Schema Markup Beyond the Basics

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Schema markup is the code you add to a web page that tells search engines and AI systems what your content means, not just what it says. It is one of the cheapest, highest-leverage technical investments a Virginia small business can make — and most local business websites have little or none of it.

But here is the part that makes this a genuine “beyond the basics” conversation: the schema advice sitting at the top of most search results is out of date. In the past three years Google has quietly retired two of the schema types that older guides still tell you to prioritize. If you follow that stale advice, you will spend effort on markup that no longer does anything. This post covers what actually changed, what still works, and where the real leverage has moved.

What Changed: Two Schema Types Are Gone

For years, the standard advice was to add FAQ schema and HowTo schema to your pages so Google would display expanded question dropdowns and step-by-step carousels in the search results. That advice is now obsolete, and it is worth understanding the timeline because it tells you something about how Google operates.

According to Google's own Search Central documentation, HowTo rich results were deprecated on desktop as of September 13, 2023, having already been removed on mobile — the feature no longer appears anywhere. FAQ rich results were first restricted in August 2023 to well-known, authoritative government and health websites only, which meant the vast majority of businesses lost eligibility at that point. Then, as of May 7, 2026, Google removed FAQ rich results entirely — even the government and health exception is gone.

What Still Works in 2026

The retirement of FAQ and HowTo does not mean schema is dead. It means the leverage has concentrated into the types that still produce rich results and, increasingly, into the types that AI systems use to understand and cite your business. Here is the current state of play.

For a Virginia small business, the single most important type on the left column is LocalBusiness. It is the foundation of local structured data and the schema most directly tied to how both Google and AI systems understand who you are, where you are, and what you do.

The One That Matters Most: LocalBusiness Schema

LocalBusiness schema tells search engines and AI systems the core facts about your business in a format they do not have to guess at. According to Schema App's implementation guidance, you should use the LocalBusiness type (or one of its more specific subtypes) if your business is a brick-and-mortar facility with a publicly available address. If you are a service-area business without a public storefront, or a purely online business, the more general Organization type may be the better fit.

The properties that carry the weight

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "AccountingService",
  "name": "Your Business Name",
  "telephone": "+1-804-000-0000",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "123 Main St",
    "addressLocality": "Richmond",
    "addressRegion": "VA",
    "postalCode": "23220"
  },
  "openingHoursSpecification": { ... },
  "sameAs": ["https://your-google-business-profile-url"]
}

Note the @type is AccountingService, not just LocalBusiness. Schema.org offers dozens of specific subtypes — AccountingService, Dentist, AutoRepair, Restaurant, and 80-plus others. Using the most specific one that fits your business gives systems a more precise understanding than the generic parent type.

Where the Real Leverage Moved: AI Citation

Here is the shift that most Virginia business owners have not registered yet. The old reason to add schema was to decorate your search listing with stars and dropdowns. The new reason is more consequential: structured data is increasingly how AI systems decide whether to cite your business at all.

When someone asks an AI assistant “who is a good bookkeeper near Mechanicsville that works with nonprofits,” the answer is not pulled from a single crawled page the way a traditional search result is. It is constructed from verified, structured entity data the AI system has accumulated over time. Businesses with clean, validated schema become trusted entities the AI can confidently reference. Businesses without it are unstructured text the AI has to interpret and may get wrong — or skip.

Google has stated that structured data is not a direct ranking factor and that no special schema is required for its AI features. Both things are true. But the downstream effects — clearer entity recognition, corroboration of your business facts across sources, eligibility for the rich results that still exist — compound into real visibility over time. And crucially, the visible content on your page must match your markup. Schema that describes content a user cannot see is treated as spam and can trigger a manual penalty.

How to Get This Right

1. Use JSON-LD, not inline markup

   Google explicitly recommends JSON-LD — a script block separate from your visible HTML. It is far easier to add, edit, and maintain than the older inline formats, and it is the standard for every new implementation in 2026.

2. Start with the foundation, then add page-specific types

   Organization or LocalBusiness plus BreadcrumbList can run site-wide. Then add page-specific types where they match real content: Article on blog posts, Product on product pages. Most business websites need only four to six schema types total — precision beats volume.

3. Validate before you publish

   Run every schema block through Google's Rich Results Test before it goes live. A missing required property silently suppresses the entire rich result — the test catches those gaps before they cost you.

4. Monitor in Google Search Console

   After publishing, Search Console's enhancement reports show which structured data Google detected and any errors. A 30-minute review here periodically is worth more than most paid schema tools.

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