Which Schema Types Actually Apply to Your Business? A Checklist by Vertical

Structured data is the most common weak spot we see in Deep Audits — Section 6 (Schema, Trust & E-E-A-T) is almost always a site's lowest score. But there's a catch that trips people up: the audit flags a lot of missing schema as "critical," and not all of it applies to you. A law firm doesn't need Product schema; a SaaS tool doesn't need JobPosting on its homepage.

This checklist tells you exactly which types matter for your vertical, so you can fix the ones that count and safely ignore the noise.

The universal set (every site should have these)

No matter what you do, these three earn their place:

  • Organization — who you are, your logo, and sameAs links to your verified profiles. This is the backbone of E-E-A-T.
  • WebSite — enables sitelinks search box and confirms your canonical domain.
  • BreadcrumbList — puts a navigable trail in the SERP instead of a bare URL.
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Your Company",
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "logo": "https://example.com/logo.png",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/yourco",
    "https://x.com/yourco"
  ]
}
</script>

By vertical

Law firms

LegalService (a LocalBusiness subtype) + Organization + Review + AggregateRating + FAQPage. Reviews and ratings matter enormously here — trust is the product. Do not add Product, Event, or JobPosting on your main pages. (See this play out in our law-firm case study.)

Ecommerce

Product + Offer + AggregateRating + BreadcrumbList. Every product page needs Product/Offer with price and availability; category pages need BreadcrumbList. Skip LegalService and MedicalOrganization.

SaaS / software

SoftwareApplication (or WebApplication) + Organization + FAQPage + Offer (for pricing tiers). This is the set that gets your tool understood by answer engines. Skip LocalBusiness unless you have a physical office you're marketing.

Healthcare / medical practices

MedicalOrganization or Physician + LocalBusiness + Review + FAQPage. Multi-location groups should mark up each location. Accuracy and licensing signals matter — see our multi-location healthcare guide.

Local services (home services, restaurants, retail)

LocalBusiness (or the specific subtype) + Review + AggregateRating + openingHours + geo. Local pack visibility leans heavily on complete LocalBusiness markup.

How Deep Audit reports this

When you run a Deep Audit, Section 6 findings look like:

[critical] S6 6.1.01: No Organization schema found
[critical] S6 6.12.01: No Event schema found

The first is a real problem for everyone. The second only matters if you actually host events. Rule of thumb: fix the universal set + your vertical's set first, then ignore critical findings for types that don't describe your business. Marking up schema you don't legitimately have — fake reviews especially — is spam that Google penalizes, so never fabricate to clear a finding.

Verify your fix

After adding schema, re-audit and watch Section 6 climb. That before/after loop is the fastest way to confirm the JSON-LD is valid and detected:

curl -X POST "https://engine.seoscoreapi.com/deep-audit" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}'

Find every schema gap on your site. Subscribe to a plan — Pro ($39/mo) and Ultra ($99/mo) include unlimited Deep Audits, so you can add schema, re-audit, and confirm the fix as many times as it takes. See plans and pricing →