Schema markup

What is schema markup?

Schema markup is a block of code on a page that tells search engines exactly what's on it. It uses the shared vocabulary from Schema.org, a project Google, Bing and Yahoo started in 2011, and most sites add it as JSON-LD, a short script in the page code that visitors never see.

Let's say you sell scheduling software. Your pricing page shows three plans. A person reads the page and sees "Pro, $12 per user per month". Schema markup says the same thing in a format a machine can't misread: this is a SoftwareApplication called your product name, with an Offer named Pro, priced at 12, in US dollars.

Google recommends JSON-LD over the older formats, Microdata and RDFa, because it sits in one block and doesn't tangle with your page design. Most CMS and SEO plugins can add the common types for you.

Why schema markup matters for B2B SaaS

Schema used to be sold mostly as a way to get stars and FAQ boxes in Google. That part has shrunk a lot. Google limited FAQ rich results to government and health sites in August 2023, and on May 7, 2026 it stopped showing them in Search altogether.

So the value now sits elsewhere. Schema tells search engines and AI tools who you are, what you sell and how the pieces connect, which is what entity work is about. Google's own guide to AI features says no special schema is needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, so treat it as clean labeling of facts you already publish.

Here's where I think it still earns its place:

• It ties your brand together: Organization markup with sameAs links to your LinkedIn, G2 and Crunchbase profiles tells Google those pages are all the same company. That matters when your brand name is also an everyday word.
• It keeps facts consistent: Price, plan names and company details stated in one fixed format leave less room for a crawler to guess wrong.
• Some rich results still exist: Review stars and prices on software app listings still show for eligible pages. A cleaner search listing can lift click rates.

How to add schema markup

You don't need markup on every page. You need the right type on the pages that matter, and it has to match what people see. Here's my process:

• Map page types to schema types: Organization for the homepage, Article or BlogPosting for posts, BreadcrumbList across the site and SoftwareApplication with Offer for product or pricing pages. Write the map down so new templates get it by default.
• Add it to your templates: Put the markup in your CMS templates so every new blog post or integration page gets it automatically. Hand-coding page by page breaks the first time someone edits a page.
• Fill in the required fields: For SoftwareApplication rich results, Google requires a name, offers.price (0 for a free plan) and either aggregateRating or review. Leave out ratings you can't back with real reviews on the page.
• Connect your entities: Give your Organization an @id and point to it from your articles and product markup. Add sameAs links to your official profiles so search engines can join them up.
• Match the visible page: Every fact in your markup should appear on the page itself. If the page says $12 and the markup still says $10 from last year, you're giving Google two answers.

A schema markup example

Zapier's pricing page is a good real example to study. As of November 2026, it carries two JSON-LD blocks. One is an Organization with Zapier's legal name, founding year and sameAs links to its official social profiles. The other is a SoftwareApplication with an Offer for each plan, linked back to the Organization by its @id.

Here's how a similar setup could look for a hypothetical scheduling software company:

You can view any site's schema yourself. Paste a URL into the Schema Markup Validator at validator.schema.org and it lists every block the page carries.

How to measure schema markup

Schema work is easy to check and harder to tie to revenue. Here's what I track:

• Errors in Search Console: The Enhancements and Shopping sections show which rich result types Google found on your site, with valid items, warnings and errors for each.
• Rich Results Test: Google's test tells you whether one URL is eligible for rich results and shows the markup Google read after rendering.
• Click rate on marked-up pages: In Search Console's Performance report, compare click rate before and after markup goes live on a page group, like all pricing and product pages.
• Brand facts in AI answers: Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode for your pricing, founding year and headquarters. Wrong answers usually point to a page, or markup, that disagrees with the rest.

Common schema markup mistakes

• Still chasing FAQ boxes: Teams add FAQPage markup to every page expecting a rich result. Google no longer shows them, so put that time into the pages themselves.
• Marking up things that aren't there: Review stars with no reviews on the page, or a product price that appears nowhere, can lead to a manual action from Google.
• Letting markup go stale: Prices and plan names change, and hardcoded JSON-LD doesn't. Pull the values from the same source as the visible page.
• Adding every type you can find: Five overlapping types on one page confuse more than they help. One accurate main type per page, plus breadcrumbs, is plenty.
• Skipping the test after a redesign: New templates often drop the old markup. Run the Rich Results Test on each template the day it launches.

Here's a quick first step. Run your pricing page through the Rich Results Test today. Does the markup say the same price your buyers see?