With millions of websites competing for attention, it’s becoming more and more important for businesses to stand out in search results. If you have a local business, you must have a strong plan to be found online by your target market and thrive among your competitors. That’s where local schema markup comes in.
A local schema markup is a powerful way to help businesses boost their search engine visibility by delivering search engines with specific details about their business.
In this article, we’ll explore what local schema markup is, why it is important, its best practices, and choosing the right local business schema type.
So, let’s dive in and explore the world of local schema markup!
What Is The “Local Business” Schema?
Understanding local business schema markup is essential to staying ahead of the competition in today’s hyper-competitive online marketplace. But first, let’s understand a schema markup.
Schema markup is a set of codes that search engines use to better understand a website’s content and present data using standard tag groups. This supports businesses in better website optimization, which raises their SERP ranking.
Local business schema is just the same!
Local business schema is a collection of structured code that local businesses use on their websites to let search engines know what kinds of services and goods they offer.
It is a customized schema markup within the schema.org language that can be applied to both the location and the organization, retaining the qualities of both while concentrating on data that would be relevant to a local searcher.
You can enter a broad range of local business schema markups, also known as “properties,” including the standard NAP that stands for name, address, phone number, work hours, and geolocation data.
However, agencies that prefer to go the extra mile for their customers may use social networking, feedback, and additional information.
Local business schema is just about the categories and properties that fall under schema.org local business vocabulary.
This vocabulary is used to group together and describe information about your business. When you add it to your website, it translates your content which can be understood only by humans, into a machine-understanding language, namely JSON-LD.
But how does it work?
Let’s say you run a small coffee shop in downtown San Francisco. When someone types “coffee shops near me” into Google, you want to make sure that your business’s name shows up at the top of the search results.
Implementing local schema markup on your website can help Google better understand your business’s purpose and goals by providing detailed information about your business.
Examples Of Local Business Schema Markup
According to schema.org, local business schema markup example can include:
• A coffee shop
• A restaurant
• A bank branch
• A specific location of any chain of fast food restaurants
• Any other type of business
The local schema markup will look as follows when you apply the JavaScript-compatible JSON-LD format for a coffee business, “Cafe Moe.”
<script type=”application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”: “https://schema.org”,
“@type”: “Coffee Shop”,
“address”: {
“@type”: “PostalAddress”,
“addressLocality”: “San Francisco”,
“addressRegion”: “CA”,
“postalCodes”: “94110”,
“streetAddress”: “3139 Mission St”
},
“aggregateRating”: {
“@type”: “AggregateRating”,
“ratingValue”: “4.5”,
“reviewCount”: “240”
},
“name”: “Cafe Moe”,
“openingHours”: [
“Mo-Sa 9:00-16:00”,
],
“priceRange”: “$$”,
“servesDrinks”: [
“Coffee”,
“Tea”,
“Pastry”
],
“telephone”: “(415) 358-3902”,
“url”: “https://cafemoe.com”
Even if it might seem a little complicated to incorporate a local business structure, if you are aware of the category your company belongs to, you may use it to improve your website’s exposure and rating on search engine results pages (SERP).
You only need to be aware of the basic details of the business, such as the name, contact information, address, operating hours, and customer testimonials, and incorporate them into the code. And once you get the hang of it, there will be no turning back!
Why Is Local Business Schema Important?
Local business schema matters for several reasons in today’s online landscape. Because so many companies compete for customers online, it’s essential to ensure that search engines quickly understand what your business is and what it does.
This is made possible by local business schema markup, which gives search engines structured data that precisely identifies your company. By implementing local business schema markup on your website, search engines can better know the intent of your website. This will make it easier for the search engines to understand your company and raise the rank of your website in SERPs.
Eventually, it may also improve your visibility in search results, making it easier for prospective customers to reach you. This can be especially important for small businesses that rely on local customers to drive sales.
By using schema.org/local business, you can add additional information to the search engines about your business. This will help your listing catch the eye by helping in your SERP ranking.
For example, if someone searches for “coffee shops in San Francisco,” local business schema markup can show your Google My Business page and provide additional details about your business’s location, hours, and reviews, making it easier for users to decide whether to visit your shop.
Having Google My Business and integrating it into your website validates and strengthens the information you are attempting to present to users and search engines. By doing this, you give search engines the context they require to identify the links between your local listings, your website, and your business as a whole.
Local Business Schema Best Practices
So, how do I develop a schema strategy for a local business?
To make sure you get the most out of your local business schema markup, it’s important to follow best practices that will help you optimize your schema markup for search engines and users alike.
• Include every important business-related detail, including your company’s name, address, location, URL, phone number, and operating hours. This will make it simpler for your company to be included and approved on local directories like Yelp, Google My Business, and Bing Places.
