Imagine a web ecosystem where not just humans but AI agents communicate with websites, going beyond traditional browsing. Unlike conventional web experiences, where people click, scroll, and search, AI agents can navigate, interpret, and even perform tasks autonomously on your site. This is not a futuristic concept. It is already unfolding. This is the emergence of the agentic web.
Table of contents
Key takeaways
The agentic web enables AI agents to autonomously navigate and interact with websites, shifting user responsibilities from manual navigation to decision-making
Protocols are crucial for communication among AI agents; they must rely on structured, machine-readable data for effective coordination
SEO professionals must adapt to the agentic web by optimizing websites as endpoints for AI queries, ensuring structured data and clarity
NLWeb facilitates interaction between agents and websites by exposing structured data and allowing for natural language queries without traditional interface limitations
Yoast’s collaboration with NLWeb helps WordPress users prepare for the agentic web by organizing content and making it easier to integrate structured data
The big shift: From web for users to a web for users and agents
For years, the web followed a simple pattern. Humans searched, clicked, compared, and completed tasks manually. Even as search engines evolved, the interaction model stayed the same: search and click.
That model is changing.
The agentic web represents a shift from a web designed only for human users to one designed for both people and AI assistants. Instead of manually researching products, comparing services, filling out forms, and completing transactions, users will increasingly delegate those tasks to intelligent assistants that can search, interpret information, and act on their behalf. The user’s role shifts from active navigator to decision-maker.
From searching to delegating.
This is not about smarter chat interfaces. It is about autonomous agents that can interpret the search intent, compare options, and execute actions on behalf of users. Websites are no longer just pages to be visited. They are endpoints to be queried.
For that to work at scale, intelligence cannot reside in a single assistant or on a closed platform. It has to be distributed. Systems must be able to communicate with other systems without friction. That requires a web that is machine-readable, interoperable, and built for agent-to-agent interaction.
The agentic web is not a prediction. It is an architectural shift already underway!
Protocol thinking and the infrastructure of agentic web communication
If the agentic web is about intelligent systems interacting with websites, then the real question becomes simple: how do these systems understand each other?
The answer is not design. It is infrastructure.
The web has always depended on shared communication rules. HTTP allows browsers to request pages. RSS distributes updates. Structured data helps search engines interpret meaning. These are not features. They are protocols. They are agreements that enable large-scale coordination.
Now the same logic applies to AI agents.
In the agentic web, agents will not click buttons or visually scan pages. They will send requests, interpret structured responses, compare options, and complete tasks. For that to work across millions of websites, communication cannot be improvised. It must be standardized.
This is where protocol thinking becomes essential.
Protocol thinking means designing websites so they are predictable for machines. Instead of building custom integrations for every assistant or platform, websites expose a consistent interaction layer. Agents do not need to learn every interface. They rely on shared rules.
As emphasized in discussions of distributed intelligence, the goal is not to let a single chatbot control everything. The intelligence must be distributed. Systems need a simplified way to communicate without having to understand the technical details of every tool they connect to.
That only works when there is common ground.
In practical terms, this means:
Websites must expose structured, machine-readable data
Agents must know what they can ask
Responses must follow predictable formats
Communication must scale beyond one platform
Protocols create that shared language.
What does this mean for SEO professionals?
As the web evolves to support AI agents, SEO professionals are starting to ask a new question: how do you stay visible when answers are generated instead of ranked?
A clear example of this surfaced during Microsoft’s Ignite event. In a Q&A session, a consultant described a client who sells products like mayonnaise and wanted their brand to appear when someone asks an AI assistant about mayonnaise. The question was simple, but it revealed something deeper. If AI systems generate answers instead of listing search results, what does optimization look like?
This is where the shift becomes real.
The agentic web does not replace the open web. It adds another layer on top of it. Search engines still index pages. Rankings still matter. But intelligent systems can now query websites directly, compare information across sources, and generate synthesized responses.
For SEOs, this changes the website’s role.
It is no longer enough to think in terms of pages to be visited. Websites must be treated as endpoints to be queried.
This means structured data, clean information architecture, and machine-readable content are not just enhancements for rich results. They are the foundation that allows AI systems to interpret and select your content in the first place.
The agentic web is an additional layer on the open web, not a replacement for it. To stay visible, SEO professionals must ensure their websites are structured, accessible, and ready to be queried by intelligent systems.
Visibility in this new layer depends on clarity, interoperability, and infrastructure.
NLWeb was first introduced by Microsoft in May 2025 as an open project designed to make it simple for websites to offer rich natural language interfaces using their own data and model of choice. Later, in November at Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft presented NLWeb again alongside its first enterprise offering through Microsoft Foundry.
At its core, NLWeb aims to make it easy for a website to function like an AI app. Instead of navigating pages manually, users and agents can query a site’s content directly using natural language.
But NLWeb is more than just a conversational layer.
Every NLWeb instance is also a Model Context Protocol, or MCP, server. This means that when a website enables NLWeb, it becomes inherently discoverable and accessible to agents operating within the MCP ecosystem. In simple terms, agents do not need custom integrations for every site. If a website supports NLWeb, agents can recognize it and interact with it in a standardized way.
NLWeb is a conversational layer that interacts with a website and retrieves information
NLWeb builds on formats that websites already use, such as Schema.org and RSS. It combines that structured data with large language models to generate natural language responses. This allows websites to expose their content in a way that both humans and AI agents can understand.
Importantly, NLWeb is technology agnostic. Site owners can choose their preferred infrastructure, models, and databases. The goal is interoperability, not platform lock-in.
In many ways, NLWeb is positioned to play a role in the agentic web similar to what HTML did for the early web. It provides a shared communication layer that allows agents to query websites directly, without relying only on traditional crawling or visual interfaces.
How is NLWeb different from standard LLM citations?
With standard LLM citations, the model generates an answer first, then adds sources. The response is still probabilistic, which can introduce inaccuracies or hallucinations.
NLWeb works differently.
