Local business schema generator

What local business schema does, and what it does not

Local business schema is a short block of code on your website that states your business details in a format search engines read without guessing: your trade, name, phone number, hours, the town you are based in and the areas you cover. The format is JSON-LD, and the vocabulary comes from schema.org. Visitors never see it.

Here is the boring truth. Schema on its own does not put you in the map pack. The three businesses Google shows on the map come from Google Business Profiles, and Google says local results are "mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity". The same page adds: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google" (Google Business Profile Help). Schema is not mentioned on it.

Google's own structured data rules are just as plain: "Using structured data enables a feature to be present, it does not guarantee that it will be present" (Google's structured data policies).

So why bother? Because it is ten minutes' work, and it removes doubt. It tells Google that the website and the Business Profile belong to the same plumber in Leeds, with the same number and the same hours. Do it once, do it accurately, then spend your time on the profile and your reviews.

Picking the right business type

Google asks you to "use the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible" (Google's local business documentation). A plumber is a Plumber, not just a LocalBusiness. Every type in the tool's list was checked against schema.org on 21 October 2026.

Plenty of trades have no type of their own. There is no CleaningService, LandscapingBusiness, TreeService or PestControl on schema.org, whatever some generators offer. For those, and for plasterers, carpenters, kitchen fitters and builders who do not fit General Contractor, use HomeAndConstructionBusiness, the parent type schema.org describes as a business that "provides services around homes and buildings".

If you do two trades, such as plumbing and heating, the tool lets you add a second type. Google's documentation says to give several types "as an array", and that is what the tool outputs. Avoid ProfessionalService: schema.org marks it as deprecated.

A worked example: a mobile plumber

Take a made-up firm, Example Plumbing, run from home in Leeds, covering Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield and Harrogate. The number is from Ofcom's range kept for drama, so nobody real gets the calls. Customers never visit, so there is no street address. Here is what goes into the tool and what each line of the output means.

The tool turns 07700 900123 into +44 7700 900123, because Google says to "include the country code and area code in the phone number". It drops the street, keeps the town, and lists the four areas as places served. Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday mornings become two lines of opening hours, not six.

• @type: Plumber
• @id: https://www.example.com/#business (a fixed label for this business, so other code on the site can point to it)
• name: Example Plumbing (exactly as it appears on your Google Business Profile)
• url: https://www.example.com/
• telephone: +44 7700 900123
• address: addressLocality Leeds, addressRegion West Yorkshire, addressCountry GB. No street, because customers do not visit.
• areaServed: Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Harrogate
• openingHoursSpecification: Monday to Friday, opens 08:00, closes 18:00; Saturday, opens 09:00, closes 13:00
• logo and image: the full web addresses of your logo and a photo of your work or van
• sameAs: your Facebook page and your Yell listing, the profiles that are definitely yours
• description and priceRange: optional. One plain line about the business, and a rough price guide such as ££, kept under 100 characters

If customers never come to you

Most trades work from home, and Google's own advice for the Business Profile is clear: "If you don't serve customers at your business address, remove your address from your Business Profile" (Google's service area help). Your schema should not then publish the home address the profile hides.

Answer No, I go to them to "Do customers come to you?" and the tool leaves out the street, the postcode and the map coordinates. It keeps the town, county and your Google Maps link, and lists your areas under areaServed, as towns and cities or as counties and boroughs, whichever you choose. Google's local business guide lists address as required, and says to "include as many properties as possible"; a town and country is the honest minimum for a business that does not want its house on the internet.

Keep the areas the same as the ones on your profile. Google allows up to 20 service areas there and says the whole area "shouldn't be more than about two hours of driving time" from your base. Listing every town in the county in your schema will not stretch that. Our guide to service areas versus showing your address covers the profile side.

Adding it to your site and testing it

Paste the code into the head of your homepage, or the page that carries your contact details. On WordPress, a header-and-footer code plugin or your SEO plugin's custom schema box does the job; on Wix and Squarespace, use the custom code setting for one page. One business, one block, on one page is enough.

Then check it. Paste your page address into Google's Rich Results Test, which shows whether Google can read the block and flags missing fields. The Schema Markup Validator checks it against schema.org itself, for every type.

Every detail in the code must also be on the page in plain view. Google's rule is "Don't mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page" (structured data policies). If your hours are in the schema, put them in the footer too.

Mistakes that make schema worse than none

Wrong schema contradicts your profile, and the whole point was agreement. These are the common slips.

• Adding your own star rating. Google says businesses that control the reviews about themselves are "ineligible for star review feature" with LocalBusiness markup (Google's review snippet rules). The tool does not output ratings for that reason.
• A different name or number from your profile. Trading name on one, limited company name on the other. Pick one and use it everywhere, as our NAP consistency audit explains.
• Old hours. Change the schema when you change your hours on Google, or the two disagree.
• The same block on every page. It describes the business, so it belongs where the business is described. A copy on 40 blog posts adds nothing.
• Two plugins writing schema. Your theme or SEO plugin may already output some. Run the Rich Results Test first and remove the duplicate.
• Postcodes as fake locations. areaServed says where you work; it is not a way to rank in towns you do not cover.

Common questions