Posted By Ashley Tate on February 27, 2026
Keyword targeting, intent mapping, and link building are all standard SEO and GEO best practices designed to make your content more discoverable. But there’s a critical layer that often gets overlooked: the technical backbone that helps engines and bots understand what they’re actually looking at.
That’s where schema markup comes in.
Schema markup helps provide structure and meaning to your content so that AI bots and search engines can interpret it correctly. It doesn’t change what users see on the screen itself, but it plays a big role in how your content is understood, processed, and surfaced across different search experiences.
What Is Schema Markup?
Schema is a universal language that tells AI and search scrapers what they’re reading. It defines what a page is, what it’s for, who authored it, and other relevant details. Instead of forcing bots to guess, schema gives them explicit details.
Think of schema like a way to label and explain your content so machines don’t have to make assumptions on their own.
What Schema Markup Looks Like in Practice
Schema markup is essentially code — usually written in JSON-LD — that is added to the backend of your website. The structure you use depends on the kind of page you’re working with. A blog post may require one type, with properties like author, headline, and publish date, while a services page will use a different structure focused on offerings, business details, and contact information.
Example Schema Markup
For a hypothetical Search Summit event hosted by Tier One, the schema might look like:
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Event", << What type of page is this URL?
"name": "Search Summit", << What’s the name of the event?
"description": "Learn SEO and GEO best practices at the 2026 Search Summit.", << What is the event
about?
"startDate": "2026-02-14T08:00-05:00", << When is the event scheduled?
"eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OnlineEventAttendanceMode", << Is the event online or offline?
"location": {
"@type": "VirtualLocation", << What is the event location?
"url": "https://wearetierone.com" << Where is it hosted?
}
}
</script>
With this markup in place, a crawler or scraper understands the essentials: This page represents an event, what it’s called, what it’s about, when it’s happening, and where it’s hosted.
What Should I Mark Up With Schema?
Typically, the most important schemas to add are:
- Organization: Links company details to your content (such as your logo, contact info, or social profiles)
- WebSite: Helps search engines understand your site as a whole
- LocalBusiness: If you serve a specific location, this includes things like address and hours
- BreadcrumbList: Defines your page’s position within your site hierarchy
- Page-specific schema: Specifies the type of page, such as a BlogPosting, FAQPage, ContactPage, etc.
- Product or Service: Used for pages where you sell or offer something, and can include details like pricing, availability, and reviews
- Person: If your content has a byline, this defines the author
That said, there are a lot of schema types you can add. (Seriously, a lot.) Explore them all on Schema.org: https://schema.org/docs/schemas.html
How to Test Your Site for Schema Markup
If you’re not sure what schema your site already includes, check it using the Schema Validator Tool. This simple tool from Schema.org identifies all the schema connected to a specific URL.
Once you add schema markup, validate it to make sure everything has been implemented correctly.
Schema FAQ
What is schema markup?
Schema markup is a structured, universal language that tells bots and scrapers what a page is, what it’s for, who authored it, and how it fits into the broader context of the web.
Why does schema markup matter for SEO and GEO?
Because search happens across search engines, AI answers, chatbots, and other platforms, schema helps ensure your content is understood consistently wherever it appears. It provides the technical clarity that supports how content is interpreted and surfaced.
How do you add schema markup?
Schema markup is usually added to a webpage’s HTML head so search engines can read it (but users can’t). How you implement it depends on your platform — some offer built-in SEO tools or plugins, while others require manual setup. If you’re unsure, consult your developer or technical team.
How to Add Schema Markup
How you add schema markup depends on your website platform. For example, if you use WordPress, plugins can make the process simple. Popular plugin Yoast SEO automatically adds certain types of schema to blog posts.
With HubSpot, schema usually needs to be added manually — either within template files or directly in the header code of individual pages. If you’re familiar with Google Tag Manager, you can also use it to manage and deploy schemas for platforms like Squarespace.
If you’re adding the code yourself, a schema generator like this one from TechnicalSEO.com or your favorite chatbot can help you draft the markup. That said, if you’re not a developer, it’s best to have a developer review or implement the schema to ensure it’s set up correctly.
Schema Is Essential in the AI Era
Schema markup may live behind the scenes, but its impact is front and center. As search evolves beyond traditional rankings into AI-generated answers, chatbots, and multi-platform discovery, clarity matters more than ever. Schema provides that clarity.
If you want to boost your search visibility, our content team can help.