It treats the language model as a smart retrieval layer. Instead of inventing answers, it pulls verified objects directly from the website’s structured data and presents them in natural language.
That distinction matters. It means responses are grounded in the publisher’s own data from the start, reducing the risk of hallucination and giving site owners greater control over how their content is represented.
What NLWeb means for the agentic web
The agentic web depends on systems being able to communicate at scale. Agents cannot manually interpret every interface or navigate every page visually. They need structured, machine-readable access.
NLWeb helps enable that.
Instead of requiring custom integrations for every assistant or platform, a website can expose an NLWeb-enabled endpoint. Agents only need to know that a site supports NLWeb. The protocol handles how requests are made and how responses are structured.
This supports a more distributed ecosystem. The goal is not to let one chatbot control everything. Intelligence must be distributed across the web.
Generative interfaces do not replace content. They depend on well-structured, accessible content. When an AI system summarizes results or compares options, it is still drawing from the information that websites provide. NLWeb simply creates a clearer path for that interaction.
Yoast’s collaboration with NLweb and what it means for WordPress users
As part of the NLWeb announcement, Microsoft highlighted Yoast as a partner helping bring agentic search capabilities to WordPress. You can read more about this collaboration in our official press announcement on Yoast and Microsoft’s NLWeb integration.
For many WordPress site owners, concepts like infrastructure, endpoints, and protocols can feel abstract. That is exactly where preparation matters.
While Yoast does not automatically deploy NLWeb for users, the schema aggregation feature in Yoast SEO, Yoast SEO Premium, Yoast WooCommerce SEO, and Yoast SEO AI+ organizes and structures content, making it significantly easier to build NLWeb. When site owners enable the relevant Yoast feature, nothing changes visually on the front end. What changes is the underlying structure.
In short, we map and organize structured data to reduce the technical effort required to build NLWeb on top of it. In other words, we help publishers complete much of the groundwork.
The agentic web is not about chasing a trend. It is about ensuring your content remains discoverable, understandable, and usable in a world where intelligent systems increasingly act on behalf of users.
I’m a Computer Science grad who accidentally stumbled into writing—and stayed because I fell in love with it. Over the past six years, I’ve been deep in the world of SEO and tech content, turning jargon into stories that actually make sense. When I’m not writing, you’ll probably find me lifting weights to balance my love for food (because yes, gym and biryani can coexist) or catching up with friends over a good cup of chai.
Natural language is quickly becoming the default way people interact with online tools. Instead of typing a few keywords, users now ask full questions, give detailed instructions, and are starting to expect clear, conversational answers. So, how can you make sure your content provides the answer to their question? Or better yet, how can you make it possible for them to interact with your website in a similar way? That’s where Microsoft’s NLWeb comes in.
Meet NLWeb, Microsoft’s new open project
NLWeb, short for Natural Language Web, is an open project recently launched by Microsoft. The aim of this project is to bring conversational interfaces directly to websites, rather than users having to use an external chatbot that’s in control of what’s shown. Instead of relying on traditional navigation or search bars, NLWeb is designed to allow users to ask questions and explore content in a more personal, conversational way.
At its core, NLWeb connects website content to AI-powered tools. It enables AI to understand what a website is about, what information it contains, and how that information should be interpreted for the purpose of returning personalized results. With this project, Microsoft is moving toward a more interoperable, standards-based, and open web that allows everyone to prepare their website for the future of search.
This project was initiated and realized by R.V. Guha, CVP and Technical Fellow at Microsoft. Guha is one of the creators of widely used web standards such as RSS and Schema.org.
How NLWeb works
NLWeb works by combining structured data, standardized APIs and AI models capable of understanding natural language. Every NLWeb instance acts as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which makes your content discoverable for all the agents operating in the MCP ecosystem. This makes it easy for these agents to find your website.
Using structured data, website owners then present their content in a machine-readable way. AI applications can then consume this data and answer user questions accurately by matching them to the most relevant information. The result is a conversational experience powered by existing content, either directly on a website or through using an online search tool. A conversational interface for both human users and AI agents collecting information.
An important thing to note is that NLWeb is an open project. It’s not a closed ecosystem, meaning that Microsoft wants to make it accessible to everyone. The idea is to make it easy for any website owner to create an intelligent, natural language experience for their site, while also preparing their content to interact with and be discovered by other online agents, such as AI tools and search engines.
How does natural language work?
Natural language simply refers to the way we speak and write. This means using full sentences that allow room for intent, context and nuance. More than keywords or short commands, natural language reflects how people think and what they are looking for exactly.
To give you an example: a focus keyphrase might be running shoes trail. But using natural language, the request would look more like this: What are the best running shoes for trail running in wet conditions?
Natural language in AI tools
Modern AI tools are designed to understand this kind of input. The large language models behind these tools can analyze intent and context to generate responses that fulfill the given request. This is why conversational interfaces feel more intuitive than traditional search or forms.
Tools like AI chat assistants, voice search, and even traditional search engines rely heavily on natural language understanding and users have quickly adapted to it.
The current state of search
The way people find information online is changing fast. A change that is heavily influenced by the use of AI-powered tools. We now expect personalized answers instead of a list of results to sort through ourselves. AI chatbots also give us the option to follow up on our original search query, which turns search into a conversation instead of a series of clicks.
Research from McKinsey & Company shows that AI adoption and natural language interfaces are becoming mainstream, with 50% of consumers already using AI-driven tools for information discovery. The majority even say it’s the top digital source they use to make buying decisions. As these habits continue to grow, websites that aren’t optimized for natural language risk becoming invisible in AI-generated answers.
Why this is interesting for you
The shift to natural language isn’t just a technical trend. As discussed above, it directly impacts your online visibility and competitive position.
If users ask an AI system for information, only a handful of sources will be referenced in the response. This is because, like search engines, AI platforms also need to be able to read the information on your website. Being one of those sources can be the difference between being discovered or being overlooked.
