Structured data is machine-readable markup that describes the meaning of a page's content to search engines and other consumers. Most modern sites use JSON-LD inside a <script type="application/ld+json"> tag with the Schema.org vocabulary, which defines types like Article, Product, FAQPage, LocalBusiness, and BreadcrumbList.
Why it matters
Search engines use structured data to render rich results — star ratings, FAQ accordions, product prices, breadcrumbs, recipe cards — that take up more SERP real estate and clarify what a page is about. The same markup helps LLMs and knowledge-graph pipelines extract authoritative facts, which is increasingly important as more discovery happens through AI assistants. Done well, it raises click-through rate without changing rankings on its own.
How to use
- Prefer JSON-LD over Microdata or RDFa; Google's documentation recommends it and it is easiest to maintain.
- Mark up only content that is visible on the page; misleading or hidden markup can lead to manual actions.
- Pick the most specific Schema.org type that fits and fill required and recommended properties.
- Validate every template with the Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator before shipping.
- Combine with strong meta descriptions, Open Graph tags, and a healthy sitemap.xml to reinforce signals.
- Keep canonical tags aligned with the URL referenced in your structured data.
