Answer guide
What Schema Does AI Search Actually Read?
Three schema types do most of the work for a local business: LocalBusiness (or your specific subtype) tells AI engines who and where you are, FAQPage gives them question-and-answer pairs to quote directly, and Speakable flags the passages that work as spoken answers. Everything else supports those three.
What each type does
LocalBusiness
The identity record: business type, address, phone, hours, service area. Use the most specific subtype that fits — Plumber, Dentist, HVACBusiness — because specificity is exactly what a "best plumber near me" query filters on.
FAQPage
Question-and-answer pairs in machine-readable form. This is the single most quotable structure you can publish — the questions your customers ask AI, answered in your words.
Speakable
Marks which passages read well aloud — the 40–60-word direct answers. It tells voice assistants and answer engines "quote this part."
Does schema guarantee AI citations?
No. Schema makes your facts machine-readable, which removes the biggest barrier to being cited — but engines still weigh content quality, consistency across sources, and relevance to the exact question. It's necessary infrastructure, not a magic switch. (Anyone promising guaranteed citations is guessing; see how citation actually works.)
The one rule that keeps schema honest
Schema may only state what a visitor can see on the page. Engines cross-check markup against visible content, and a mismatch — services you don't list, reviews you don't show, areas you don't name — erodes trust in everything else your markup says. Every page RankOps deploys follows this rule, which is also why the markup keeps working after engines get stricter.
How do I know if mine is working?
The free score check reads your homepage the way engines do and tests for structured data, business schema, FAQ markup, and Speakable in one pass. If you'd rather build it yourself, start with LocalBusiness + FAQPage on your homepage and one high-traffic service page, then verify with Google's Rich Results test.
Test your schema in two minutes
Related: What is GEO? · The AI visibility scorecard