NLWeb collaborates with Yoast
With NLWeb, you are communicating your website’s content clearly and in a standardized way. That means your brand, products, or expertise can appear in AI-powered answers instead of your competitors. To help as many website owners as possible benefit from this shift, Yoast is collaborating with NLWeb.
The best part? If you’re a user of any of our Yoast plans designed for WordPress, you’re well ahead here. Yoast’s integration with NLWeb will roll out in phases, starting with functionality that helps our users using WordPress express their content in ways AI systems can interpret accurately, without any additional setup required. So sit tight and let us help you prepare your website for the new world of search!
NLWeb aims to make your content understandable not just for people, but for the AI systems that are increasingly relevant to your website’s discovery.
The open web is the part of the internet built on open standards that anyone can use. This concept creates a democratic digital space where people can build on each other’s work without restrictions, just like how WordPress.org is built. For website owners, understanding and leveraging the open web is increasingly crucial. Especially with the rise of AI-powered systems and the general direction that online search is taking. So, let’s explore what the open web is and what it means for your website.
What is the open web?
The open web refers to the part of the internet built on open, shared standards that are available to everyone. It’s powered by technologies like HTTP, HTML, RSS, and Schema.org, which make it easy for websites and online systems to interact with each other. But it is more than just technical protocols. It also includes open‑source code, public APIs, and the free flow of data and content across sites, services, and devices. Creating a democratic digital space where people can build on each other’s work without heavy restrictions.
Because these standards are not owned or patented, the open web remains largely decentralized. This allows content to be accessed, understood, and reused across devices and platforms. This not only encourages innovation but also ensures that information is discoverable without being locked behind proprietary ecosystems.
The benefits of an open web
The open web is built on publicly available protocols that enable access, collaboration, and innovation at a global scale.
The most important benefits include:
Collaboration and innovation: Open protocols enable developers to build on each other’s work without proprietary restrictions.
Accessibility: Users and AI agents alike can access and interact with web content regardless of device, platform, or underlying technology.
Democratization: No single company controls access to information, giving publishers greater autonomy.
Inclusion: The open web creates a more level playing field, where everyone gets a chance to participate in the digital economy.
The open web vs the deep web
To give you a better idea of what the open web is, it helps to know about the “deep web” and closed or “walled garden” platforms. The deep web covers content not indexed by search engines, while closed systems or walled gardens restrict access and keep data siloed.
On the open web, anyone can access information freely. A good example of that is Wikipedia. Accessible to anyone looking for information on a topic and anyone who wants to contribute to its content. Closed-off platforms, like proprietary apps or social media ecosystems, create places where content is only available if you pay or use a specific service. Well-known examples of this are social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Another example is a news website that requires a paid subscription to get access.
In essence, the open web keeps information discoverable, accessible, and interoperable – instead of locked inside a handful of platforms.
AI and the open web
The popularity of AI-powered search makes open web principles more important than ever. Decentralized and accessible information allows AI tools to interact with content directly and use it freely to generate an answer for a user.
“We believe the future of AI is grounded in the open web.”
Ramanathan Guha, CVP and Technical Fellow at Microsoft.
Microsoft’s open project NLWeb is a prime example. It provides a standardized layer that enables AI agents to discover, understand, and interact with websites efficiently, without needing separate integrations for every platform.
What this means for website owners
For website owners, including small business owners, embracing the open web means making your content freely available in ways that AI can interpret. By using structured data standards like Schema.org, your website becomes discoverable to AI tools. Increasing your reach and ensuring that your content remains part of the future of search.
Yoast and Microsoft: collaborating towards a more open web
Yoast is proud to collaborate with NLWeb, a Microsoft project that makes your content easier to understand for AI agents without extra effort from website owners. Allowing your content to remain discoverable, reach a wider audience with and show up in AI-powered search results.
The open web strives towards an accessible web where content is available for everyone. A web where it doesn’t matter how big your website or marketing budget is. Giving everyone the chance to be found and represented in AI-powered search. NLWeb helps turn this vision into reality by connecting today’s open web with tomorrow’s AI-driven search ecosystem
Structured data helps search engines, Large Language Models (LLMs), AI assistants, and other tools understand your website. Using Schema.org and JSON-LD, you make your content clearer and easier to use across platforms. This guide explains what structured data is, why it matters today, and how you can set it up the right way.
Key takeaways
Structured data helps search engines and AI better understand your website, enhancing visibility and eligibility for rich results.
Using Schema.org and JSON-LD improves content clarity and connects different pieces of information graphically.
Implementing structured data today prepares your content for future technologies and AI applications.
Yoast SEO simplifies structured data implementation by automatically generating schema for various content types.
Focus on key elements like business details and products to maximize the impact of your structured data.
Table of contents
What is structured data?
Structured data is a way to tell computers exactly what’s on your web page. Using a standard set of tags from Schema.org, you can identify important details, like whether a page is about a product, a review, an article, an event, or something else.
This structured format helps search engines, AI assistants, LLMs, and other tools understand your content quickly and accurately. As a result, your site may qualify for special features in search results and can be recognized more easily by digital assistants or new AI applications.
Structured data is written in code, with JSON-LD being the most common format. Adding it to your pages gives your content a better chance to be found and understood, both now and as new technologies develop.
Below is a simple example of structured data using Schema.org in JSON-LD format. This is a basic schema for a product with review properties. This code tells search engines that the page is a product (Product). It provides the name and description of the product, pricing information, the URL, plus product ratings and reviews. This allows search engines to understand your products and present your content in search results.
Product Title
Why do you need structured data?
Structured data gives computers a clear map of what’s on your website. It spells out details about your products, reviews, events, and much more in a format that’s easy for search engines and other systems to process.
This clarity leads to better visibility in search, including features like star ratings, images, or additional links. But the impact reaches further now. Structured data also helps AI assistants, voice search tools, and new web platforms like chatbots powered by Large Language Models understand and represent your content with greater accuracy.
