Using Schema Markup for GEO

As mentioned in the GEO post, AI search engines rely heavily on entities that AI LLMs can recognize. And that is described in the structured data schema created by schema.org.

Schema, if you’ve never heard of it, is a set of structured data document categories that help define what content is about. It helps improve speed of topic recognition, its context (e.g., real estate) and how entities within the content relate to each other (e.g., “what were home sales like in September in Boston?”) for AI search engines.

It’s a markup language that structures information so AI search engines can understand your content more accurately and process it faster. Ultimately, users get better and more helpful answers because of it.

AI Coding Schema

Schema is a big aid for an AI LLM system that may not have the time or electrical energy to process everything the hard way such as Google’s traditional search engine does.  And it’s one reason why ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, etc. may ignore content that doesn’t comply with structured content guidelines. Schema.org offers up the full structured data organization set.  It contains hundreds of content type categorizations, but for business + content visibility, we don’t need them all — just the most relevant ones that map to how your site should appear in AI-generated answers.

I’m not a structured data scientist but this knowledge of structured data below might help us build an edge for your content that will be used in ChatGPT, CoPilot, Perplexity, Gemini and many other AI search engines.

The beneficial use of structured data for GEO is not just dropping in your JSON-LD info into your head code (a standardized format read by all search engines to provide information about a page to classify the page content). Our goal is much further than that, to align our content treatments with the entity types in Schema. AI LLMs seek “evidence” in your content that matches that schema, and the more we reinforce that, the more confidently the AI LLMs will cite our content.

How the AI LLMs Discover Your Schema Markup Code

AI LLMs find your schema code in the HTML source code of your pages. It might look like this:

<script type=”application/ld+json”>
{
“@context”: “https://schema.org”,
“@type”: “BlogPosting”,
“headline”: “Best Family Tours in Italy”,
“description”: “A guide to family-friendly tours in Rome, Florence, and Venice with options for all ages.”,
“author”: {
“@type”: “Person”,
“name”: “Gord Collins”
},“publisher”: {
“@type”: “Organization”,
“name”: “Collins Travel Marketing”,
“logo”: {
“@type”: “ImageObject”,
“url”: “https://yourdomain.com/logo.png”
}
},
“datePublished”: “2025-09-15”,
“mainEntityOfPage”: {
“@type”: “WebPage”,
“@id”: “https://yourdomain.com/best-family-tours-italy”
},
“articleSection”: “Travel”,
“keywords”: [“Italy travel”, “family tours”, “Europe vacations”]
}
</script>

You have three main options to place the code in your pages:

  1. Theme/template placement → insert JSON-LD scripts in your theme’s <head> (affects all posts).
  2. SEO plugin → use Yoast, Rank Math, or Schema Pro to auto-generate schema for each post.
  3. Manual insertion per post → paste JSON-LD in a custom field or via a block editor (Advanced Custom Fields, Code Snippets plugin, or a <script> block).

Using software such as Yoast or Schema Pro might seem quick and efficient. Most small businesses will use them.  Yet, their plugins may not do it well, especially their free versions. It’s often too generic, minimal, and not powerful enough. And an AI LLM.txt file won’t work either. Manual schema editing might be necessary, especially for your most important pillar content.

None of this means our creative imagination and storytelling disappears from our content. It’s a structure we can underlay or overlay into our text content. We want to avoid overdoing it and instead focus on the essential entities and relationship between them that the AI LLM is evaluating.  Let’s begin by exploring the schema classifications.

Schema for Business Related Websites

Below, you can see it is an extensive list of structured data categories/names and their next iteration of it will be deeper and broader. Here’s a few general starters (grouped by business use case):

Core Business / Organization

  • Organization
  • LocalBusiness (with subtypes: TravelAgency, RealEstateAgent, Restaurant, etc.)
  • Corporation
  • Brand
  • Place
  • PostalAddress
  • ContactPoint

Content / Media

  • Article
  • BlogPosting
  • NewsArticle
  • WebPage / WebSite
  • HowTo (step-by-step guides)
  • FAQPage (question/answer format)
  • VideoObject
  • ImageObject
  • AudioObject

Products & Services

  • Product
  • Offer
  • Service
  • AggregateOffer (bundles, packages)
  • Review
  • AggregateRating
  • Brand

Events / Experiences

  • Event (and subtypes like BusinessEvent, MusicEvent, TouristAttractionEvent)
  • TouristTrip
  • TouristDestination
  • Place (locations tied to events or services)

Real Estate

  • Residence
  • Apartment
  • House
  • SingleFamilyResidence
  • Place (again, location ties in)
  • Offer + Product for property listings

E-commerce / Booking

  • Product + Offer (inventory, pricing, availability)
  • Trip (for bundled travel packages)
  • LodgingBusiness (hotel, hostel, resort, etc.)
  • Flight, BusTrip, TrainTrip (transport options)
  • Ticket

People / Authority

  • Person (for authors, experts, company founders)
  • Author (as property inside Article)
  • CreativeWork (general category for anything authored)

