Ask most teams whether they have schema markup and you’ll hear “yes, the plugin handles it.” Ask what types, on which templates, and whether it validates — and the room goes quiet. That gap is where visibility leaks away.
Here are the core structured-data types worth checking first, and why each one earns its place.
The types that actually matter
- Organization — your foundational identity. It tells engines who you are, and everything else hangs off it.
- Article / BlogPosting — author, date, and topic for every content page, so engines understand and attribute your writing.
- FAQPage — structured questions and answers, which AI engines lift almost verbatim into responses.
- Product / Service — what you sell, with price and availability, the basis for shopping and comparison results.
- BreadcrumbList — a clear map of your site structure that engines can follow.
Why partial schema can hurt
Half-implemented or invalid markup isn’t neutral. When your schema contradicts the visible page — a price that doesn’t match, a name that’s inconsistent, a required field missing — you send mixed signals about who you are. Engines resolve ambiguity by trusting you less. “Some schema” can genuinely perform worse than a clean, minimal set done right.
It all rides on JSON-LD
Each of these should be expressed in JSON-LD — the format Google, Bing, Perplexity, and ChatGPT all read. Inline microdata scattered through your HTML is harder to maintain and easier to break; a clean JSON-LD block per template is the maintainable path.
Audit what’s really there
The only reliable way to know your real coverage is to inspect what engines parse, page type by page type. Deep Schema Analyzer does exactly that — surfacing what’s present, what’s missing, and what’s broken, with a prioritised roadmap to fix it.
Not sure what your site is actually emitting? run a deep schema analysis and get the list.