New standards, such as NLWeb (Natural Language Web) and MCP (Model Context Protocol), are emerging to help different systems share and interpret web content consistently. Adding structured data today not only gives your site an advantage in search but also prepares it for a future where your content will flow across more platforms and digital experiences.
The effort you put into structured data now sets up your content to be found, used, and displayed in many places where people search and explore online.
Is structured data important for SEO?
Structured data plays a key role in how your website appears in search results. It helps search engines understand and present your content with extra features, such as review stars, images, and additional links. These enhanced listings can catch attention and drive more clicks to your site.
While using structured data doesn’t directly increase your rankings, it does make your site eligible for these rich results. That alone can set you apart from competitors. As search engines evolve and adopt new standards, well-structured data ensures your content stays visible and accessible in the latest search features.
For SEO, structured data is about making your site stand out, improving user experience, and giving your content the best shot at being discovered, both now and as search technology changes.
Structured data can lead to rich results
By describing your site for search engines, you allow them to do exciting things with your content. Schema.org and its support are constantly developing, improving, and expanding. As structured data forms the basis for many new developments in the SEO world, there will be more shortly. Below is an overview of the rich search results available; examples are in Google’s Search Gallery.
Structured data type
Example use/description
Article
News, blog, or sports article
Breadcrumb
Navigation showing page position
Carousel
Gallery/list from one site (with Recipe, Course, Movie, Restaurant)
Course list
Lists of educational courses
Dataset
Large datasets (Google Dataset Search)
Discussion forum
User-generated forum content
Education Q&A
Education flashcard Q&As
Employer aggregate rating
Ratings about employers in job search results
Event
Concerts, festivals, and other events
FAQ
Frequently asked questions pages
Image metadata
Image creator, credit, and license details
Job posting
Listings for job openings
Local business
Business details: hours, directions, ratings
Math solver
Structured data for math problems
Movie
Lists of movies, movie details
Organization
About your company: name, logo, contact, etc.
Practice problem
Education practice problems for students
Product
Product listings with price, reviews, and more
Profile page
Info on a single person or organization
Q&A
Pages with a single question and answers
Recipe
Cooking recipes, steps, and ingredients
Review snippet
Short review/rating summaries
Software app
Ratings and details on apps or software
Speakable
Content for text-to-speech on Google Assistant
Subscription and paywalled content
Mark articles/content behind a paywall
Vacation rental
Details about vacation property listings
Video
Video info, segments, and live content
The rich results formerly known as rich snippets
You might have heard the term “rich snippets” before. Google now calls these enhancements “rich results.” Rich results are improved search listings that use structured data to show extra information, like images, reviews, product details, or FAQs, directly in search.
For example, a product page marked up with structured data can show its price, whether it’s in stock, and customer ratings right below the search listing, even before someone clicks. Here’s what that might look like:
Some listings offer extra information, like star ratings or product details
With rich results, users see helpful details up front—such as a product’s price, star ratings, or stock status. This can make your listing stand out and attract more clicks.
Keep in mind, valid structured data increases your chances of getting rich results, but display is controlled by Google’s systems and is never guaranteed.
Results like this often appear more prominently on mobile devices. Search listings with structured data can display key information, like product prices, ratings, recipes, or booking options, in a mobile-friendly format. Carousels, images, and quick actions are designed for tapping and swiping with your finger.
For example, searching for a recipe on your phone might bring up a swipeable carousel showing photos, cooking times, and ratings for each dish. Product searches can highlight prices, availability, and reviews right in the results, helping users make decisions faster.
Many people now use mobile search as their default search method. Well-implemented structured data not only improves your visibility on mobile but can also make your content easier for users to explore and act on from their phones. To stay visible and competitive, regularly check your markup and make sure it works smoothly on mobile devices.
Knowledge Graph Panel
A knowledge panel
The Knowledge Graph Panel shows key facts about businesses, organizations, or people beside search results on desktop and at the top on mobile. It can include your logo, business description, location, contact details, and social profiles.
Using structured data, especially Organization, LocalBusiness, or Person markup with current details, helps Google recognize and display your entity accurately. Include recommended fields like your official name, logo, social links (using sameAs), and contact info.
Entity verification is becoming more important. Claim your Knowledge Panel through Google, and make sure your information is consistent across your website, social media, and trusted directories. Major search engines and AI assistants use this entity data for results, summaries, and answers, not just in search but also in AI-powered interfaces and smart devices.
While Google decides who appears in the Knowledge Panel and what details are shown, reliable structured data, verified identity, and a clear online presence give you the best chance of being featured.
Different kinds of structured data
Schema.org includes many types of structured data. You don’t need to use them all, just focus on what matches your site’s content. For example:
If you sell products, use product schema
For restaurant or local business sites, use local business schema
Recipe sites should add recipe schema
Before adding structured data, decide which parts of your site you want to highlight. Check Google’s or other search engines’ documentation to see which types are supported and what details they require. This helps ensure you are using the markup that will actually make your content stand out in search and other platforms.
How Yoast SEO helps with structured data
Yoast SEO automatically adds structured data to your site using smart defaults, making it easier for search engines and platforms to understand your content. The plugin supports a wide range of content types, like articles, products, local businesses, and FAQs, without the need for manual schema coding.
With Yoast SEO, you can:
With a few clicks, set the right content type for each page (such as ContactPage, Product, or Article)
Use built-in WordPress blocks for FAQs and How-tos, which generate valid schema automatically
Link related entities across your site, such as authors, brands, and organizations, to help search engines see the big picture
Adjust schema details per page or post through the plugin’s settings
Yoast SEO also offers an extensible structured data platform. Developers can build on top of Yoast’s schema framework, add custom schema types, or connect other plugins. This helps advanced users or larger sites tailor their structured data for specific content, integrations, or new standards.
Yoast keeps pace with updates to structured data guidelines, so your markup stays aligned with what Google and other platforms support. This makes it easier to earn rich results and other search enhancements.
Yoast SEO helps you fine-tune your schema structured data settings per page
Which structured data types matter most?
