SEO & GEO
What is Structured Data / Schema Markup?
Definition
Machine-readable code added to web pages that helps search engines and AI systems understand page content and context.
In more detail
Structured data is code — typically in JSON-LD format — that you add to web pages to explicitly describe the content in machine-readable terms. Instead of leaving a search engine or AI system to infer what a page is about, structured data tells them directly: 'this is a product with a price of £X' or 'this is an FAQ with these specific questions and answers.'
Schema.org is the shared vocabulary used for structured data. Common schema types include Article, FAQPage, Product, Review, Person, Organization, SoftwareApplication, and BreadcrumbList. Each type has defined properties that describe different aspects of the content.
For GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), structured data is particularly powerful. When AI systems like ChatGPT or Perplexity crawl and index web content, JSON-LD structured data provides directly extractable facts about your business — name, location, services, reviews — that are easy to cite accurately in generated answers.
Why it matters
Structured data is one of the most technically reliable ways to signal content relevance to both Google and AI search systems. It's a low-effort, high-impact technical SEO improvement for most sites.
Further reading
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