Knowledge & Educational Content

  • DefinedTerm (for glossary/explainer pages)
  • Book / CreativeWorkSeries
  • Course (if educational offerings are part of business)

Engagement / Social Proof

  • Review
  • AggregateRating
  • Comment
  • EndorsementRating
  • ClaimReview (fact-check style content)

Special Travel/Tourism Schema

  • TouristAttraction
  • TouristDestination
  • TouristTrip
  • LandmarksOrHistoricalBuildings
  • NaturalFeature (beach, mountain, park, etc.)
  • CivicStructure (airport, bridge, museum, etc.)
  • LodgingBusiness

GEO: How Content Actually Integrates with Schema

Here’s a practical breakdown of content elements/treatments that pair well with the main schema categories:

  1. Business / Organization (Organization, LocalBusiness)
  • Content elements:
    • “About us” page with founding story, mission, and team bios.
    • Clear NAP (name, address, phone) and contact methods.
    • Trust signals: awards, partnerships, memberships.
  • AI benefit: Reinforces credibility + authority. LLMs recognize you as a legit entity not just a random site.
  1. Content / Media (Article, BlogPosting, HowTo, FAQPage)
  • Content elements:
    • Articles structured around questions and answers (FAQ-style).
    • How-to guides with numbered steps, visuals, or video demos.
    • Clear author attribution + expert credentials.
    • Internal references and outbound citations to trusted sources.
  • AI benefit: These formats map directly to conversational queries. LLMs love content that “already looks like” a dialogue or explanation.
  1. Products & Services (Product, Service, Offer, Review)
  • Content elements:
    • Detailed product/service descriptions (features, benefits, specs).
    • Pricing, availability, images, comparison charts.
    • Customer reviews, testimonials, star ratings.
  • AI benefit: Entities become complete objects in the LLM’s database. Helps AI surface your offerings when people ask “best ___ near me” or “affordable ___.”
  1. Events / Experiences (Event, TouristTrip, TouristDestination)
  • Content elements:
    • Event landing pages with dates, times, ticket info, maps.
    • Travel itineraries or sample trip breakdowns (Day 1, Day 2…).
    • Highlights of attractions with photos + local context.
  • AI benefit: Pairs perfectly with “what’s happening in [city] this weekend?” or “best tours in Italy” type prompts.
  1. Real Estate (Residence, Apartment, Offer)
  • Content elements:
    • Listings with price, square footage, images, floorplans.
    • Neighborhood guides (schools, transit, lifestyle).
    • Market insights: trends, affordability, investment potential.
  • AI benefit: GEO loves the structured nature of listings → LLMs can use your content in “best neighborhoods for families in Toronto” or “average condo price in Boston.”
  1. People / Authority (Person, Author)
  • Content elements:
    • Author bios on blog posts with credentials + LinkedIn links.
    • Interviews, quotes, or commentary pieces.
    • Company leadership profiles.
  • AI benefit: LLMs can tie ideas and answers back to real people → boosts trust and citation likelihood.
  1. Social Proof / Engagement (Review, AggregateRating)
  • Content elements:
    • Customer testimonial sections (video + text).
    • Case studies with before/after results.
    • Industry mentions (“As seen in [publication]”).
  • AI benefit: Reinforces topical authority. AI engines see you cited alongside trusted voices = stronger semantic reputation.
  1. Travel/Tourism (TouristAttraction, TouristDestination, LodgingBusiness)
  • Content elements:
    • Destination guides with “must-see” lists, maps, itineraries.
    • Hotel/lodging pages with amenities, photos, pricing.
    • User-generated photos or stories from past travelers.
  • AI benefit: Creates a rich entity graph of places, experiences, and traveler intent — exactly how LLMs frame “where should I go” conversations.

Rule of Thumb for GEO Content:

Think of every schema type as a content checklist. If your page says it’s an Event, make sure the page feels like an event listing: time, place, organizer, tickets, schedule, people, highlights. If it’s a Product, make it look like a full catalog entry: specs, reviews, comparisons.

Structured data defined by Schema is a reference for the AI search engines, and for AI content strategists as well. It’s a set of data containers that we need to fill with relevant text content. It’s not going to win the AI visibility wars for us, but it certainly gets us on the good side of the AI search engines.

Discover more on AI content strategy, generation engine optimization (GEO) and GEO visibility factors.

Looking to use SEO/GEO as a competitive advantage to build visibility/leads/revenue?  I’d be happy to chat with you. Contact me, Gord at 416 998 6246.

Title image courtesy of Stockcake.

Gord Collins is an SEO/Content Strategist serving Realtors, travel companies hotels, branding agencies, software firms, and more providing high performance, cost-effective digital marketing services.

By integrating impactful, authentic, and engaging content with Generative AI solutions, content becomes more useful, well-presented, persuasive, and ranks better on Google and AI LLM GPTs.

If you're a stock market investor, enjoy updated, insightful stock market forecast reports to grow your portfolio performance. Gord writes on the housing market too, with insightful and unbiased perspectives on where residential real estate is headed.

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