LocalBusiness Schema
LocalBusiness schema is the schema.org structured data type, with subtypes like Dentist, Plumber, Restaurant, and LegalService, that marks up a business's name, address, phone, hours, and service area in JSON-LD so search engines can index those facts without inferring them.
Also known as: Local business markup, LocalBusiness JSON-LD
LocalBusiness schema is the branch of schema.org built for physical businesses that serve a local area. You add a JSON-LD block, usually on the homepage or contact page, declaring the business type and its core facts: name, street address, phone, geo coordinates, opening hours, price range, and the area you serve. Schema.org provides specific subtypes so a dental office marks itself up as Dentist, a plumbing company as Plumber, a diner as Restaurant, and a law firm as LegalService or Attorney.
The subtype matters because it tells a search engine what kind of thing you are, not just that you exist. Combined with your Google Business Profile and directory listings, it's one more consistent signal feeding the entity search engines build for you. Consistency is the actual job here: the name, address, and phone in your markup should match your site's visible text, your Google profile, and your listings character for character.
What LocalBusiness schema doesn't do is buy you AI citations. Search Atlas tested for a relationship between schema coverage and LLM citation rates and found no correlation. Microsoft's Fabrice Canel has said schema helps Bing's LLMs understand content, and since Copilot runs on Bing's index there's a plausible indirect path there. But the direct claim, mark it up and ChatGPT will recommend you, has no published support. Treat markup as good hygiene for classic indexing, which feeds retrieval, and nothing more.
For a small business, the checklist is short. Pick the most specific subtype that fits. Fill in name, address, phone, hours, and URL exactly as they appear elsewhere. Add your service area if you travel to customers. Then make sure those same facts appear in plain text on the page, because a model reading your site sees the visible text, and a phone number that exists only in markup helps a crawler but not a customer or an answer engine summarizing your page.
Pages Tibly publishes to a hosted site carry LocalBusiness markup built from the business details on file, and when an Action calls for schema, the draft uses the subtype that matches your trade. The AI-readiness audit checks that LocalBusiness markup is present as one item on a longer list; the plain-text facts and crawler access checks are the ones that matter more.
Keep exploring the glossary
- Structured Data (schema.org / JSON-LD)Structured data is machine-readable markup, usually schema.org vocabulary written as JSON-LD, that labels facts like a business's name, address, hours, and services so search engines can index them precisely, though no study shows it causes AI citations.
- EntityAn entity is a distinct, uniquely identifiable thing such as a business, person, or place that search engines and AI systems recognize as a single node with attributes, so Smith Plumbing in Dayton is one entity however it's written online.
- Google Business Profile (GBP)Google Business Profile is the free listing a business manages in Google that holds its name, address, hours, phone, categories, photos, and reviews, driving Google Maps and local 3-pack results and serving as a heavily cited source in AI answers.
- FAQ Schema (FAQPage)FAQ schema is schema.org's FAQPage structured data type, a block of JSON-LD that labels the questions and answers on a page so search engines can read each pair explicitly, which helps indexing but hasn't been shown to earn AI citations.
Common questions about LocalBusiness Schema
- Which LocalBusiness subtype should I use?
- The most specific one that fits your business. Schema.org has Dentist, Plumber, Electrician, HVACBusiness, Restaurant, LegalService, and dozens more. If none fits exactly, use the closest parent type, such as HomeAndConstructionBusiness or ProfessionalService. Precision helps; a wrong subtype is worse than a general one.
- Will LocalBusiness schema get my business into ChatGPT's recommendations?
- No evidence says so. The one test that looked, by Search Atlas, found no correlation between schema and LLM citations. It may help indirectly by improving classic search indexing. What engines demonstrably read is the plain text on your pages and your listings, so put the facts there first.