DefinedTerm · Glossary
What is LocalBusiness Schema
LocalBusiness schema is a structured data vocabulary from Schema.org that lets businesses annotate their web pages with machine-readable information about name, address, phone number, opening hours, geo-coordinates, and service area. Search engines and AI assistants use this markup to populate local packs, knowledge panels, and voice answers without revisiting the page. Correct implementation combined with consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) data across the web is the single highest-signal technical action for local visibility in both classic search and AI-generated responses as of 2026.
Full definition
LocalBusiness schema is a type defined in the Schema.org vocabulary under the broader Organization and Thing hierarchy. It describes a physical business or service-area business using a standardised set of properties that machines can interpret without any natural-language parsing.
Core properties include name, address (expressed as PostalAddress), telephone, openingHoursSpecification, geo (latitude and longitude as GeoCoordinates), url, image, priceRange, and sameAs. Subtypes such as Plumber, Electrician, HomeAndConstructionBusiness, and RoofingContractor inherit all of these properties and add sector-specific ones.
The markup is almost universally delivered as JSON-LD embedded in a <script type="application/ld+json"> block in the page <head>, though Microdata and RDFa are also valid. Google explicitly recommends JSON-LD because it does not interfere with the visible HTML.
Why it matters in 2026
Three forces make LocalBusiness schema more valuable now than at any previous point.
First, AI-driven answers (Google AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, ChatGPT Search, Perplexity) pull structured data directly into citations. A business without schema relies entirely on the AI inferring facts from prose — a lossy process that frequently produces errors in name, phone number, or hours.
Second, Google's local ranking algorithm weights schema-confirmed entity signals alongside Google Business Profile data. When both sources agree on NAP (Name, Address, Phone) and geo-coordinates, the entity coherence score increases, which correlates with higher placement in the local pack.
Third, the sameAs property links the entity to authoritative external profiles (Google Business Profile, Wikidata, LinkedIn, sectoral directories), amplifying entity authority across the knowledge graph and directly supporting E-E-A-T signals.
How it works
Delivery follows a three-step pattern. The schema block is generated server-side or at build time and injected into the page <head>. Crawlers read the JSON-LD on each visit. Google validates and ingests the structured data into its Knowledge Graph, associating it with the GBP entity via the sameAs link.
Errors that most frequently block rich-result eligibility: missing address, mismatched NAP between schema and GBP, non-canonical url value, and use of Microdata in SPAs where the crawler cannot execute JavaScript.
Difference from generic Organization schema
| Property | LocalBusiness | Organization |
|---|---|---|
| Physical address required | Yes, for full eligibility | No |
| Opening hours | Supported natively | Not applicable |
| Geo-coordinates | GeoCoordinates property | Not applicable |
| Local pack eligibility | Direct ranking signal | Indirect at best |
| Subtypes for trades | 60+ subtypes (Plumber, Electrician, etc.) | Generic only |
| Service-area definition | areaServed property | Less specific |
Related terms
JSON-LD, sameAs, E-E-A-T.
Fuentes
Términos relacionados
- json-ld
- sameas
- e-e-a-t