Structured data for local businesses: the fix AI search rewards most

Structured data is a small block of code, almost always JSON-LD in the page head, that states in a format built for machines what your business is: its name, address, phone, hours, and what it does. A human reads your homepage and infers all of that. A machine should not have to. Structured data hands it over as labelled facts.

Why it matters more than anything else

This is not a hunch. I publish the raw scans. In every one, the same split appears when you sort sites by whether they carry structured data:

• 16 Indian clinics: median 54 without it, 80.5 with.
• 25 Indian hotels: median 56 without it, 83.5 with.
• 24 US, Canadian and Australian businesses: median 58.5 without it, 88.5 with.

Three different countries, three different industries, the same 25-to-30-point gap. When an AI builds a shortlist, it works from what it can read. A site with structured data has told it what to say. A site without it is asking a machine to guess, and machines that guess reach for the source that did not make them guess: an aggregator, a directory, a competitor.

Pick the most specific type

Schema.org has a specific type for most local businesses. Use it, not the generic one.

• Dental practice: Dentist
• Hotel or homestay: Hotel or LodgingBusiness
• Restaurant: Restaurant
• Law firm: LegalService or Attorney
• Clinic or med spa: MedicalBusiness
• Anything else local: LocalBusiness as the fallback

Do not default to Organization. It is technically valid and practically useless: it tells an answer engine you are an organisation, which it already assumed.

A block you can adapt

Here is a minimal, honest example for a dental clinic. Change the values to your own, delete any line you cannot state truthfully, and paste it into your page head.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Dentist",
  "name": "Your Practice Name",
  "url": "https://yourpractice.com",
  "telephone": "+91-XXXXXXXXXX",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "Street and area",
    "addressLocality": "City",
    "addressRegion": "State",
    "postalCode": "000000",
    "addressCountry": "IN"
  },
  "openingHours": "Mo-Sa 09:00-19:00",
  "priceRange": "$$",
  "medicalSpecialty": "Dentistry"
}
</script>

Every property here is a plain fact your site already states somewhere. You are not inventing anything. You are labelling it. If writing JSON by hand is not your thing, the free schema generator reads your page and drafts a correct block for you to check and paste.

The one rule: never fake it

Mark up only what is genuinely on the page. The tempting mistake is adding aggregateRating or review with numbers you wish were true. That is a Google structured-data violation and can earn a manual action that hurts far more than the markup helped. A smaller honest block beats a fuller invented one, every time.

Check that it works

After you paste it, confirm two things: that the JSON is valid (a single typo breaks the whole block), and that the facts match your visible page. Then run your URL through the Report Card. If the structured-data line goes from fail to pass, you have just made the highest-leverage change on the page, and usually moved your score more than any other single fix.

Frequently asked questions