Structured data is a standardized way of providing information in addition to the actual content of the page to help search engines like Google understand it better. Google says these “explicit hints” about the content of the page, communicated via schema markup, also help make search results more engaging for users via rich search results. This is especially important for companies with multiple locations. In this case, the site page schema would be applied to differentiate the landing pages of each site.
Knowing exactly how to use structured data, and especially schema markup, to achieve these results can help your business improve the search engine visibility of any location on hundreds or thousands of location pages.
In this guide, you’ll learn what a location page schema is and why it’s important, how it supports your local SEO and digital marketing goals, the unique challenges brands face when implementing a schema, and how to add it to your brand’s location pages at scale .
What is a site page schema?
Schema is the vocabulary used to add structured data, a standardized information format, to web pages so that search engines can better understand the content of that page. This allows search engines to better determine whether the page matches the searcher’s intent, the quality of the page content, whether there is rich content on the page, and more. These are powerful ranking signals that can help improve your search engine visibility or get a featured snippet.
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex created Schema.org where you can find documentation, guidelines, examples, and a schema validator.
The location schema includes all markup relevant to pages dedicated to a local business. This includes the LocalBusiness schema type, which allows marketers to mark up a local page with information such as:
- Currencies and payment methods are accepted
- opening hours
- Brand or organization name
- Address and Served Territory
- content information
- Founder and founding date
- Official name
- Offers
- And much more – see the LocalBusiness documentation for a full list
Other types of business schema markup
In addition to the broad LocalBusiness schema type, the vocabulary offers several specific types of business schema markup, including:
- animal shelter
- ArchiveOrganization
- Automotive Business
- childcare
- dentist
- Dry cleaning or laundry
- emergency service
- Employment Agency
- entertainment industry
- financial service
- food facility
- government office
- HealthAndBeautyBusiness
- HomeAndConstructionBusiness
- Internet cafe
- legal service
- library
- accommodation facility
- Medical Business
- professional service
- radio station
- real estate agent
- recycling center
- SelfStorage
- shopping mall
- SportsActivityLocation
- Save on computer
- TV channel
- Tourist Information Center
- Travel agency
Well, here’s what schema isn’t. John Mueller made it clear that structured data is not a ranking signal:
There is no overall ranking boost for SD usage. It’s the same as far as I can remember. However, SD can make it easier to understand what the page is about, making it easier to show where it’s relevant (improves targeting and potentially ranking for the right terms). (not new, in my opinion)
— Johnmu is not a chatbot yet ???? (@JohnMu)
However, he says it helps search engines understand the content and determine if it’s relevant to a search query. In this way, schema markup is definitely a powerful part of a local SEO strategy.
Literature recommendations: The 5 Best Local Landing Page Features for Corporate Brands
Why do your local pages need structured data?
As Google says in its introduction to structured data resources for developers: “Google search works hard to understand the content of a page. You can help us by giving Google explicit hints about the meaning of a page by including structured data on the page.”
Structured data helps in finding rich search results, which are more engaging and can also improve click-through rates (CTRs). All kinds of special search results could be relevant to local businesses; For example, if your brand is actively hiring, you can use EmployerAggregateRating to see aggregate employer ratings from sites like Glassdoor and Indeed.
Image source: Google
The Event markup type can trigger interactive event entries to showcase upcoming sales, customer celebrations, fundraisers, and other events at that specific location.
Image source: Google
Google shares case studies on how big and well-known brands have benefited from implementing Schema markup on their pages, including:
- The Food Network optimized 80% of their pages using structured data to qualify for rich snippets, resulting in 35% more visits.
- Rakuten found that users spend 1.5x more time on pages with structured data markup.
- nestle found that pages with rich search results had an 82% higher CTR.
Other types of page markers that can be useful for brands and franchises with multiple locations include:
- Speechable to identify sections of the page and passages of text best suited for audio playback by voice assistants and accessibility tools.
- FAQ to create a list of questions and answers related to that specific business location and brand as a whole.
- Image metadata to enable richer Google image search results and improve the visibility and engagement of your local photos.
- Review and aggregate the rating to display a rating excerpt and/or combined rating results in one rich search result.
How to add schema markup to local pages?
In most cases, Google recommends using JSON-LD, a JavaScript notation written in a