Schema for a local business website
By Ismael · Reviewed
LocalBusiness schema is JSON-LD that tells search engines the name, address, hours and services of a physical business in a machine-readable form. SiteBienfait adds it to local business sites and validates every block. Google Search Central, updated 2026-09-08, lists name and address as the required properties for LocalBusiness structured data.
What is LocalBusiness structured data for?
It gives Google an unambiguous record of a business entity: what it is called, where it is, when it is open, how to call it and which departments belong to it. Google Search Central, updated 2026-09-08, explains that the markup helps Search show details about a business and that the markup can describe hours, departments and, in defined cases, reviews.
The practical benefit is disambiguation. A business name like “Atelier Mira” can describe three different companies. A name attached to a street address, a locality and a phone number describes one.
Which properties are required?
Two: name and address. Google Search Central, updated 2026-09-08, is explicit that both are required, and that adding as many properties as possible raises the quality of the result for users.
The address is a PostalAddress with street address, locality, region, postal code and country. Beyond the required pair, the same page documents recommended properties including geographic coordinates, telephone, opening hours specification, price range, URL and a nested department structure for a business with several locations or services under one roof.
Where does the markup go?
On the page that represents the business, inside a script element of type application/ld+json. Google recommends JSON-LD as the format for structured data, and the general guidance, updated 2025-12-10, is that the markup describes content a visitor can actually see on that page. Marking up an address that appears only in the JSON-LD is a mismatch, and mismatches undermine the record.
One page should describe one business. A page listing several locations is better served by one LocalBusiness per location, each with its own URL, than by a single entry with a merged address.
What should be added beyond the minimum?
Only facts the business can maintain. Opening hours go stale during holidays, phone numbers change, and a department that closed last year should not stay in the markup. The recommendation is to generate the JSON-LD from the same data that renders the page, so the two cannot disagree — the approach SiteBienfait uses for the pages it ships.
Structured data also compounds with entity consistency. The name used in the markup should match the name on the about page, the footer and the site’s own description. The guide on what GEO is and what it cannot control explains why repeated, identical entity facts are easier for an answer engine to trust.
What does LocalBusiness markup not do?
It does not fix a missing address on the page. It does not merge duplicates across the web. It does not create a knowledge panel, a map result or a ranking position, and Google’s own page experience guidance, updated 2026-09-22, makes clear that rich results eligibility and ranking are different things.
It also does not replace a Google Business Profile. The profile is the business record Google verifies; the schema is the page-level description. Keeping both consistent is the work.
How is the markup checked?
Validate the page with the Rich Results Test, fix every critical error, and confirm the page is not blocked by robots, noindex or a login. Google Search Central, updated 2026-09-08, then recommends asking Google to recrawl the URL and allowing time for reindexing.
After a migration or a redesign, re-run the check on the new page, because templates that rebuild a page often rebuild its JSON-LD too. SiteBienfait’s SEO route ships structured data as part of a change set, with the schema diff visible before approval. The redirect map checker covers the other half of a move: making sure the URL carrying the markup still resolves where it should.
Sources
- Google Search Central, Local business (LocalBusiness) structured data, last updated 2026-09-08.
- Google Search Central, Intro to structured data markup, last updated 2025-12-10.
- Google Search Central, Understanding page experience, last updated 2026-09-22.
Questions
01 What is LocalBusiness structured data?
JSON-LD that describes a physical business to search engines: its name, address, opening hours, phone number and department structure. Google Search Central, updated 2026-09-08, documents the properties and how the markup is validated.
02 Which properties are required for LocalBusiness?
Name and address. Google Search Central, updated 2026-09-08, lists both as required, and recommends adding as many further properties as possible because a more complete description is a higher-quality result for users.
03 Does LocalBusiness schema improve rankings?
It is not a ranking switch. Google describes structured data as a way to help Search understand a page and become eligible for enriched results. Ranking still depends on the wider signals Google documents.
04 Where should the LocalBusiness JSON-LD go?
On the page that represents the business, in a script tag of type application/ld+json. The markup has to describe content that is visible on that page, and it should be validated with Google's Rich Results Test before release.