Sample layout. Not a real client.
Trade, city: the problem in one line
- Starting point
- Rank grid before any change
- What changed
- The one or two changes that moved it
- Result
- Rank grid after, and the change in calls
Schema markup services that state your business facts plainly.
Schema markup tells Google what your business is, where it works and what it does, in a format a machine reads without guessing. I write it to match your pages and your Google Business Profile exactly.
No long contracts. You talk to Simon.
Map pack: electrician la mesa
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- 17 years in SEO
- Engineering degrees
- 85% of clients in San Diego County
- No long contracts
Where schema markup goes wrong
- A plugin and the theme both output business markup
- The code lists an old phone number or hours
- Star ratings were promised and never showed up
How I test schema changes
Scientific SEO
- 1 Measure You get a record of what every page template declares now, with errors and conflicts listed.
- 2 Change one thing I correct the markup on one template, such as all the service pages.
- 3 Measure again I confirm how Google reads the new markup, and in about two weeks I compare rankings.
- 4 Keep what works I keep markup that reads cleanly and report any measured effect as it is.
What schema work covers
- Local business and trade types
- Service markup per service page
- FAQ and breadcrumb markup
- Duplicate and conflicting markup cleanup
- Schema for AI assistants
- Business listing consistency
What schema markup states, and what it cannot do
Schema markup is a block of code on a web page that states facts about your business (what kind of company you are, your name and phone number, your hours, the services you offer and the areas you serve) in a fixed vocabulary search engines read directly. A visitor never sees it. Without it, Google works the facts out from the text and sometimes gets them wrong.
Which types a service company needs
The vocabulary is published at Schema.org and shared by the major search engines. A home-service site uses a small part of it, with each type as specific as the vocabulary allows.
| Type | What it states | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| LocalBusiness, or a trade type | Name, phone, hours, areas served, links to your profiles | Home or contact page |
| Service | One service, who provides it and where | Each service page |
| FAQPage | Questions and answers shown on that page | Pages with a visible FAQ |
| BreadcrumbList | Where the page sits in the site | Inner pages |
Plumber, HVACBusiness, Electrician and RoofingContractor are each a more specific kind of LocalBusiness, and I use the specific one where it exists. There’s no dedicated type for a solar installer, so a solar company gets a broader type and its services are spelled out with Service markup.
The markup has to match everything else
Hours declared in the code and absent from the page are an error, because Google’s guidelines say markup should describe content a visitor can see. Schema helps only when it agrees with the page it sits on and with your other listings. The name and phone number should be character for character the same as on your Google Business Profile and your citations.
A company based in La Mesa that works at customers’ homes should declare its service areas the way its profile does, without implying a storefront it doesn’t have.
What schema won’t do
If you were promised gold stars from a review plugin and they never appeared, the likely reason is a Google policy. Google treats reviews of a business that are marked up on that business’s own site as self-serving, and doesn’t show stars for them. Schema doesn’t raise a page’s ranking by being present, either.
FAQ markup has a similar limit. Google shows the expandable FAQ display for far fewer sites than it once did, so I add the markup for clarity and promise nothing about how the listing looks.
Why duplicate markup is so common
Sites built with plugins often carry two or three sets of markup describing the same business. The theme adds one business block, an SEO plugin adds a second and a review widget adds a third, each with slightly different details. The code can pass a syntax check and still contradict itself, because valid and accurate are different tests. I read what each page declares and remove the extras, leaving one description per page in JSON-LD, the format Google recommends.
Schema and AI assistants
The same structured facts can help an AI assistant work out who a business is and what it does, and tying the markup to your other profiles is the part of the job aimed at that.
I check a whole site’s markup as part of a technical SEO audit, because schema is one piece of technical SEO among the other machine-facing work.
Also in Technical SEO in San Diego
Questions owners ask
What a result looks like
Every engagement starts and ends with the same measurement.
Schema markup for companies across San Diego County
My SEO plugin already adds schema. Is that enough?
It depends on what the plugin was told. Most plugins output a generic business type and whatever was typed into the settings when the site was built, which may be an old phone number or the wrong hours. They rarely add Service markup to individual service pages, and a theme or review widget may be adding a second description of the same business. I read what your pages declare today, correct it, and keep the plugin where it does the job properly.
Can schema markup get star ratings shown under my listing?
Not for reviews of your own company on your own site. Google considers that self-serving and doesn't display stars for it, whatever a plugin's sales page says, and I won't add review markup for reviews that aren't on the page. The stars shown in the map pack come from your Google Business Profile reviews, which is separate work.
Which schema type should a solar company use?
A general one, because Schema.org has no type dedicated to solar installers. I use a broader local business type and describe each service, such as panel installation or battery storage, with its own Service markup.
Can wrong schema hurt my site?
Wrong schema can do harm. Markup that contradicts the page or your Google Business Profile gives search engines conflicting facts, which is worse than giving them none. Markup for content that isn't on the page breaks Google's guidelines, which can lead Google to ignore your structured data or apply a manual action. Accurate and minimal is safer than elaborate.
Find out what your website tells Google about you.
Your website address is enough for me to read the markup on your main pages and list what is missing, wrong or duplicated.
- A rank grid showing where you appear, and where you don't
- The technical and Google Business Profile issues that matter most
- What I'd change first, in plain English
Prefer to talk? Call (619) 675-7678, 9am to 6pm.