What it is
A block of data on the page invisible to visitors that spells out what the page is: a service with a price, an article with an author, a question with an answer, an organisation with an address. Search engines and AI read it directly, with no guessing.
How we use it
Every page of the site carries its own markup: Service and Offer with prices on services, Article on case studies and posts, FAQPage on questions, DefinedTerm on glossary terms, BreadcrumbList on breadcrumbs, Organization on the home page. This is what lets an assistant answer "a bot from $80" with a link.
Where structured data helps a business
- In search results a product should show its price and availability, not just a title.
- Asked "how much does it cost", an assistant should take the price from your page and link to it.
- A search engine should understand that a business-card site is a person with specific services, not just a page.
- A questions-and-answers block should be read by machines as questions and answers.
Types we use
- Organization and WebSite: who you are and what the site is called; on the home page.
- Product: an item with price and availability; in stores and showcases.
- FAQPage: questions and answers in the customer's own words.
- Person and ProfilePage: a specialist's business card.
- BreadcrumbList, ItemList: navigation and product lists.
- DefinedTermSet: a glossary of terms.
How we use it
- The studio website: Organization and WebSite on the home page, FAQPage on questions, DefinedTermSet on the glossary, and every page has its own title, description and Open Graph tags.
- ยซะัั
ะฐะฝะธะต ะะพะฒะพะปะถััยป: Organization, WebSite, BreadcrumbList, Product with price and availability, and ItemList, plus hreflang for the English version.
- Valery Afanasiev's site: Person with services, WebSite, ProfilePage and FAQPage, for search engines and AI assistants.
- The shirt store: Product with price, availability and photos, and ClothingStore with the pickup point's coordinates.
- The packaging manufacturer's sites: organisation and FAQ markup, breadcrumbs, and titles and descriptions on every post and category.
We build structured data in from the start under Websites and online stores.
Common problems
- Markup that disagrees with the text. It should be the same text a person sees, just laid out for machines. Prices and answers in the markup must match what the page says.
- An outdated price. Hand-written markup lies after a price change. It is better to generate markup from the same data as the page instead of duplicating it by hand.
- Markup on a page that is not indexed. Markup helps a search engine understand a page but does not replace indexing: the page has to get into search first.
- Markup on a closed staging site. It does not help on demo and test sites, which are closed to indexing entirely.
When you do not need it
Private sections, customer accounts and demo stands do not need markup. And markup alone will not lift a site in search: it explains the page to robots but does not replace useful text and answers to customers' questions.