What it looks like and where it goes
The vocabulary comes from schema.org, a shared standard maintained by Google, Microsoft and others. The recommended format is JSON-LD: a small script in the page's head that describes the page's content as data. Visitors never see it. A local business page might declare its LocalBusiness type, name, address, phone, hours, geo-coordinates and review rating; an article declares its headline, author, dates and publisher; a FAQ page lists each question and answer. This page carries Article and FAQPage markup, which is part of why it can be quoted accurately by an answer engine.
What it does for you
- Richer search listings: review stars, FAQ dropdowns, breadcrumb trails, event dates, product prices. These take more space and get more clicks.
- Clearer facts for Google's knowledge panel and the business details shown for your name.
- Better understanding by AI assistants and answer engines, which read structured data when deciding what a page is and whether to cite it.
- Disambiguation: linking your business entity to its Google profile, LinkedIn and other references so there is no confusion with a similarly named company.
It is not a direct ranking factor. Marking a page up as a FAQ does not move it up the results; it makes an already-ranking page more useful and more visible.
Common types for a business website
Organization or LocalBusiness on the homepage, with founders, address, hours and social profiles. Service for each service page. Article or BlogPosting for guides and posts, with a real author. FAQPage where questions and answers are genuinely shown on the page (Google restricts FAQ rich results to authoritative government and health sites now, but the markup still helps understanding). BreadcrumbList on every inner page. Product and Offer on store pages. Review and AggregateRating only for reviews actually displayed on the page. Google's Rich Results Test shows whether a page's markup is valid; a developer or a good SEO plugin adds it. It is standard on every site PrimaryDM builds and part of what SEO services covers.