Structured Data (Schema Markup)

Structured data is machine-readable code added to web pages — most commonly JSON-LD following the schema.org vocabulary — that describes what the content is: an article, a product, a FAQ, a how-to, an organization. Humans never see it; machines rely on it.

Why it matters

Search engines have used structured data for years to power rich results. In the AI era its role expanded: answer engines and crawlers use it to extract facts with confidence — publish dates, authorship, prices, step sequences, definitions. Content with clean structured data is easier to cite accurately, which makes it a foundational GEO signal. It's also one of the few visibility levers that is fully within your technical control.

How it's used

The marketing-relevant types: Article and TechArticle for posts, FAQPage for question sections, HowTo for step-by-step content, Organization and WebSite for brand identity, Product and Offer for commerce, DefinedTerm for glossary entries, and BreadcrumbList for site structure. Modern frameworks generate these automatically from content metadata — the practical work is making sure the marked-up facts stay accurate and consistent with the visible page, because mismatches erode machine trust.

Related terms

GEO · llms.txt — structured data tells machines what your content is; llms.txt tells AI crawlers how to use it.