• Your website’s header tag should contain the local business schema markup you use so that search engines can more clearly understand what you do.
• You can register the local business listing on the largest and most popular search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, by providing consistent information to the search engines.
• Include local keywords in the content and headings of your website to make it more relevant for your target audience to find you quickly.
• For a better reach to your target audience and the search engines to find you quickly, send your website to local search engines and directory listings.
• Try to make as many contacts and connections as you can. You can do this by engaging with local communities, discussion boards, and social media groups.
• Customer feedbacks and testimonials are one of the most important elements of a business. Take full advantage of it by engaging with those who have left reviews about your business on local directories or social media platforms. This will give your company credibility, and potential clients will trust you more and choose you over other businesses when they search online for businesses in your niche.
Choosing The Right Local Business Schema Type
Since there are many options, choosing the right type of schema for your local business is very important. This is because the right local business schema can help ensure that search engines get the correct information to provide to their users.
If you are using JSON-LD Markup to mark up your websites, it is important that you choose the right one. While filtering through your options, you can come across around 30 Local Business subtypes. More than half of these subtypes will also have additional categories under them to choose from, which you can select according to your business.
When you apply this schema to your website, you are actually establishing a local business, so you must choose the appropriate type for it. Rather than choosing just a generic option of LocalBusiness, you can get much more detailed by including a lot more customized and precise information into your structured data according to the nature of your business.
Let’s see how you can choose one!
First, go to https://schema.org/LocalBusiness#subtypes. You’ll see a list of 30 subtypes in front of you. Some of these subtypes that you see have more information within them. So, if you want to be more specific about what you provide, you can find different information under these subtypes.
For example, if you have anything related to food, you can pull out more information on FoodEstablishment, and look at the details that can be a part of your unique structured data.
Doing this is important as it gives you more targeted information. So, while creating a markup, have a subtype that can be added as “@type” when selecting LocalBusiness to provide the search engines with more detailed information about what your business does.
To Sum It Up
Local schema markup is a powerful way for businesses to improve their search engine visibility and attract more customers online.
Local schema markup implementation may initially seem difficult, but it’s a valuable effort that can pay off in the long term. With so much competition in today’s digital landscape, it’s important to stay ahead of the game and make sure your business stands out in search results.
By adding local schema markup to your website, you can take charge of your online presence and make sure that both visitors and search engines can find and understand your business.
So, don’t wait any longer – start implementing local schema markup today and watch your business soar to new heights in search results!
FAQ
Where to add local business schema?
You should add local business schema on the header of your business’ website so it is easier for the search engines to find you.
How to add local business schema in WordPress?
Adding Local Business Schema in WordPress can be done in just a few simple steps:
Step 1:
• Access the WordPress Dashboard.
• Go to settings.
• Select the Schema Pro option to create a new Schema markup by choosing the “Add New” option.
Step 2: Select “Local Business” under the type of schema you want.
Step 3: Choose the posts or pages you want to apply the markup to or exempt this schema from.
Step 4: After finishing the setup, link the necessary properties to the fields on your website’s articles, pages, or other areas.
Step 5: Check the section you will see below, after the setup, for further information on what each field represents.
Step 6: You will find a number of fields related to the local business schema in the “Schema Settings” section. You can input information about your local business using these fields. After that, verify that the proper values are in place for each schema field.
How can I test if my local business schema markup is working correctly?
There are various methods for determining whether your markup is functioning properly.
The Schema Markup validator: This tool checks your schema.org syntax but does not indicate whether you qualify for rich results.
Rich Results Preview Testing: This tool tells you whether or not your page qualifies for rich results.
Google’s Structured Data Tool: You can use this tool to highlight the structured data on a web page by entering the URL of that page. The tool will also display any issues or red flags associated with the schema markup.
Google’s Rich Results Test Tool: This tool evaluates rich snippets and other types of structured data that show up in Google search results.
How to create a local business schema for multiple locations?
If you have a business in multiple locations or want to create a schema for your client who has their business in multiple locations, you can create the schema in different ways.
If the business’ website’s homepage does not have an address, you can use the Organization category to create a schema for multiple locations.
However, if you see any details, such as the other business locations and their address listed on the homepage, you should select the subOrganization property under Organization. Once that’s done, you can easily create the markup for every location provided.
On the other hand, if every location you will be working on has its separate page, you will have to work on generating a different LocalBusiness data set for all the different location pages. From every LocalBusiness data you have created, use either one of the options between parent organization property or branch of property so you can link them to the actual Organization data.
In cases where your or your client have a homepage where the address is mentioned and can be seen as “headquarters,” you can then use LocalBusiness or choose among the various subtypes that you think will match the business.