When adding structured data, focus first on the types that have the biggest impact on visibility and features in Google Search. These forms of schema are widely supported, trigger rich results, and apply to most kinds of sites:
Most important structured data types
Article: For news sites, blogs, and sports publishers. Adding Article schema can enable rich results like Top Stories, article carousels, and visual enhancements
Product: Essential for ecommerce. Product schema helps show price, stock status, ratings, and reviews right in search. This type is key for online stores and retailers
Event: For concerts, webinars, exhibitions, or any scheduled events. Event schema can display dates, times, and locations directly in search results, making it easier for people to find and attend
Recipe: This is for food blogs and cooking sites. The recipe schema supports images, cooking times, ratings, and step-by-step instructions as rich results, giving your recipes extra prominence in search
FAQPage: For any page with frequently asked questions. This markup can expand your search listing with Q&A drop-downs, helping users get answers fast
QAPage: For online communities, forums, or support sites. QAPage schema helps surface full question-and-answer threads in search
ReviewSnippet: This markup is for feedback on products, books, businesses, or services. It can display star ratings and short excerpts, adding trust signals to your listings
LocalBusiness is vital for local shops, restaurants, and service providers. It supplies address, hours, and contact info, supporting your visibility in the map pack and Knowledge Panel
Organization: Use this to describe your brand or company with a logo, contact details, and social profiles. Organization schema feeds into Google’s Knowledge Panel and builds your online presence
Video: Mark up video content to enable video previews, structured timestamps (key moments), and improved video visibility
Breadcrumb: This feature shows your site’s structure within Google’s results, making navigation easier and your site look more reputable
Other valuable or sector-specific types:
Course: Highlight educational course listings and details for training providers or schools
JobPosting: Share open roles in job boards or company careers pages, making jobs discoverable in Google’s job search features
SoftwareApp: For software and app details, including ratings and download links
Movie: Used for movies and film listings, supporting carousels in entertainment searches and extra movie details
Dataset: Makes large sets of research or open data discoverable in Google Dataset Search
DiscussionForum: Surfaces user-generated threads in dedicated “Forums” search features
ProfilePage: Used for pages focused on an individual (author profiles, biographies) or organization
EmployerAggregateRating: Displays company ratings and reviews in job search results
PracticeProblem: For educational sites offering practice questions or test prep
VacationRental: Displays vacation property listings and details in travel results
Special or supporting types:
Person: This helps Google recognize and understand individual people for entity and Knowledge Panel purposes (it does not create a direct rich result)
Book: Can improve book search features, usually through review or product snippets
Speakable: Reserved for news sites and voice assistant features; limited support
Image metadata, Math Solver, Subscription/Paywalled content: Niche markups that help Google properly display, credit, or flag special content
Carousel: Used in combination with other types (like Recipe or Movie) to display a list or gallery format in results
When choosing which schema to add, always select types that match your site’s actual content. Refer to Google’s Search Gallery for the latest guidance and requirements for each type.
Adding the right structured data makes your pages eligible for rich results, enhances your visibility, and prepares your content for the next generation of search features and AI-powered platforms.
Voice search remains important, with a significant share of online queries now coming from voice-enabled devices. Structured data helps content be understood and, in some cases, selected as an answer for voice results.
The Speakable schema (for marking up sections meant to be read aloud by voice assistants) is still officially supported, but adoption is mostly limited to news content. Google and other assistants also use a broader mix of signals, like content clarity, authority, E-E-A-T, and traditional structured data, to power their spoken answers.
If you publish news or regularly answer concise, fact-based questions, consider using Speakable markup. For other content types, focus on structured data and well-organized, user-focused pages to improve your chances of being chosen by voice assistants. Voice search and voice assistants continue to draw on featured snippets, clear Q&A, and trusted sources.
Structured data uses Schema.org’s hierarchy. This vocabulary starts with broad types like Thing and narrows down to specific ones, such as Product, Movie, or LocalBusiness. Every type has its own properties, and more specific types inherit from their ancestors. For example, a Movie is a type of CreativeWork, which is a type of Thing.
When adding structured data, select the most specific type that fits your content. For a movie, this means using the Movie schema. For a local company, choose the type of business that best matches your offering under LocalBusiness.
Properties
Every Schema.org type includes a range of properties. While you can add many details, focus on the properties that Google or other search engines require or recommend for rich results. For example, a LocalBusiness should include your name, address, phone number, and, if possible, details such as opening hours, geo-coordinates, website, and reviews. You’ll find our Local SEO plugin (available in Yoast SEO Premium) very helpful if you need help with your local business markup.
Properties: name, address, phone, email, openingHours, geo, review, logo
The more complete and accurate your markup, the greater your chances of being displayed with enhanced features like Knowledge Panels or map results. For details on recommended properties, always check Google’s up-to-date structured data documentation.
In the local business example, you’ll see that Google lists several required properties, like your business’s NAP (Name and Phone) details. There are also recommended properties, like URLs, geo-coordinates, opening hours, etc. Try to fill out as many of these as possible because search engines will only give you the whole presentation you want.
Structured data should be a graph
When you add structured data to your site, you’re not just identifying individual items, but you’re building a data graph. A graph in this context is a web of connections between all the different elements on your site, such as articles, authors, organizations, products, and events. Each entity is linked to others with clear relationships. For instance, an article can be marked as written by a certain author, published by your organization, and referencing a specific product. These connections help search engines and AI systems see the bigger picture of how everything on your site fits together.
Creating a fully connected data graph removes ambiguity. It allows search engines to understand exactly who created content, what brand a product belongs to, or where and when an event takes place, rather than making assumptions based on scattered information. This detailed understanding increases the chances that your site will qualify for rich results, Knowledge Panels, and other enhanced features in search. As your website grows, a well-connected graph also makes it easier to add new content or expand into new areas, since everything slots into place in a way that search engines can quickly process and understand.
