TLDR; Structured data can really help local SEO efforts by giving search engines and AI overviews more information about your business, products and services and their relationships between one another.
If you’ve got a local website and a Google My Business profile, then structured data can help you too!
Local businesses typically receive less traffic than their national and international counterparts, but that makes it even more important that Google understands your content and what your business actually does.
Lots of small business websites are relatively small, with just a handful of pages. This means you need to make those pages count, as you might not have the time or inclination to write blog posts or long and lengthy content about your products and services.
This is where structured data for local SEO comes in.
The most important markup you need on your website is your LocalBusiness type. Not sure what type you are? Head over to our blog post all about choosing your LocalBusiness type for more information.
I’m going to assume you already know what type of LocalBusiness you are, in this case, let’s choose AutoWash (car wash). Now you might have content on your site about “washing” and “cars” but that doesn’t mean that Google understands you offer car washes.
Hint! – If you run an online shop, whatever you are selling, the most likely type for you is OnlineStore
Most Important Structured Data
Your LocalBusiness type is the most important aspect of the structured data – choose wisely! Make sure you choose a type which is most closely related to your business.
The second most important thing you need to make sure is correct is your business name. It needs to be the same everywhere! So your:
-
- Google My Business account name
- What you refer to your business as on social media
- What you refer to yourself as on your website
is the name you need to use, e.g. Kelly’s Car Wash – Note: this is not normally the same as your legal name, e.g Kelly’s Car Wash Limited, which goes in the alternateName section.
If your Google MyBusiness is set to a legal name, location name or similar, then you’ll need to change it before you write your structured data. Examples which are not recommended include:
-
- Kelly’s Car Wash Limited
- Kelly’s Car Wash Ltd
- Kelly’s Car Wash Folkestone Branch
- Kelly’s Car Wash Ashford
It should just be Kelly’s Car Wash.
You need to also make sure that your address and phone number is the same everywhere as well (this is also known as your NAP – Name, Address and Phone number).
Make sure you link to the correct version of your website e.g. https://www.structureddata.co.uk, not https://structureddata.co.uk or http://www.structureddata.co.uk/
You need to add as many sameAs links as you can (relevant ones only!) to all of the places your brand is mentioned or things that you own, e.g. Facebook account, Google My Business, Yelp, Trustpilot.
As a LocalBusiness, the hasMap property is your friend. You need to get something called your cid here, which is Google’s unique reference to your business on Google Maps.
You need to add a link back to your Companies House URL, and also add in your company number with the identifier Property so that Google understands you are the same business.
This structured data, which goes on the homepage, does all of these:
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "WebSite",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com",
"@id": "https://www.mycarwash.com/#website",
"description": "We offer car washes, interior valet and car cleaning in Folkestone, Kent.",
"mainEntityOfPage": "https://www.mycarwash.com",
"image": {
"@type": "ImageObject",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com/car-washing.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"height": 675
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "AutoWash",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com",
"@id": "https://www.mycarwash.com/#localbusiness",
"name": "Kelly's Car Wash",
"alternateName": [
"Kellys Car Wash",
"Kelly's Car Wash Limited",
"Kelly's Car Wash Ltd"
],
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "2 Somewhere Street",
"addressLocality": "Folkestone",
"addressRegion": "Kent",
"postalCode": "CT20 0XX",
"addressCountry": "GB"
},
"telephone": "+441303000000",
"priceRange": "£",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/kellyscarwash",
"https://www.instagram.com/kellyscarwash",
"https://www.youtube.com/kellyscarwash",
"https://www.twitter.com/kellyscarwash",
"https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00000000",
"https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/g/000000000"
],
"logo": {
"@type": "ImageObject",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com/logo.jpg",
"width": 400,
"height": 300
},
"image": {
"@type": "ImageObject",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com/car-washing.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"height": 675
},
"hasMap": "https://maps.google.com/?cid=000000000000000000",
"geo": {
"@type": "GeoCoordinates",
"latitude": "0.000000000",
"longitude": "0.000000000"
},
"amenityFeature": [
{
"@type": "LocationFeatureSpecification",
"value": "True",
"name": "Customer Waiting Area",
"sameAs": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_room",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com/customer-facilities"
},
{
"@type": "LocationFeatureSpecification",
"value": "True",
"name": "Customer Toilets",
"sameAs": "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com/customer-facilities",
"description": "We have a toilet for customer use only"
}
],
"brand": [
{
"@type": "Brand",
"name": "Kelly's Car Wash",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com"
}
],
"aggregateRating": {
"@type": "AggregateRating",
"reviewCount": 74,
"ratingCount": 22,
"bestRating": 5,
"worstRating": 1,
"ratingValue": 4
},
"identifier": [
{
"@type": "PropertyValue",
"propertyID": "Company Registration Number",
"value": "58800000",
"sameAs": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q257303"
},
{
"@type": "PropertyValue",
"propertyID": "VAT Identification Number",
"value": "GB5000000",
"sameAs": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2319042"
}
],
"hasOfferCatalog": {
"@type": "OfferCatalog",
"name": "Car Cleaning services",
"itemListElement": [
{
"@type": "Offer",
"itemOffered": {
"@type": "Service",
"name": "Full Valet",
"description": "Full valet inside and outside of your car",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com/full-valet"
}
},
{
"@type": "Offer",
"itemOffered": {
"@type": "Service",
"name": "Interior Clean",
"description": "Full clean of the interior of your car, including seats, windscreen and dashboard",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com/interior-clean"
}
},
{
"@type": "Offer",
"itemOffered": {
"@type": "Service",
"name": "Light Car Wash",
"description": "Our basic car wash with foam",
"url": "https://www.mycarwash.com/washes/basic"
}
}
]
}
}
}
</script>We can choose to add a lot more information than this, as this is just a basic example of what you can do for your LocalBusiness.
Disclaimer: All names and business names used in this article are fictitious and do not represent any real individuals or entities.
Written by Kelly Sheppard
Kelly Sheppard is a search engine optimisation professional, author of the book “The Structured Data Guide for Beginners” and the founder of The Structured Data Company.
