What local business schema is
Schema is a block of structured data, usually JSON-LD, placed in a page's code. Visitors don't see it. Search engines read it to confirm facts they would otherwise have to guess from the page: who you are, where you are, when you're open and what kind of business you run.
It won't rank a weak page on its own, and Google says it does not guarantee that features using structured data will show up (Google Search Central: Local Business structured data, updated September 2026). What it does is remove doubt. We add it as part of every contractor website design build, because it costs little once and is easy to get wrong later.
What Google requires in local business schema
Google's documentation lists two required properties and a set of recommended ones:
- Required: name and address, with the address filled in as completely as you can.
- Recommended: telephone, url, geo (latitude and longitude), openingHoursSpecification, priceRange and department. aggregateRating, review, menu and servesCuisine are also listed, but they don't apply to most trades.
Google also asks you to use the most specific LocalBusiness subtype you can. On schema.org, the home and construction group includes Electrician, GeneralContractor, HVACBusiness, HousePainter, Locksmith, MovingCompany, Plumber and RoofingContractor. A roofer marked up as a generic LocalBusiness is leaving the easiest signal blank.
For a business that serves customers at their homes, schema.org's areaServed property describes "the geographic area where a service or offered item is provided." We list the cities you actually serve, matching your Business Profile.
The fields we add for a home service business
As a worked example, here is what the homepage schema for a plumbing company would carry:
- Type: Plumber, not LocalBusiness.
- Name exactly as it appears on the Business Profile, with no added keywords.
- Street address, city, state and ZIP that match the profile and your main listings.
- Phone number in the same format as the site header.
- Opening hours, including a separate entry if Saturday hours differ.
- areaServed with the cities on the service area list.
- url, logo, and sameAs links to the Business Profile and main social accounts.
Each service page then gets Service schema that names the service and points back to the business as the provider. On a chimney company site in Salem, Oregon, pages with business or Service schema went from 0 to 24 during a nine-week project in which Maps top-3 coverage for "chimney cleaning" went from 5% to 74%. Schema was one of several fixes, so we don't credit it alone.
Hours, service areas and more than one location
A few details trip up home service businesses in particular:
- 24-hour emergency service. Google's documentation says that to show a business as open 24 hours, set opens to 00:00 and closes to 23:59. Setting both to 00:00 shows it as closed all day, which is the opposite of what an emergency plumber wants.
- Seasonal hours. A chimney or pool company with a closed season can use validFrom and validThrough on the hours, so the markup stays true all year.
- Several locations. Each real location page gets its own block with that location's address, phone and hours. Don't copy the head office details onto every city page.
- Departments. Google asks you to name a department as the store name followed by the department name. A plumbing company with a supply counter would name it, for example, "Smith Plumbing Supply". If the department has its own distinct brand, Google says to use that brand name alone.
- Service-area businesses. Google lists address as required, but many contractors hide their address on the Business Profile. We decide this with the owner before publishing anything, and lean on areaServed to describe where the business works.
As a rule, the schema should never say something your Business Profile or visible page doesn't.
Mistakes we find on contractor sites
- Star ratings for your own business. Google recommends aggregateRating and review markup only for sites that collect reviews about other local businesses. On a chimney company site in Woodbridge, Virginia, the old rating markup is still on 14 service pages, and removing it is on the open list.
- Broken markup nobody noticed. A mover in St. Paul, Minnesota had local schema that was silently broken. It looked fine in the theme settings and failed in testing.
- Details that don't match the page. Different phone numbers, old addresses or hours that disagree with the profile. Google's AI features guidance also asks that structured data match the visible text.
- Plugins stacking duplicate blocks. An SEO plugin and a theme both output schema, so the page claims to be two businesses.
How to test it before and after publishing
- Run the page through Google's Rich Results Test and fix critical errors. Google says non-critical issues are worth fixing but don't block eligibility.
- Check the page in Search Console's URL Inspection tool to confirm Google can reach it.
- Compare every value against your Business Profile, line by line.
- Recheck after theme or plugin updates. That's when we see markup break.
We write a spec for every schema change before touching the site, then verify it on the live page and in Google's tools. If you want a second pair of eyes on yours, our local SEO audit checks it.