Schema markup (JSON-LD) tells search engines and LLMs what your page is. The schema.org vocabulary has hundreds of types, but only six or seven do real work for most service businesses. Ship those well; ignore the rest.
The seven schema types that matter
Article on every blog post. FAQPage on any page with Q&A. HowTo on procedural content. Organization sitewide on the root. Product on commerce pages. BreadcrumbList on deep routes. LocalBusiness if you have a physical location.
What schema doesn't do
Schema does not directly improve your ranking. What it does is make you eligible for AI Overviews, rich results, and clean LLM extraction. That eligibility is increasingly the difference between being cited and being skipped.
How to ship it
JSON-LD in the head, one block per type. Validate with Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema.org validator. Re-validate any time you change the underlying content.
- JSON-LD, not microdata or RDFa.
- One block per type per page.
- Always validate before deploying.
- Keep author, datePublished, and dateModified accurate.
Frequently asked questions
Does schema directly improve rankings?
No. It improves eligibility for rich results, AI Overviews, and clean extraction. The downstream traffic effect is real but indirect.
Can I have too much schema?
Yes. Stick to types that match the page. Schema that doesn't match the visible content can trigger spam penalties.
Where do I put it?
Inline JSON-LD in the head. TanStack Start makes this easy via the head() scripts array.