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What Is Link Reclamation and How Can It Improve Your SEO Results?
What is link reclamation, why you should invest your time in reclaiming backlinks and what benefits it will have for your SEO
7 min read
Find out why Schema markup is important and how to implement it on your website
Structured data became an important part of any website and SEO strategy, especially after the 2013 Hummingbird algorithm update and the 2015 RankBrain update.
Schema.org was created through a collaboration between Google, Yahoo, Bing and Yandex. Today, Schema.org offers a vast range of schema types suitable for most businesses. This type of structured data allows search engines to crawl your website and gather essential information about your business. For those who are just starting to learn what Schema is, I've put together this beginner-friendly guide.
Schema Markup can be created with the flexibility you need for your business, but there are still a few core types worth knowing. Below are the most common types of Schema:
You might be wondering which type of schema is most suitable for your business, so here are a few examples.
If you're a small business that operates locally, such as a painter in London or a family bakery in New York, you'll want to create a Local Schema, which provides basic information such as an address, opening hours and contact details to Google.
If you run a large eCommerce company that sells products nationally, you'll want to look at creating an Organisational Schema for your business. This provides basic information such as an address and business name, but you won't have the option to add opening hours.
If you own an eCommerce shop, you should also look at Product Schema, which gives an overview of product price and rating directly in search results. This matters more than it might seem - many users decide whether to click through to your page based purely on the information shown in that small search result snippet.
Short answer: yes, but the reason it matters has shifted.
A lot of the visible rich-result features from a few years ago have quietly disappeared. HowTo rich results were dropped from desktop back in 2023, and Google removed FAQ rich results from Search entirely in 2026. FAQPage and HowTo markup are still valid Schema.org types and won't cause errors if you keep them on your pages - they just won't earn you an enhanced SERP listing the way they once did.
What hasn't gone away is the underlying value of structured data: giving search engines (and increasingly, AI systems summarising or citing your content) an unambiguous, machine-readable description of what's on your page. If anything, that clarity matters more as more of the discovery layer becomes AI-driven rather than purely link-based. My advice: keep prioritising the schema types that still map to visible rich results (Product, Review, Local, Organisational, Event), but don't panic if a feature you relied on disappears - the markup itself is rarely wasted effort.
I usually suggest creating Schema Markup in JSON-LD. The reason is that search engines can read structured data served this way more easily than other formats, and it's also fully supported and recommended by the Schema.org website.
That said, if you'd like to use another format, here's the list of fully confirmed and supported options:
RDF/XML - application/rdf+xml - .rdf
Triples - text/plain - .nt
Turtle - application/x-turtle - .ttl
CSV - text/csv - .csvIf you're new to Schema Markup and have never created it before, don't worry - there are plenty of free online tools you can use. You don't need any coding knowledge or experience; you simply fill in the fields in a form and your schema is generated automatically.
AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude are also fantastic for this. Give one your business details (name, address, opening hours, and so on) and ask it to generate the JSON-LD schema for you, and it'll do the heavy lifting in seconds. It's a genuinely quick way to get a solid first draft, especially if you're not confident writing code by hand. Just make sure to double-check the output against the Schema Markup Validator before publishing, as AI tools can occasionally hallucinate a property or value that doesn't actually exist in the Schema.org vocabulary.
To speed things up, you might want to use the TechnicalSEO Schema Generator, which gives you a neat online form that updates in real time as you fill in your business information.
If you're creating LocalBusiness Schema, it's worth choosing a more specific business subtype from the dropdown menu in the generator. For example, if you're a painter based in Manchester, as a LocalBusiness type you'd choose “HomeAndConstructionBusiness” and then the more specific subtype “HousePainter.” Bear in mind that some business types aren't listed yet, as Schema is constantly being updated and expanded - if yours isn't there, just choose the standard “LocalBusiness” type.
