Understand structured data for a local business website

Prepare the facts before the code

Structured data is machine-readable information embedded in a page. Our recommended first deliverable is a fact sheet, not a code snippet. Record the business name, public website, customer contact details, actual locations, operating hours, and the page where each fact is explained.

Give every field an owner. A developer can format opening hours correctly but cannot decide what your opening hours should be. If the website, booking system, and business records disagree, resolve the business fact before copying it into another system.

Check whether the feature fits the business

Google's LocalBusiness guidance recommends the most specific appropriate type and lists name and physical address as required properties for its local-business feature. Recommended fields include details such as telephone and opening hours. Do not invent an address or expose a private home address merely to satisfy a markup checklist.

Use a field-to-page worksheet

For a fictional bicycle repair shop, the worksheet might pair name with the visible business name, telephone with the contact section, openingHoursSpecification with published shop hours, and url with the actual shop page. The developer chooses the supported format and checks the implementation against current documentation.

For a service business without a public shop, ask which accurate organization or business description fits the site and which Google features it can genuinely qualify for. If a required property cannot be supplied truthfully, accept that limitation. A validation warning is not a reason to create a fictitious storefront or claim an unsupported service category.

Do not turn testimonials into a star promise

Google restricts LocalBusiness and Organization review snippets to sites reviewing other organizations. Self-serving reviews on a business's own website do not qualify for that review feature, including reviews displayed through an embedded third-party widget.

Validate both syntax and truthfulness

Google's general guidelines require structured data to match the page's visible content and explain that valid markup does not guarantee a rich result. Automated testing cannot establish that every business claim is true.

Ask for a useful implementation handover

Have the implementer provide the marked-up page URL, the selected type, the fields included, the test result, and the place where future edits are made. Check the live page after publication, because a correct sample in an editor does not prove the deployed page contains the same information.

Look for multiple plugins or theme features outputting conflicting business names, hours, or addresses. Ask the developer to identify which system owns each piece of markup and simplify avoidable duplication. This is easier to maintain than adding another generator every time a tool reports a missing field.

Review when the business changes

Add structured data to the same update checklist as visible contact details. A move, new phone number, or revised schedule should trigger a review of both. Keep a record of the change and confirm that the published output reflects it. The practical benefit is consistent, understandable business information, with any enhanced search appearance treated as something Google decides.