The 5 Structured Data Types That Make AI Cite Your Business First

LocalBusiness — tells AI who and where you are

LocalBusiness schema is the foundation. It identifies your business to AI tools by explicitly labelling your name, address, phone number, business type, opening hours, service area, and URL. Without it, every AI tool that encounters your website has to infer these facts from unstructured content — and inference introduces errors.

The most critical fields to include:

• @type — use the most specific subtype available: "Plumber", "Electrician", "HairSalon", "AutoRepair" rather than just "LocalBusiness"
• name — your exact trading name, matching your Google Business Profile
• address — PostalAddress with streetAddress, addressLocality, postalCode, addressCountry
• telephone — your primary phone number
• openingHoursSpecification — each day with opens/closes times
• areaServed — the geographic areas you cover
• url — your website URL
• priceRange — "£" to "££££" — helps AI match you to price-related queries

FAQPage — pre-formats your answers for AI extraction

FAQPage schema labels your question-and-answer content in a format AI can extract directly. It's the single highest-impact schema type for AI citation rate — pages with FAQPage schema appear in 47% more Perplexity responses than those without. The reason is structural: AI tools are built to answer questions. FAQPage schema gives them pre-packaged answers that don't require interpretation.

The key rules:

• 4–8 questions is the optimal range — fewer doesn't provide enough coverage, more dilutes quality
• Every answer must start with the direct answer in the first sentence — not a preamble
• The Q&As in the schema must exactly match visible Q&A content on the page
• Keep answers to 2–4 sentences — concise and extractable
• Use real questions customers ask — check your enquiry emails, phone calls, and review content for source material

Full guide to writing and adding FAQPage schema →

Article — signals expertise and freshness to AI

Article schema tells AI tools that a page contains authored content — not just a service listing. It includes the author's name, the publication date, and the headline. This is important for AI citation for two reasons: first, AI tools apply "expertise and authority" signals when choosing sources; second, the datePublished field tells AI the content is current — a major factor when AI tools are forming recommendations about anything time-sensitive.

Essential fields:

• headline — the article title, matching your H1
• datePublished — the original publication date in ISO 8601 format (e.g. "2026-06-22")
• dateModified — when you last updated it — keep this current
• author — your name and job title (Person type with name and jobTitle)
• publisher — your business name and logo URL
• description — a 1–2 sentence summary of the article content

A recent datePublished on a well-structured Article page is one of the key signals that differentiates a citable source from an outdated one in AI recommendations.

AggregateRating — tells AI your review score without them having to check

AggregateRating schema marks up your overall rating and review count directly on your website. When AI tools are comparing businesses to recommend, review scores are a significant factor — ChatGPT uses review data in 58% of local recommendations. AggregateRating schema makes this data immediately accessible without the AI needing to cross-reference external review platforms.

Fields to include:

• ratingValue — your average rating (e.g. "4.8")
• reviewCount — your total number of reviews
• bestRating — maximum possible rating ("5")
• worstRating — minimum possible rating ("1")

Important: AggregateRating must be nested inside your LocalBusiness schema, not added separately. And your rating must be real and current — Google cross-checks this data.

BreadcrumbList — helps AI understand your site structure

BreadcrumbList schema labels your page hierarchy — where a page sits within your website structure. It's less dramatic than LocalBusiness or FAQPage in terms of direct citation impact, but it's important for helping AI tools understand the relationship between your pages. A well-structured breadcrumb hierarchy signals topical organisation, which contributes to the "authority" signals AI uses when deciding whether to cite your site.

Fields to include:

• itemListElement — an array of ListItem, each with position, name, and item (URL)
• Example: Home › Services › Boiler Installation would be three ListItems at positions 1, 2, 3

BreadcrumbList also enables breadcrumb display in Google Search results, which improves click-through rates from traditional search — a secondary benefit on top of the AI visibility effect.