Quick answer
Local businesses should add LocalBusiness schema sitewide, Service schema on each service page, BreadcrumbList on every page, and FAQPage where genuine questions and answers are visible on the page. All structured data must describe content that is actually visible to visitors.
The types that matter
LocalBusiness (or a more specific subtype such as Plumber or Electrician) establishes who you are, where you operate and how to contact you. Service describes an individual offering. BreadcrumbList reinforces site structure. FAQPage can earn expanded results and is heavily used by AI answer engines.
Connect your entities
Rather than repeating your business details in every block, define your LocalBusiness once with an @id and reference it from Service and Offer nodes. A connected graph is easier for search engines to interpret than dozens of isolated snippets.
Common mistakes
Marking up content that is not visible, inventing review ratings, using Product schema for services without offer details, and leaving old markup behind after a redesign are the errors that trigger Search Console warnings.
Validate before you ship
Run every template through Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator, then monitor the Enhancements reports in Search Console for a fortnight after launch.
Frequently asked questions
- Does schema markup improve rankings?
- Not directly. It improves how your result is displayed and how confidently search engines and AI tools understand your business, which improves click-through.
- Can I add FAQ schema to any page?
- Only where the questions and answers are visible on that page and genuinely answer user questions.
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