Schema Markup Checklist: What Does Your Website Actually Need?

Schema markup gives search engines explicit information about the entities and content on a page. It can reduce ambiguity, support eligible Google search features, and make important details easier for machines to interpret. It does not guarantee rankings or citations from AI platforms.

The useful question is therefore not how much schema you can add. It is which structured data accurately describes the page and can be maintained over time.

This schema markup checklist reflects what we use on our own site and during client audits inside Cited.

Schema markup checklist

1. Organization or LocalBusiness for the company

Most company websites should define one clear organisation entity with a stable @id. Use LocalBusiness, or a more specific subtype, only when the business genuinely operates as a local business. It is common for a site to end up with two or three different Organization blocks: one from an SEO plugin, one hand-coded, one left over from an old theme, all sharing the same @id but disagreeing on the details. Organization, WebSite, and WebPage can coexist on the same page. What matters is that one entity keeps a stable @id and consistent data across every page that references it.

2. WebSite and WebPage for site and page identity

These establish what the site is and what each individual page is, and most SEO plugins generate them automatically. Check that they resolve to the same Organization @id rather than declaring a competing one.

3. Article or BlogPosting for editorial content

Guides, insights, and thought-leadership content should carry Article or BlogPosting schema with author name, author URL, datePublished, dateModified, publisher, and headline. This is also what lets a byline resolve to a real, credentialed author rather than a dead end.

4. Person for identifiable authors

If Article schema references an author, that author should have a real profile the schema can point to, not just a name string. A ProfilePage with a Person entity, linked from the author field, closes that loop.

5. BreadcrumbList for page hierarchy

Breadcrumb schema is low effort and makes your site’s hierarchy explicit. It is useful for both search results and for any system trying to understand how a page fits into the rest of the site.

6. Service, Product, and Offer according to what is actually sold

Product schema is built for products and the commercial experiences around them, not automatically the right fit for a services or retainer-based page. For consulting, audits, or ongoing service work, Service paired with Offer is often the more accurate choice. Reserve Product for something genuinely productised, like a SaaS plan with fixed tiers and pricing.

7. FAQPage only where visible FAQ content exists

Mark up FAQPage only when the page has real, visible Q&A content. Schema should describe what a visitor actually sees, never content added purely for the markup. Worth knowing: Google has narrowed FAQ rich results largely to a small set of authoritative government and health sites, so do not plan around FAQ rich snippets appearing for a typical business site, according to Google’s update on FAQ and HowTo rich results. Adding the schema is still a reasonable, low-cost way to describe genuine FAQ content accurately. Just do not expect a search-results visual reward for it.

8. Validate, check for duplicates, and keep it maintained

Open your homepage’s source and search for application/ld+json, but do not stop there. That only catches JSON-LD, not microdata, RDFa, or markup injected via JavaScript after page load. Run the page through Google’s Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator. Check that each entity uses a stable @id and that repeated references remain consistent. Finally, confirm that every field is accurate today.

A note on HowTo schema

Genuine step-by-step instructions for completing a specific task may qualify for HowTo schema. A numbered list or checklist does not automatically meet that definition. HowTo remains part of the Schema.org vocabulary, but Google removed HowTo rich results from search entirely in 2023, according to Google’s update on FAQ and HowTo rich results, so it no longer earns the visual placement it once did. Add it only where content genuinely fits the definition, and do not expect it to change how your content appears in Google.

FAQ

Do I need every schema type on every page?
No. Match the schema to what is genuinely on the page. A pricing page needs Service/Offer or Product/Offer depending on what is sold; a blog post needs Article; only pages with real, visible FAQ content need FAQPage.

Will adding schema guarantee my site gets cited by AI platforms?
Structured data can help systems that process it interpret your content, but major AI platforms do not document it as a citation signal, according to Google’s documentation on AI features. Its clearest established benefits remain entity clarity and eligibility for supported search features.

Want a full audit of where your own schema stands? Get a free audit from CM Marketing, or read how we approached this on our own site in How to Get Cited in Google AI Overviews.

Last reviewed: July 2026.