What LocalBusiness schema tells Google about you

What LocalBusiness schema is

Schema is a shared vocabulary, kept at schema.org, for labeling facts on a web page so that a machine can read them without interpretation. LocalBusiness is the part of that vocabulary for a business with a physical location. On your site it takes the form of a small block of JSON, placed inside a script tag of type application/ld+json, usually in the page header. A person never sees it. Google, Bing and the AI assistants that read their indexes do.

The block states things you already say on the site, but in fields with fixed names: name, address broken into street, city, region and postal code, telephone, openingHoursSpecification, geo with latitude and longitude, url, and a more specific type than LocalBusiness when one fits, such as MedicalBusiness or HealthAndBeautyBusiness. It also carries sameAs, a list of your profiles on Google, Facebook, Instagram and the review sites, which is how the machine learns that all of those are the same business.

Schema does not rank a page on its own. What it does is remove doubt. The same facts should already match across your site, your profile and your listings, which is the subject of name, address and phone. Schema is the copy of those facts written for the machine.

What missing or wrong LocalBusiness schema looks like on a med spa site

Most med spa sites were built on a WordPress theme with an SEO plugin, and the plugin wrote a schema block at setup with whatever the builder typed that day. Three years later that block says the type is Organization, the name is the domain name, the address field is empty, and the logo points at an image that was deleted in a redesign. Google reads it, finds it says less than the page does, and ignores it.

The second common state is two blocks that disagree. The theme writes one, the SEO plugin writes another, and a booking widget adds a third. One says the spa opens at 9, one says 10, and one has last year’s phone number from before the practice moved to a suite across the parking lot. Google now has three answers to a question that should have one.

The third state is a block that is correct but useless. It says LocalBusiness with a name and a URL and nothing else. It gives Google nothing it did not already have. On a med spa site with a $1,200 average treatment package, the fields that carry weight are the specific type, the exact address that matches the Google Business Profile, the hours, the coordinates, and the sameAs links that tie the site to the profile and the review pages.

A worked example: writing LocalBusiness schema for a med spa in Meridian

Aspen Glow Med Spa is at 2440 E Fairview Ave, Suite 110, Meridian, Idaho 83642, and its average treatment package is $1,200. Its site had a plugin-written block that named the business as an Organization with no address. The table shows every field the replacement block carries and where each value came from.

Here is the shape of the block before and after, trimmed to the fields that changed.

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Organization","name":"aspenglowmedspa.com","url":"https://aspenglowmedspa.com/","logo":"https://aspenglowmedspa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/old-logo.png"}

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"MedicalBusiness","@id":"https://aspenglowmedspa.com/#business","name":"Aspen Glow Med Spa","url":"https://aspenglowmedspa.com/","telephone":"+1-208-555-0148","priceRange":"$$$","image":"https://aspenglowmedspa.com/wp-content/uploads/storefront.jpg","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"2440 E Fairview Ave, Suite 110","addressLocality":"Meridian","addressRegion":"ID","postalCode":"83642","addressCountry":"US"},"geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":43.6194,"longitude":-116.3760},"openingHoursSpecification":[{"@type":"OpeningHoursSpecification","dayOfWeek":["Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"],"opens":"09:00","closes":"18:00"},{"@type":"OpeningHoursSpecification","dayOfWeek":"Saturday","opens":"09:00","closes":"14:00"}],"sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/aspenglowmedspa","https://www.instagram.com/aspenglowmedspa"]}

The block goes on every page of the site, once, with the two plugin blocks turned off so there is one answer to each question. The @id field gives the business a fixed address inside the code that other blocks, such as a review or a service, can point to.

How to check your own LocalBusiness schema

1. Open Google’s Rich Results Test at search.google.com/test/rich-results, paste your homepage URL, and run it. The result lists every schema block found on the page and any errors in it.
2. Open validator.schema.org and run the same URL. This tool shows every block, including types Google’s test skips, so you will see whether two plugins are each writing one.
3. Read the fields in the block against your Google Business Profile. Name, street address, suite, phone and hours must match character for character.
4. If the type says Organization or WebSite and nothing more, or the address is empty, the block is a plugin default and needs to be written.
5. In WordPress, look in your SEO plugin’s settings for a section named Schema, Local SEO or Knowledge Graph. That is where the fields live. If the theme also has a Business Info section, one of the two must be turned off.
6. Run the Rich Results Test again after any change, and confirm there is one block with no errors.

What we do about LocalBusiness schema

We write one LocalBusiness block for your site with the specific type that fits your trade, every field filled from your Google Business Profile and your own answers, and the coordinates set on your door rather than on the center of town. Duplicate blocks from themes and plugins are turned off so Google reads one answer, and the block is tested in Google’s tool before and after it goes live. You get a copy of the block and the test result. It is part of the entity work that also covers your profile and your listings, and it is the same block that gives AI assistants a clean record of who you are, described under entity clarity in the GEO guide.

Questions people ask about SEO: what LocalBusiness schema tells Google about you