The importance of structured data on your website

What is structured data exactly?

Structured data is standardised code you add to the programming language of your website so that search engines and AI systems understand exactly what a page is about. Where a visitor simply reads “Demoet grafische vormgeving, logos and branding from €490”, a search engine without structured data only reads loose text. With structured data, it literally states: this is a business, this is the service, this is the price, this is the type of organisation.

The international standard for this is called Schema.org. It’s a joint initiative by Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex, which agreed on a shared vocabulary of labels, known as schemas, for businesses, products, articles, reviews, frequently asked questions and much more. Google itself recommends writing structured data in JSON-LD format, because it’s the easiest to maintain and doesn’t interfere with the rest of your website. You can find the official explanation on Google Search Central.

You’ve probably come across structured data already, without realising it. Search Google for a restaurant, and you sometimes see the opening hours, address and a star rating right away, before you even click the link. That extra information is there thanks to structured data: that page tells Google exactly which snippet of text is the address, which is the opening hours, and which is the rating.

What is structured data for, and why do you need it

Structured data exists to make your website readable for machines, not just for people. That might sound unnecessary, since your website already looks fine to a visitor. But search engines and AI tools don’t read a beautifully designed page with a logo and a nice photo. They read code. And in that code, it’s often not obvious to them whether “Monique” is a person, a business name, or just a word that happens to appear on the page.

Structured data provides that clarity. You state plainly: this is a business with this name, this address and this phone number. This is a service at this price. This is a question with this answer. The more explicit you are, the smaller the chance that a search engine or AI tool misreads your page, or worse, skips it entirely.

There are a few concrete benefits business owners notice right away:

• Your business details, such as address, phone number and opening hours, can appear directly in the search result, before anyone even clicks your link
• If you publish a blog with a step-by-step guide or frequently asked questions, Google can display it as a clear list among the search results
• If a potential client asks ChatGPT or Gemini for a recommendation in your field, there’s a better chance your business gets mentioned
• A search result with extra information stands out more among the other results, which means more people click on it

Curious how this connects to visibility in AI answers? I went deeper into that in my blog how your website ends up in AI search results.

This snippet tells exactly who you are, how you can be reached and what type of organisation you run. There are dozens of schemas like this: for articles, products, reviews, frequently asked questions, events and more. Which schema you need depends on the type of page.

There are two ways to add this to a WordPress website.

1. The first way is through an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO. The free version of Yoast automatically generates a basic schema for your organisation, such as your business name, address and logo. For more extensive schemas, such as one for frequently asked questions or specific products, the free version doesn’t offer enough functionality. For that you need something extra.

2. The second way is adding JSON-LD yourself with a plugin such as WPCode Lite. This lets you place your own piece of code on your website easily, without having to work in your theme files. This is the way to add the specific schemas your SEO plugin doesn’t offer by default, such as a schema for frequently asked questions or a product overview.

To check whether everything is set up correctly, you can use two tools, and they don’t do the same thing. Google’s Rich Results Test shows whether your structured data qualifies for one of the rich results Google itself supports, such as star ratings or frequently asked questions. The Schema Markup Validator checks your code against the full Schema.org standard, including the schemas Google doesn’t use for rich results but that AI tools can still read. Want to know mainly whether you qualify for a more eye-catching Google search result? Use the Rich Results Test. Want to confirm your structured data is fully correct and complete, with AI tools in mind too? The Schema Markup Validator is the better choice.

Types of structured data and their purposes

There are several types of structured data, such as:

1. Person schema: provides information about a person, such as name, profession, photo, and social profiles. This is used by coaches, consultants, etc.
2. LocalBusiness: provides information about a local business, such as address, opening hours, phone number, email, and reviews. Examples include restaurants, shops, or hair salons.
3. Organization: provides information about an online business or organization, such as name, logo, contact details, and social profiles. Examples include online businesses, institutions, or brands.
4. FAQ schema: displays frequently asked questions and answers on your website. It helps increase visibility in Google through expandable FAQs.
5. Review schema: displays ratings and reviews, including star ratings and reviewer details. Examples include customer reviews, testimonials, or product reviews.
6. Product schema: provides information about a product, such as price, availability, brand, and reviews. Examples include physical products, software, or services.

Structured data is one of the most important building blocks for being found and cited by AI tools. While Google has relied on structured data for years to show rich search results, AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity take this a step further. They build their answers from multiple sources, and prefer pages whose content can be interpreted quickly and without doubt.

A page with clear structured data essentially says: here is a business, this is the service, this is the price, this is the location. An AI tool doesn’t have to guess and can take that information straight into an answer for the user. A page without these clues gets skipped more often, even if the content itself is perfectly fine.

This doesn’t mean structured data guarantees visibility in AI answers. But it is one of the clearest levers you can pull as a business owner yourself, alongside clear copy, up-to-date business details and a well-organised website structure.

Google AI and ChatGPT increasingly decide who gets found online. Not as a link at the bottom of a list, but as the direct answer at the top. Every week you wait, your competitor builds up more authority with AI tools. A customer who gets an AI answer and clicks straight through to a competitor is a customer you’ll never see. That’s not a future scenario, it’s happening today.

Structured data is one of the most important ways to respond to that. It helps Google understand your page better, increases your chances of appearing in rich search results, and allows AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to cite your content instead of skipping it. My advice: have structured data added by a web designer who knows what they’re doing, so it’s done correctly and completely. Curious where your own website currently stands? It’s easy to find out.