Schema markup is invisible code added to your website that describes your business in a structured format machines can read with certainty: your name, services, hours, location, prices, and reviews, labeled so there is no guessing.
A human reading your site can figure out you are a bakery in Palm Bay. A machine reading unstructured text has to guess. Schema removes the guessing. It tells search engines and AI tools exactly what kind of business you are, in a vocabulary they all share (schema.org).
Why it matters more now
AI tools build answers from information they can parse confidently. Published research on Space Coast businesses found that the overwhelming majority of local businesses have no LocalBusiness schema at all, and that businesses with proper schema appeared in AI Overviews at roughly three times the rate of those without. Schema went from nice-to-have to the baseline for AI visibility, and most local businesses still do not have it.
The common types for a local business
LocalBusiness or a specific subtype like Restaurant or HairSalon, Service schema for each thing you offer, FAQPage schema for question and answer content, and Review or AggregateRating schema for social proof. Each one is a structured block of JSON sitting in your page code.
The catch
Schema describes, it does not promote. Marking up content you do not have does nothing, and marking up fake reviews or wrong information can get flagged. Schema makes good content machine readable. The content still has to be real.