Structured Data
In one line
Structured data is content marked up in a standard format so search engines and AI systems can understand exactly what each part of the page means.
Going deeper
Structured data marks up the key facts on a page using a standard machine-readable vocabulary. The de facto vocabulary is Schema.org, and the recommended format is JSON-LD (Microdata and RDFa are fading). The pattern is to drop a single `<script type="application/ld+json">` block in the `<head>` and fill out the relevant type — Product, Article, FAQPage, HowTo, Organization, BreadcrumbList — with its required and recommended fields. The body of the page is for humans; the structured data block restates the same facts for machines.
Two distinct payoffs. **First, rich results.** Stars, prices, stock status, expandable FAQs, recipe times, event dates and video previews on the SERP are all powered by structured data. Google's own published case studies report meaningful double-digit CTR lifts at the same rank. **Second, knowledge graph alignment.** Properly marked Organization, Person and Product types raise the odds that Google represents your brand correctly in its knowledge graph, which then feeds knowledge panels, brand SERPs and AI answers downstream. The ROI is unusually clean, which is why this is one of the more obvious priorities for a marketing roadmap.
One non-negotiable principle: structured data summarises the truth on the page — it is not a separate marketing surface. Adding star ratings, prices or FAQs that don't appear in the visible body is classified by Google as `misleading markup`, costs you the rich result, and at the extreme triggers manual actions. A separate, less dangerous mistake is omitting required fields when only recommended fields are filled — that just disqualifies you from the rich result rather than incurring a penalty. Google's Rich Results Test and Schema.org Validator together prevent most accidents when added to the pre-deploy checklist.
Structured data's value is amplified in the GEO era. The hardest thing for an AI to do on a page is reliably extract specific numbers, dates and relationships from prose — and structured data lets the AI skip that step entirely. Prices, stock, ratings and author info encoded as JSON-LD get lifted directly into answers without prose interpretation. Citation accuracy goes up, and the cited answer is more likely to pass downstream fact-checking.
Operationally this is one of the cleanest projects on the SEO board. Map page templates to recommended types (Product for products, Article + HowTo for guides, FAQPage for FAQ pages, Organization for the about page, BreadcrumbList for everything), implement injection at the template level, and monitor Search Console's Enhancements report for recognition status. Re-validate whenever pricing, taxonomy or schema definitions change. From a villion-style GEO standpoint, structured data is arguably the single most efficient piece of work for landing the same content correctly across SEO, GEO and AI answers simultaneously.
Related terms
Schema.org
Schema.org is the shared vocabulary co-sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex that lets you label what each page means so search engines and AI can understand it.
SEOJSON-LD
JSON-LD (JSON for Linked Data) is the JSON-based format used to embed Schema.org markup in a page — currently Google's recommended way to ship structured data.
SEORich Snippet
A rich snippet is a search result enriched with extra information — star ratings, prices, images, FAQ — that tends to outperform plain text results on CTR.
SEOKnowledge Graph
A knowledge graph is a database of entities — people, brands, products — and their relationships, used by search engines and LLMs as the factual backbone of their answers.
GEO·AEOAI Overview
Google AI Overviews is the AI-generated summary that appears above the standard results in Google Search — one of the most prominent zero-click surfaces today.
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