SEO & growth

How to add structured data (schema) to your website

16 February 2026 · 7 min read · By TM Team

TL;DR

Add JSON-LD structured data describing your key entities (organization, articles, products, FAQs, local business). It enables rich results and helps AI understand and cite your content.

Structured data is a small block of machine-readable markup that tells search engines and AI models exactly what your content is — this is an article, that is a product, this is your business and its hours. It does not change how your page looks, but it changes how well machines understand it.

That understanding is what powers rich results in search and makes your content easier for AI answer engines to parse and cite.

What structured data does

Human visitors read your page and infer meaning. Machines guess unless you tell them. Structured data removes the guessing: it labels your entities and their relationships in a standard vocabulary (schema.org), usually written as JSON-LD in the page's head.

Common schema types and why they matter

Schema type	Use it for	Payoff
Organization	Your business identity	Knowledge panel, entity clarity
LocalBusiness	A physical location	Local results, maps, hours
Article / BlogPosting	Blog and news content	Rich article results, AI citation
Product	Items for sale	Price, rating, stock in results
FAQPage	Q&A content	Expandable FAQ in search
BreadcrumbList	Site hierarchy	Breadcrumb trails in results

JSON-LD is the easy way

Google recommends JSON-LD — a single script in the page head — over inline markup. It keeps your structured data separate from your HTML, so it is easy to add, read and maintain.

How to add it, step by step

1
Identify your key entities
Your organization, your pages' types, your products or FAQs — what each page is about.
2
Pick the right schema types
Match each page to a schema.org type: BlogPosting for articles, Product for items, LocalBusiness for a location.
3
Write JSON-LD
Add a script of type application/ld+json in the head describing the entity and its properties.
4
Validate it
Run it through a structured-data testing tool to catch errors before publishing.
5
Keep it accurate
Structured data must match the visible page — misleading markup can be penalized.

Match the markup to the page

Structured data must describe what is actually on the page. Marking up content that is not visible, or inflating ratings, breaks the rules and can cost you rich results entirely.

✓Structured data tells machines what your content means.
✓It powers rich results and helps AI cite you.
✓JSON-LD in the head is the recommended method.
✓Match each page to the right schema.org type.
✓Always validate, and keep markup honest and accurate.

Does structured data improve rankings directly?

Not directly, but it enables rich results and clearer understanding, which lift visibility and click-through — and increasingly help AI answer engines cite you.

What format should I use?

JSON-LD, a script in the page head. Google recommends it and it is the easiest to add and maintain.

Can structured data help with AI search?

Yes. Clear, accurate structured data makes your content easier for AI models to parse, attribute and cite, which matters as answer engines grow.

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