Yoast SEO builds a graph
With Yoast SEO, many of the key connections are generated automatically, giving your site a solid foundation. Still, understanding the importance of building a connected data graph helps you make better decisions when structuring your own content or customizing advanced schema. A thoughtful, well-linked graph sets your site up for today’s search features, while making it more adaptable for the future.
Your schema should be a well-formed graph for easier understanding by search engines and AI
Beyond search: AI, assistants, and interoperability
Structured data isn’t just about search results. It’s a map that helps AI assistants, knowledge graphs, and cross‑platform apps understand your content. It’s not just about showing a richer listing; it’s about enabling reliable AI interpretation and reuse across contexts.
Today, the primary payoff is still better search experiences. Tomorrow, AI systems and interoperable platforms will rely on clean, well‑defined data to summarize, reason about, and reuse your content. That shift makes data quality more important than ever.
Practical steps for today
Keep your structured data clean with a few simple habits. Use the same names for people, organizations, and products every time they appear across your site. Connect related information so search engines can see the links. For example, tie each article to its author or a product to its brand. Fill in all the key details for your main schema types and make sure nothing is missing. After making changes or adding new content, run your markup through a validation tool. If you add any custom fields or special schema, write down what they do so others can follow along later. Doing quick checks now and then keeps your data accurate and ready for both search engines and AI.
Interoperability, MCP, and the role of structured data
More and more, AI systems and search tools are looking for websites that are easy to understand, not just for people but also for machines. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is gaining ground as a way for language models like Google Gemini and ChatGPT to use the structured data already present on your website. MCP draws on formats like Schema.org and JSON-LD to help AI match up the connections between things such as products, authors, and organizations.
Another project, the Natural Language Web (NLWeb), an open project developed by Microsoft, aims to make web content easier for AI to use in conversation and summaries. NLWeb builds on concepts like MCP, but hasn’t become a standard yet. For now, most progress and adoption are happening with MCP, and large language models are focusing their efforts on this area.
Using Schema.org and JSON-LD to keep your structured data clean (no duplicate entities), complete (all indexable content included), and connected (relationships preserved) will prepare you for search engines and new AI-driven features appearing across the web.
Schema.org and JSON-LD: the foundation you can trust
Schema.org and JSON-LD remain the foundation for structured data on the web. They enable today’s rich results in search and form the basis for how AI systems will interpret web content in the future. JSON-LD should be your default format for new markup, allowing you to build structured data graphs that are clean, accurate, and easy to maintain. Focus on accuracy in your markup rather than unnecessary complexity.
To future-proof your data, prioritize stable identifiers such as @id and use clear types to reduce ambiguity. Maintain strong connections between related entities across your pages. If you develop custom extensions to your structured data, document them thoroughly so both your team and automated tools can understand their purpose.
Design your schema so that components can be added or removed without disrupting the entire graph. Make a habit of running validations and audits after you change your site’s structure or content.
Finally, stay current by following guidance and news from official sources, including updates about standards such as NLWeb and MCP, to ensure your site remains compatible with both current search features and new interoperability initiatives.
What do you need to describe for search engines?
To get the most value from structured data, focus first on the most important elements of your site. Describe the details that matter most for users and for search, such as your business information, your main products or services, reviews, events, or original articles. These core pieces of information are what search engines look for to understand your site and display enhanced results.
Rather than trying to mark up everything, start with the essentials that best match your content. As your experience grows, you can build on this foundation by adding more detail and creating links between related entities. Accurate, well-prioritized markup is both easier to maintain and more effective in helping your site stand out in search results and across new AI-driven features.
How to implement structured data
We’d like to remind you that Yoast SEO comes with an excellent structured data implementation. It’ll automatically handle most sites’ most pressing structured data needs. Of course, as mentioned below, you can extend our structured data framework as your needs become bigger.
Do the Yoast SEO configuration and get your site’s structured data set up in a few clicks! The configuration is available for all Yoast SEO users to help you get your plugin configured correctly. It’s quick, it’s easy, and doing it will pay off. Plus, if you’re using the new block editor in WordPress you can also add structured data to your FAQ pages and how-to articles using our structured data content blocks.
Thanks to JSON-LD, there’s nothing scary about adding the data to your pages anymore. This JavaScript-based data format makes it much easier to add structured data since it forms a block of code and is no longer embedded in the HTML of your page. This makes it easier to write and maintain, plus both humans and machines better understand it. If you need help implementing JSON-LD structured data, you can enroll in our free Structured Data for Beginners course, our Understanding Structured Data course, or read Google’s introduction to structured data.
Structured data with JSON-LD
JSON-LD is the recommended way to add structured data to your site. All major search engines, including Google and Bing, now fully support this format. JSON-LD is easy to implement and maintain, as it keeps your structured data separate from the main HTML.
Yoast SEO automatically creates a structured data graph for every page, connecting key elements like articles, authors, products, and organizations. This approach helps search engines and AI systems understand your site’s structure. Our developer resources include detailed Schema documentation and example graphs, making it straightforward to extend or customize your markup as your site grows.
Yoast SEO automatically handles much of the structured data in the background. You could extend our Schema framework, of course — see the next chapter –, but if adding code by hand seems scary, you could try some of the tools listed below. If you need help with how to proceed, ask your web developer for help. They will fix this for you in a couple of minutes.
Generators
Validators and test tools
WordPress Plugins
Yoast SEO Local (Our Local SEO plugin adds Schema.org for your business details, like address, geo-location, opening hours, etc.)
Yoast SEO uses JSON-LD to add Schema.org information about your site search, your site name, your logo, images, articles, social profiles, and a lot more to your web pages. We ask if your site represents a person or an organization and adapt our structured data based on that. Also, our structured data content blocks for the WordPress block editor make it easy to add structured data to your FAQs and How-Tos. Check out the structured data features in Yoast SEO.
The Yoast SEO Schema structured data framework
Implementing structured data has always been challenging. Also, the results of most of those implementations often needed improvement. At Yoast, we set out to enhance the Schema output for millions of sites. For this, we built a Schema framework, which can be adapted and extended by anyone. We combined all those loose bits and pieces of structured data that appear on many sites, improved these, and put them in a graph. By interconnecting all these bits, we offer search engines all your connections on a silver platter.
