Schema markup has a reputation for being technical and optional. It is technical, but it stopped being optional some time ago, particularly now that AI tools are reading and summarising websites as well as ranking them. If a Colchester plumber and a Chelmsford accountant publish near-identical pages, the one that explains itself in structured data gives machines far less to guess at.
What Schema Actually Does
Schema is a vocabulary, agreed between the major search engines, for labelling the content on a page. Instead of hoping Google works out that "£85 per hour" is a price and "Mon to Fri 8 to 6" is opening hours, you tell it directly, in a block of JSON-LD code that sits in the page but is not shown to visitors.
It does not guarantee rich results. Google decides whether to show stars, FAQ dropdowns or anything else, and it has narrowed which types it rewards over the years. What schema reliably does is reduce ambiguity, and ambiguity is expensive.
Review Schema: Be Careful and Honest
This is the type most likely to get a site into trouble. Google's guidelines are clear that reviews must be genuine, visible on the page, and not written by the business about itself. Marking up a self-serving testimonial on your homepage as if it were an independent rating is the kind of shortcut that can lead to a manual action.
- Only mark up reviews that actually appear on the page.
- Do not mark up ratings copied from Google or Trustpilot unless you have the right to and the guidelines allow it for that page type.
- Never invent a rating, or inflate a count, to earn stars.
If you have real reviews about a specific product or service, review markup can be sensible. If you do not, leave it out. A clean site beats a decorated one.
FAQ Schema in the Current Climate
Google reduced how often FAQ rich results appear, so many people wrote the type off. We think that is a mistake. The markup still describes your questions and answers clearly, and the underlying content is exactly what both searchers and AI assistants look for. Write the questions the way customers in Southend or Basildon actually phrase them on the phone, and answer in two or three plain sentences.
Rules we follow
The questions and answers in the markup must match the visible text on the page. Do not stuff a FAQ block with promotional copy, and do not repeat the same FAQ across thirty pages. One strong set per relevant page is plenty.
Service and Local Business Markup
For most local firms, this is where the real value sits. A LocalBusiness or more specific type, such as Plumber or AccountingService, tells search engines your name, address, phone number, opening hours and service area. Pair it with Service markup on individual service pages: what you offer, where you offer it, and who provides it.
Consistency matters more than volume. Your name, address and phone number in the schema should match your Google Business Profile, your footer and your contact page character for character. We regularly find a "Ltd" in one place and not another, or an old Harlow address left over from a previous office.
How to Implement and Test It
You do not need to hand-code everything. Most WordPress SEO plugins output a sensible baseline, and you can extend it. Whatever method you use, test it. Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator will flag syntax errors and missing fields in seconds.
Check again after every site update. Themes and plugins quietly overwrite or duplicate schema, and two conflicting blocks are worse than one. If you want help getting this right across a whole site, our Essex SEO team builds and audits structured data as part of our technical work.
The Bottom Line
Schema will not rescue a weak site, and it will not work miracles on its own. But used honestly for reviews, FAQs and services, it makes your pages easier to understand for search engines and AI tools alike. Keep it accurate, keep it matched to visible content, and keep it tested.