Search engines are good at reading text, but they still benefit from being told explicitly what that text means. That’s what structured data, also called schema markup, is for.
What it actually does
Schema markup is a standardized bit of code added to a page that labels information explicitly — “this is a business name,” “this is a star rating,” “this is a price.” It doesn’t change what visitors see; it changes what search engines understand about the page.
Where it shows up
The visible payoff is usually rich results in search — star ratings under a review page, FAQ dropdowns directly in search results, business hours and address for a local business listing. These come from structured data, not from the page content alone.
Common types worth having
- Organization / LocalBusiness — name, address, hours, contact info
- Article — for blog posts, like this one
- FAQPage — for genuine FAQ sections
- Product — for e-commerce listings
The easy part and the honest caveat
Most modern SEO plugins add basic schema automatically. It’s worth confirming it’s actually there and accurate — but it’s a technical enhancement, not a replacement for having genuinely useful content underneath it.