If you’ve spent any time researching WordPress SEO, you’ve run into the word “schema” — usually alongside a promise that it’ll get your site star ratings or fancy search results. That’s true, sometimes. But schema markup does more than chase rich results, and it’s worth understanding what it actually is before adding it to your site.
What schema markup actually is
Schema markup (formally, Schema.org structured data) is a standardized way of describing your content in a format machines can parse directly, instead of inferring meaning from plain text the way a human reader would. When you write “Rachel M. Harrison, Trauma-Informed Coach” as a sentence, a search engine has to guess what that means. When it’s marked up as Person schema with a jobTitle property, there’s no guessing involved.
Common schema types include:
- Organization — basic business identity: name, logo, contact info
- Person — an individual’s identity, role, and credentials
- LocalBusiness — physical location, hours, service area
- Article — a blog post or news piece, with author and publish date
- FAQPage — question-and-answer content
- BreadcrumbList — the navigation path to a page
An important update: FAQ rich results changed
For a long time, FAQ schema was one of the most popular reasons to add structured data at all — it produced a visible accordion dropdown directly in Google’s search results, and that extra real estate reliably pulled more clicks. Google retired that visible FAQ rich result in May 2026. The schema markup itself is still valid and still worth having, but it no longer produces that accordion in Google search — regardless of which SEO plugin generates it.
This matters because a lot of SEO advice still floating around the internet was written before that change and hasn’t caught up. If a plugin or guide is still promising you’ll “unlock the FAQ dropdown in Google” by adding FAQ schema, that’s outdated.
So why still bother with schema at all?
Two reasons. First, several other rich result types are still very much alive — Article, BreadcrumbList, and LocalBusiness schema all still influence how your listing appears. Second, and increasingly important: structured data is exactly the kind of clean, unambiguous format that AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity rely on when deciding what to cite. As more people search by asking an AI a question instead of typing into Google, having content that’s clearly and formally structured becomes more valuable, not less — just for a different audience than it used to be.
Adding schema in WordPress without code
Sanctuary Tiger SEO’s free plugin generates Organization, Person, LocalBusiness, WebPage/WebSite, BreadcrumbList, Article, and FAQPage schema automatically, based on your existing site content and settings — no code editing required.
For businesses that need schema beyond those basics — events, courses, services tied to specific locations, product reviews, or WooCommerce listings — that’s where the Pro add-on picks up, along with GEO-specific schema aimed at improving how AI answer engines understand and cite your content.
Get free schema markup on WordPress.org →
Frequently Asked Questions
If FAQ rich results are retired, is FAQ schema pointless now? Not pointless — just repurposed. It no longer produces the visible Google accordion, but it still helps AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity parse and cite Q&A content accurately.
Do I need to write schema markup myself? No — Sanctuary Tiger SEO’s free plugin generates Organization, Person, LocalBusiness, WebPage/WebSite, BreadcrumbList, Article, and FAQPage schema automatically from your existing content and settings.
How do I know if my schema is actually working? Google’s Rich Results Test tool will show you exactly what a page’s schema looks like to Google and flag any errors — worth checking after adding schema to a page for the first time.
