional profiles.
What to skip (or stop expecting)
A lot of old schema advice is out of date. Google stopped showing review stars for businesses that mark up reviews of themselves on their own site back in 2019. You can still include ratings, but don't expect gold stars in search results from it.
FAQ rich results, the expandable questions that used to appear under search listings, are now limited by Google to a small set of government and health sites. FAQ schema is still harmless and can help AI tools pull answers, but it won't change how your listing looks.
And never mark up things that aren't on the page. Schema has to match what visitors can actually see. Stuffing in fake reviews, cities you don't serve, or services you don't offer is the fastest way to get it ignored, or worse, flagged.
How to check your own site
Two free tools will tell you what you have. Google's Rich Results Test shows which schema Google can read on any page and flags errors. The Schema Markup Validator at validator.schema.org checks everything, including types Google doesn't display.
Run your homepage through both. If nothing comes back, you have no schema. If you see a LocalBusiness block, check it line by line against your Google Business Profile. Mismatched phone numbers and old addresses are the most common problems we find.
Then check a service page and a blog post. Most sites we audit have schema on the homepage and nowhere else.
Who should set it up
On WordPress, plugins like Yoast or Rank Math handle the basics if you configure them properly, though they default to generic types, so set the specific business type yourself. Shopify themes include some product schema but usually skip local business details. On a custom site, it should be written by hand for each page type.
At Coast Creative, schema is part of every build, alongside llms.txt and the other pieces that help AI assistants understand a business. If you're not sure what your site has right now, run the two tests above. It takes ten minutes and you'll know exactly where you stand.