Not just LocalBusiness — use Dentist, HVACBusiness, Plumber, LegalService. Full list at schema.org. Specificity improves knowledge graph mapping.
critical
Schema Implementation Checklist.
Twenty-five points for deploying and validating schema.org JSON-LD across your site — LocalBusiness, BlogPosting, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList, Service / Review / Rating. Plus validation tooling and the @id-reference pattern that keeps entity data DRY.
◆ Your progress
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01 · LocalBusiness / Organization
Use @id: https://yoursite.com/#business. Reference from BlogPosting.publisher, Service.provider, Review.itemReviewed — never duplicate full LocalBusiness data across pages.
critical
Structured PostalAddress. Every field (streetAddress, addressLocality, addressRegion, postalCode, addressCountry) matches your canonical NAP.
"address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "123 Main St", ... }
critical
Required for map pack eligibility. geo gives your business location; areaServed defines who you serve (can be larger than geo).
high
Cross-reference your GBP, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram URLs via sameAs. Helps Google connect your entity graph.
high
02 · BlogPosting / Article
Required properties: @type, headline, datePublished, author, publisher, image, mainEntityOfPage. Build via schema.ts helpers.
critical
author: { '@id': 'https://yoursite.com/about#person' }. The Person entity is defined once at /about. 166 blog posts reference it — none duplicate it.
critical
Match schema type to actual content shape. Tutorials with step-by-step should use HowTo (with step array). Opinion essays use OpinionNewsArticle. Mismatched types can miss rich-result eligibility.
high
Don't just bump dateModified on auto-publishing. Actual revisions trigger re-indexing and signal freshness. Unchanged timestamps over 2+ years signal abandonment.
ongoing
03 · FAQPage
Google devalued FAQPage rich results for most sites in 2023. Still works for authoritative sites. Deploy on /faqs hub + individual FAQ pages, not on service pages with 2 inline Q&A.
high
Schema.org Validator flags Q&A pairs where the Answer is shorter than 50 characters. Write substantive answers; don't schema-mark your one-liners.
high
Google penalizes hidden FAQ schema. The questions and answers in your JSON-LD must be visible to users on the page. No 'invisible optimization'.
critical
04 · BreadcrumbList
Match the visible breadcrumb navigation. Helps Google understand site hierarchy and displays breadcrumb trails in SERPs.
high
Current page (last item) shouldn't have item URL. All prior items should have both name + item URL.
high
05 · Service / Review / AggregateRating
@type: 'Service', references provider (LocalBusiness via @id), includes offers (PriceSpecification), areaServed, serviceType.
high
availability: 'https://schema.org/InStock', priceCurrency: 'USD'. Missing currency is the #1 cause of Offer validation errors.
high
Faking ratings = Google manual action territory. Only use when you have a real review/rating collection system on your own site. GBP reviews don't count for site schema.
critical
If you display customer reviews with names, dates, ratings — schema-mark them individually. Never schema-mark testimonials that don't have all required fields.
ongoing
Not all local businesses. For retailers and some service businesses that sell productized services: Product schema with Offer + Brand. Required for shopping rich results.
high
06 · Validation & deployment
search.google.com/test/rich-results. Test every page type (home, service, blog, FAQ). Errors suppress rich results.
critical
validator.schema.org covers the full spec, not just Google's subset. Catches valid-for-Google but spec-invalid patterns.
high
Not in <body>, not microdata, not RDFa — JSON-LD in <head> is what Google prefers and parses most reliably.
high
Googlebot renders JS, but schema should not depend on client-side injection. Ship it in the initial HTML. Astro + Next.js static rendering handle this natively.
high
GSC → Enhancements → LocalBusiness / Breadcrumbs / FAQPage / Article etc. Shows errors and warnings on your schema. Fix errors within 7 days of first appearance.
ongoing
If the page content changes (new address, price change, new service), the schema updates too. Stale schema is worse than no schema — signals unmaintained site.
ongoing
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Schema is infrastructure . It should be invisible when done right.
If you want someone to audit your full schema deployment across a real site — what's missing, what's broken, what's duplicate — the $197 audit includes schema analysis as one category.