LocalBusiness schema: required fields and common mistakes

• ✓name
• ✓address (PostalAddress with streetAddress, addressLocality, addressCountry)

• +telephone
• +geo
• +openingHoursSpecification
• +url
• +priceRange
• +image

These are hints, not blockers. Our validator marks them non-critical for exactly that reason: a missing optional field does not make the item invalid, and treating it as an error would make every report noisy and therefore ignorable.

• An address that does not match the Google Business Profile. Two sources of truth about one business is worse than the markup being absent.
• Using the generic LocalBusiness type when a specific one applies — Restaurant, Dentist, LegalService. The specific type is what the feature expects.
• openingHoursSpecification with human text instead of the structured day and time fields.
• A telephone number in a format that cannot be dialled, with the country code missing.

Structured data describes the page; it does not make the page true. Google also requires the visible content to match, and it decides eligibility on its own published requirements — which change without notice. A valid block that matches the page is the whole of what you control.

Test it on a real URL with the free schema validator — no account, and it reports eligible, ineligible, or not applicable without inventing a score.

• Product — Marks a page as a product, with its price and availability.
• Article — Marks a page as a news or blog article. Covers BlogPosting and NewsArticle too.
• Organization — Marks a page as representing an organisation rather than a person.
• BreadcrumbList — Marks a page as a position in a hierarchy, for the breadcrumb in a result.
• Person — Marks a page as being about, or written by, a person.
• WebSite — Marks the site itself, usually on the homepage.
• FAQPage — Marked a question-and-answer page. Google stopped showing these as a rich result.
• HowTo — Marked a set of steps. Google stopped showing these as a rich result.