See this video for more background on the schema graph.
Of course, there’s a lot more to it. We can also extend Yoast SEO output by adding specific Schema pieces, like how-tos or FAQs. We built structured data content blocks for use in the WordPress block editor. We’ve also enabled other WordPress plugins to integrate with our structured data framework, like Easy Digital Downloads, The Events Calendar, Seriously Simple Podcasting, and WP Recipe Maker, with more to come. Together, these help you remove barriers for search engines and users, as it has always been challenging to work with structured data.
Expanding your structured data implementation
A structured and focused approach is key to successful Schema.org markup on your website. Start by understanding Schema.org and how structured data can influence your site’s presence in search and beyond. Resources like Yoast’s developer portal offer useful insights into building flexible and future-proof markup.
Always use JSON-LD as recommended by Google, Bing, and Yoast. This format is easy to maintain and works well with modern websites. To maximize your implementation, use tools and frameworks that allow you to add, customize, and connect Schema.org data efficiently. Yoast SEO’s structured data framework, for example, enables seamless schema integration and extensibility across your site.
Validate your structured data regularly with tools like the Rich Results Test or Schema Markup Validator and monitor Google Search Console’s Enhancements reports for live feedback. Reviewing your markup helps you fix issues early and spot opportunities for richer results as search guidelines change. Periodically revisiting your strategy keeps your markup accurate and effective as new types and standards emerge.
Read up
By following the guidelines and adopting a comprehensive approach, you can successfully get structured data on your pages and enhance the effectiveness of your schema.org markup implementation for a robust SEO performance. Read the Yoast SEO Schema documentation to learn how Yoast SEO works with structured data, how you can extend it via an API, and how you can integrate it into your work.
Several WordPress plugins already integrate their structured data into the Yoast SEO graph
Structured data has become an essential part of building a visible, findable, and adaptable website. Using Schema.org and JSON-LD not only helps search engines understand your content but also sets your site up for better performance in new AI-driven features, rich results, and across platforms.
Start by focusing on the most important parts of your site, like business information, products, articles, or events, and grow your structured data as your needs evolve. Connected, well-maintained markup now prepares your site for search, AI, and whatever comes next in digital content.
Explore our documentation and training resources to learn more about best practices, advanced integrations, or how Yoast SEO can simplify structured data. Investing the time in good markup today will help your content stand out wherever people (or algorithms) find it.
Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.
Having great product pages is important for your sales. After all, it’s where people decide to click that buy button. Besides optimizing your product pages for user experience, you also want to make sure these pages work for your SEO. You might think this is obvious. That’s why we’ll show you a few less obvious elements of product page SEO in this post. And we’ll explain why it’s so important to take these things into account. Let’s go!
Table of contents
1. The basics of product page SEO
First things first: a product page on an online store is a page too. This means that all the SEO things that matter for your content pages matter for your product pages as well. Of course, there’s a lot more to product page SEO. But for now, this will be your basic optimization. Tip: If you offer not-so-exciting products on your site, you may want to read our post on SEO for boring products.
Let’s start with the basics.
A great title
Try to focus on the product name and include the manufacturer’s name, if applicable. In addition, if your product is a small part of a larger machine (screw, tube), for example, you should include the SKU as well. People might search for that specifically.
A proper and unique product description
While it might be tempting to use the same description as the product’s manufacturer, you really shouldn’t. That description might be found on hundreds of websites, which means it’s duplicate contentand a sign of low quality for your website (to Google). Remember, you want to prevent duplicate content at all times!
Now, you might think: “But all my other content (content pages, category pages, blog) is unique!” However, if the content on hundreds of product pages isn’t unique, then the majority of your website’s content still won’t be up to par. So make time to create unique content! And if you need help, the Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin comes with product-specific content and SEO analysis that helps you produce great product descriptions.
An inviting meta description
A product page usually contains a lot of general information, like the product’s dimensions or your company’s terms of service. To avoid Google using that unrelated text in a meta description, you want to add a meta description to your product pages. It’s arguably even more important than adding one to your content pages!
Next, try to come up with unique meta descriptions. This can be difficult sometimes. You might come up with a sort of template, where you only change the product name per product. That’s okay to start with. But ideally, all your meta descriptions should be unique. Yoast SEO has various AI features that will help you with this.
Pick a great and easy-to-remember URL
We recommend using the product name in the URL. However, keep it short and simple so that it is still readable for site visitors.
Add high-quality and well-optimized images with proper ALT text
Include the product name in at least the main product image. This will help you do better in visual search. Also, don’t forget video — if applicable.
Focus on your product page UX
Last but not least: UX, or user experience. This is an important step because it’s all about making your product pages as user-friendly as possible. Plus, it’s an important part of holistic SEO. There are many parts to UX, which is why we wrote a post with product page UX examples. Give it a read!
Enhance product visibility and drive more traffic to your online shop.
2. Add structured data for your products and get rich results
Structured data is an essential part of a modern SEO strategy. You simply can’t do without structured data for your product pages anymore, because they help your product page stand out. For example, there is a specific Product schema that helps you get highlighted search results, so-called rich results. These are great for your site’s visibility, and they can also increase your click-through rate! And if you mark up customers’ reviews with Review structured data, they will show up in the search results. Seeing those beautiful stars underneath a product page will convince people they should check out your site!
Another reason to add it is to manage customers’ expectations. Your visitors will know your price up front and that the product is still in stock. How’s that for user experience?
Search engines and AI/LLMs will understand your page better
Structured data is also important for your product page SEO because the major search engines came up with this markup, not the W3C consortium. Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex agreed upon this markup, so they could identify product pages and all the product elements and characteristics more easily. Why? So they could a) understand these pages a lot better and b) show you rich snippets like this:
That’s a lot of info in the search results, right?
