April 7, 2025
The Local Business Schema Advantage: Dominating Local Search
In a previous blog post, we explored how FAQ Schema remains a valuable SEO asset despite Google’s changing approach to rich results. Next, let’s dive into another powerful schema type that’s especially crucial for businesses with physical locations: Local Business Schema.
What is Local Business Schema?
Local Business Schema is a specific type of structured data markup within the Schema.org vocabulary that helps search engines better understand information about your brick-and-mortar business locations. It’s a subtype of both Organization and Place schema types, inheriting properties from each while focusing on information that matters most to local searchers.
According to Schema.org, Local Business encompasses “a particular physical business or branch of an organization. Examples include a restaurant, a particular branch of a restaurant chain, a branch of a bank, a medical practice, a club, a bowling alley, etc.”
Why Local Business Schema Matters in 2025
Much like our findings with FAQ Schema, Local Business Schema continues to provide significant benefits even as search algorithms evolve. Let’s break down why this matters for your business:
Improved Search Result Visibility
Data shows that users click on rich results 58% of the time compared to 41% for non-rich results. Pages that appear as rich results in search can see an 82% higher click-through rate versus non-rich result pages, based on a study by Nestlé Research & Development. By implementing Local Business Schema, you dramatically increase your chances of standing out in search results.
Enhanced Local Search Rankings
Getting your local business schema right could mean you’re more likely to appear in Google’s Local Pack (the three businesses displayed under “Places” on Google SERPs) and Google Maps – two coveted positions for local SEO. For brick-and-mortar businesses, this visibility is invaluable.
AI-Powered Search Integration
As AI-powered search features like Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE)/AI Overviews continue to evolve, properly structured data becomes even more critical. Local pages with detailed markup are more likely to be included in AI-generated conversational summaries, giving businesses better visibility in these new search environments. AI search systems increasingly focus on localization, making structured data essential for businesses targeting specific geographic areas.
Voice Search Optimization
Just as we noted with FAQ Schema, voice search continues to grow in importance. Local Business Schema helps voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant accurately provide information about your business when users ask questions like “What are the hours for [your business]?” or “Where is the nearest [your business type]?”
Competitive Advantage
Despite the clear benefits, schema markup adoption remains limited across the web. According to Schema.org, as of 2024, only about 12.4% of domains (45 million out of 362.3 million registered domains) are leveraging structured data at all. And even on those websites that do use schema, a Web Data Commons report found that implementations are often limited to basic types rather than comprehensive schema markup like LocalBusiness. This limited adoption represents a significant opportunity for forward-thinking businesses to gain an edge over competitors.
Essential Properties for Local Business Schema
To maximize the effectiveness of your Local Business Schema, you’ll need to include several key properties. Here’s what you’ll need at a minimum:
Required Properties:
- @type: Specify your business category (more on this below)
- name: Your official business name
- address: Complete physical address including street, city, state, and ZIP
- telephone: Primary contact number
- image: An image associated with your business
Highly Recommended Properties:
- openingHours: Days and hours your business is open
- geo: Latitude and longitude coordinates
- url: Your website URL
- description: Brief business description
Selecting the Right Business Type
Rather than simply using the generic “LocalBusiness” type, select the most specific subtype that applies to your business. There are 30 Local Business subtypes to choose from, and more than half of these have additional categories under them. Selecting the right Local Business schema helps ensure that search engines get the most accurate information about your business.
Common subtypes include:
- AutomotiveBusiness (with subtypes like AutoRepair, AutoBodyShop)
- FoodEstablishment (with subtypes like Restaurant, Bakery, CafeOrCoffeeShop)
- HealthAndBeautyBusiness (with subtypes like HealthClub, NailSalon, HairSalon)
- ProfessionalService (with subtypes like AccountingService, LegalService)
- Store (with subtypes like ClothingStore, ElectronicsStore, HomeGoodsStore)
If none of the specific categories match your business, you can default to the general “LocalBusiness” type.
Implementation Best Practices
Use JSON-LD Format
To get the best results, follow Google’s Guidelines for Schema Markup and add Schema to the header or body of a webpage in JSON-LD format. Once you get the hang of it, JSON-LD markup is simple and easy to implement.
JSON-LD is preferred over other formats because it’s cleaner, easier to maintain, and doesn’t interfere with your webpage’s HTML. At Epic Notion, we recommend plugins like Yoast SEO and Rank Math for websites on WordPress to make implementation even simpler.
Implement on Key Pages
At minimum, implement Local Business Schema on your:
- Homepage
- Contact/locations pages
- About page
- Individual location pages (for multi-location businesses)
For Multi-Location Businesses
For companies with multiple locations, create separate pages for each of your business locations. Each page should feature local maps, customer reviews, and location-specific keywords. Optimize the URL to reflect the specific location and include details such as the address, phone number, operating hours, and a concise description of the services provided at each location.
Validate Your Implementation
Always test your schema implementation using:
Monitor Performance
Track the impact of your schema implementation through:
- Google Search Console Performance Reports filtered by page URL to compare metrics before and after implementation
- Local search ranking improvements in Google Maps and local results
- Click-through rates from search results
Don’t worry – this might sound technical, but it’s pretty straightforward once you set it up. You’ll be able to see clear before-and-after results as search engines start to better understand your business.
Ready to Boost Your Local Presence?
Local Business Schema provides significant advantages for brick-and-mortar businesses in 2025. Our experience at Epic Notion shows that properly implemented schema—especially when different schema types are strategically combined—delivers measurable value for both search visibility and user experience.
As search engines continue to emphasize localization and AI-driven features become more prevalent, structured data becomes even more vital for helping your business stand out. In today’s competitive local search landscape, properly implemented Local Business Schema isn’t just nice to have— it’s an essential component of any effective SEO strategy for businesses looking to maximize their digital visibility and drive more foot traffic to their physical locations.
Contact Epic Notion at 704-817-3765 or fill out our contact form to learn how we can help optimize your local search presence and give your business a competitive edge.