Once you've filled in the required fields, your newly generated Local Schema should look something like this (replace the placeholder values with your real business details):
<script type="application/ld+json"> { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "HousePainter", "name": "YOUR BUSINESS NAME", "image": "YOUR BUSINESS LOGO", "@id": "", "url": "YOUR WEBSITE URL", "telephone": "YOUR BUSINESS PHONE NUMBER", "priceRange": "RANGE YOU CHARGE", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "YOUR STREET ADDRESS", "addressLocality": "YOUR CITY", "postalCode": "YOUR POSTCODE", "addressCountry": "YOUR COUNTRY CODE, e.g. GB" }, "geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": "YOUR LATITUDE", "longitude": "YOUR LONGITUDE" }, "openingHoursSpecification": [{ "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification", "dayOfWeek": [ "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday" ], "opens": "08:00", "closes": "21:00" },{ "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification", "dayOfWeek": "Saturday", "opens": "09:00", "closes": "19:00" },{ "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification", "dayOfWeek": "Sunday", "opens": "10:00", "closes": "17:00" }] } </script>
And here's an example of Organisational Schema:
<script type="application/ld+json"> { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Corporation", "name": "NAME OF BUSINESS", "alternateName": "OTHER NAME", "url": "URL TO YOUR BUSINESS WEBSITE", "logo": "YOUR LOGO URL", "sameAs": [ "", "", "", "", "" ] } </script>
SameAs Schema can be added as part of your Local or Organisational Schema. This type of schema tells crawlers there's a strong connection between your social media profiles and your website. The snippet should look like this:
{
"sameAs": [
"https://twitter.com/YOUR-PROFILE-NAME",
"https://instagram.com/YOUR-PROFILE-NAME",
"https://youtube.com/YOUR-PROFILE-NAME",
"https://linkedin.com/YOUR-PROFILE-NAME",
"https://facebook.com/YOUR-PROFILE-NAME"
]
}This short snippet should be added below your main schema section.
Once your schema has been created and you've double-checked all the details are correct, you can move on to implementation. To do this, you'll either need access to your website's code or a fully working Google Tag Manager account.
If you or your developer can implement the schema script directly in the code, you should add it to the <head> section of the page. This route can be the trickiest if you don't have coding experience, but it gives you full control over exactly how it's added.
If you use WordPress with a Yoast SEO or All in One SEO plugin, in most cases your schema will already be implemented in the code. Bear in mind that adding schema through SEO plugins in WordPress has limitations - you might not get Local Schema unless you upgrade to the PRO version. My advice is not to rely solely on Yoast's auto-generated schema; it's worth disabling it via the function.php file and building your own custom schema instead, so you have full control over exactly what's included.
The third option is Google Tag Manager. To do this, you'll create a new tag with custom HTML and apply it as a trigger to all pages.
Once added, preview the changes to make sure your schema tag has fired correctly on the page before publishing.
One thing to note: if you add Schema Markup through Google Tag Manager, the script won't be visible directly in your page's code - you'll need to check it's deployed correctly using a structured data testing tool instead (see the next section). While this route can help you avoid a back-and-forth with developers, I don't generally recommend adding schema via Google Tag Manager if you have any other option.
This section didn't exist when I first wrote this guide, because the tool everyone used to rely on - Google's Structured Data Testing Tool - has since been fully deprecated. If you're following an older guide (including an earlier version of this one!) that points you to it, it's no longer available.
Here's what to use instead:
I'd suggest running new schema through both: the Rich Results Test to check Google eligibility, and the Validator to catch any structural or syntax issues the Rich Results Test doesn't flag.
Schema Markup is one of many technical SEO tasks worth undertaking as a website owner. Structured data helps search engines crawl and understand your business and its key information, and well-structured markup can be presented by Google in more attractive ways in search results - for example, as a rich snippet, or as an eligible listing for an event you've marked up.
As you can see, Schema Markup offers a good range of options, and most businesses will find a type that suits them.
I'd recommend implementing at least Local or Organisational Schema as an absolute minimum - it gives Google a solid overview of your business. If you'd like advice on setting up schema correctly, or whether the schema you've prepared is right for your website, get in touch directly!
Does adding schema improve my rankings directly?
Not directly - it's not a ranking factor on its own. But it can improve click-through rate by making your listing more informative and visually distinct, which indirectly supports SEO performance.
Do I need coding skills to add schema?
No. Free generator tools let you fill in a form and get working JSON-LD without writing any code yourself - though you'll still need a way to add that code to your site (via your CMS, a plugin, or Google Tag Manager).
Will my rich result disappear if Google changes its mind later?
It can happen, as it did with HowTo and FAQ rich results. The markup itself typically stays valid even when the visible search feature is retired, so it's rarely wasted effort.
What is link reclamation, why you should invest your time in reclaiming backlinks and what benefits it will have for your SEO