The Product schema tells the search engine more about the product. It could include characteristics like product description, manufacturer, brand, name, dimensions, and color, but also the SKU we mentioned earlier. The Offer schema includes more information on price and availability, like currency and stock. It can even include something called priceValidUntil to let search engines know that the price offer is for a limited time only.
Add structured data with Yoast SEO
Boost your website’s presence with powerful schema structured data features, included for free with Yoast SEO.
Options to add structured data for product page SEO
Schema.org has a lot of options, but only a limited set of properties are supported by search engines. For instance, look at Google’s page on product page structured data to see what search engines expect in your code and what they can do with it.
This is why you want to add Schema.org data for product page SEO: It’s easier to recognize for Google, and it makes sure to include important extras in Google already. If you have a WooCommerce shop, our WooCommerce SEO plugin takes care of a lot of this stuff behind the scenes.
A preview of how your product might look in Google thanks to structured data
3. Add real reviews
Reviews are important. In fact, 74% of consumers say that they check reviews on at least two sites before buying anything online or locally. Although not everyone trusts online reviews, many do, so they can be very helpful.
If you are a local company, online reviews are even more important. Most reviews tend to be extremely positive, but it might just be the negative reviews that give a better sense of what is going on with a company or product. In addition, getting awesome testimonials is another way of showing your business means business.
Leading Dutch online store Coolblue gives consumers a lot of options to make relevant and useful reviews of the products they buy
Try to get your customers to leave reviews, then show the reviews on your product page. Do you get a negative review? Contact the writer, find out what’s wrong, and try to mitigate the situation. Maybe they can turn their negative review into a positive one. Plus: You’ve gained new insights into your work.
If you’re not sure how to get those ratings and reviews, check out our blog post: how to get ratings and reviews for your business. And don’t forget to mark up your reviews and ratings with Review and Rating schema so search engines can pick them up and show rich results on the search results pages.
4. Make your product page lightning fast
Nobody enjoys waiting, especially when browsing on a mobile device. Many shoppers are now using their phones to make purchases, so speed on your product pages is crucial. Visitors expect instant access to content, and search engines reward that expectation. Compress images, implement responsive design, and streamline scripts to enhance load times. Regularly test your mobile layout to identify and fix problems before they impact your users. Prioritizing mobile performance not only satisfies your customers but also aligns with search engine preferences, potentially boosting your SEO rankings and increasing traffic.
Looking at numbers in Google Analytics, Search Console, or other analytical tools can give you insight into how people find and interact with your page. These insights can help you improve the performance of a page even more. But there’s another way to ensure that your product page is as awesome as it can be: user testing. There are also many ways to get more value from site visitors with A/B testing.
How user testing can help you
Testers can find loads of issues for you, such as terrible use of images (including non-functioning galleries), bad handling of out-of-stock products, or inaccurate shipping and return information, which can lead to trust issues. Now, you might be thinking: Surely, my website doesn’t have those issues! But you’d be surprised.
In their Product Page UX research project, the Baymard Institute found that:
“The high-level benchmark results show that only 49% of e-commerce sites have an overall ‘decent’ or ‘good’ UX performance for their product pages, while 51% of sites have ‘mediocre’ or worse product page implementations. On the extreme ends of performance, only a couple of sites had a very ‘poor’ Product Page UX performance that failed to align with commonly observed user behavior in our large-scale PDP testing. This is a fortunate shift upward from 2021, which previously had 4% of sites with below ‘poor’ performances. At the other end of the scale, there aren’t any sites with an overall ‘Perfect’ or ‘“’State of the Art’ product page implementation (unchanged since 2021).
The Baymard report has loads of insights into the most common errors seen on product pages
While you compare your product pages to external user research, don’t forget to do your own user testing! Doing proper research will give you eye-opening results that you probably wouldn’t have found yourself.
Bonus: Build trust and show people your authenticity
Getting a stranger to buy something on your site involves a lot of trust. Someone needs to know you are authentic before handing you their hard-earned money, right? Google puts a lot of emphasis on the element of trust — It’s all over their famous Search Quality Raters Guidelines. The search engine tries to evaluate trust and expertise by looking at online reviews, the accolades a site or its authors receive, and much more.
Brand perception in AI and LLMs
AI search engines and LLMs also assess these trust factors to shape how your brand is presented. They analyze reviews, schema, and overall credibility to produce an accurate portrayal. A trustworthy online presence can positively influence how these systems perceive and convey your brand to users.
This is why it’s so important that your About Us and Customer Service pages are in order. Make sure people can easily find your contact information, information about returns and shipping, payment, privacy, etc. This will build trust with your customers. So, don’t forget!
Social proof is another way to build trust with your customers. Adding social proof to your product pages can significantly influence buying decisions. Display customer reviews, testimonials, and ratings to build trust and demonstrate real-life experiences. Include trust badges, like security symbols or industry awards, to boost credibility. Encourage happy customers to share photos or videos of your products and showcase this content on your website. These elements help assure visitors that your products are both credible and valued by others.
Conclusion: Be serious about your product page SEO
If you’re serious about optimizing your product page, you shouldn’t focus on regular SEO and user experience alone. You’ll have to dig deeper into other aspects of your product pages. For instance, you could add the Product and Offer Schema, so Google can easily index all the details about your product and show these as rich results in the search results. In addition, you should make your product pages fast, add user reviews, and try to enhance your website’s trustworthiness. And don’t forget to test everything you do!
Need a helping hand? Be sure to check out our ecommerce SEO training course. Learn what ecommerce SEO entails, how to optimize your site, and boost your online presence. Want to get your products ranking in the shopping search results? We’ll tell you how. Start your free trial lesson today! Full access to Yoast SEO Academy is included in Yoast SEO Premium, which also includes all other plugins — including Local SEO for optimizing your performance in local search.
Check out our overview of product page must-haves
To help you stay on top of your product pages, we created a PDF that you can use to optimize your product pages. Most of what’s discussed in this blog post can be found in the PDF, plus more tips! Just click on the image to go to the PDF and download it.
Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.
