Now that AI-powered search is practically everywhere you look (Google included), marketers have been scrambling to figure out how to optimize their content for generative answers. 

Thus, Generative Search Optimization (GSO) has been born, and it coincides with traditional SEO in many ways. 

One similarity is the importance of using structured data in your content to make it easier for AI tools and search engine crawlers to understand. 

What’s structured data?

As the name implies, it’s data that’s been organized in a consistent or ‘structured’ manner, such as Excel spreadsheets, SQL databases, and Schema.org markup on websites. 

While it may sound intimidating, Schema.org is simply a standardized vocabulary for describing elements on a web page like product listings, reviews, blog posts, and FAQ sections: 

This provides additional clarity to bots and AI tools about the meaning behind your content. For example, schema can help clarify whether a web page is a blog post or a job listing. 

Granted, modern AI tools have sophisticated NLP (natural language processing) so that they can infer meaning from unstructured data (like an article with no schema markup), but using structured data makes things much quicker and easier. 

Beyond that, there’s emerging evidence that schema markup is crucial for improving brand visibility in AI tools like Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews, and ChatGPT, so it’s worth knowing how to use it. 

In this guide, we’ll teach you how to implement structured data on your website for better SEO and GSO, so keep reading! 

What are the Schema Types Most Likely to Influence AI Answers?

Let’s begin by examining the schema markup types that AI tools most often use when looking for online content to cite. 

First, let’s learn a bit more about what schemas are and how they work.  

As stated previously, Schema.org is a shared, standardized vocabulary for structuring data online, and tons of major applications recognize and use it (like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex). 

Before AI tools like ChatGPT emerged, schemas were used to qualify for rich snippets on Google, which are Google results with additional information displayed (think of them as Google Results Plus). 

Here’s a Google search result with rich snippets added:

The rating out of five stars and recipe time were both extracted from the website’s structured data (i.e., the schemas that let Google identify the review and recipe completion time). 

Here’s what a search result looks like without rich snippets:

As you can see, there’s just the hyperlink and meta description here, with no additional information. 

Rich snippets are also how you qualify for SERP features like Featured Snippets and the People Also Ask section. 

AI tools like ChatGPT also use structured data and schemas to better understand your content, so let’s look at the types of schemas they prefer. 

Schema type #1: FAQPage 

First, let’s look at FAQPage, the schema for identifying web pages that answer two or more frequently asked questions. 

FAQPage is crucial to include in blog posts that answer common questions, as it’s a favorite of AI tools and search bots for pulling Q&A snippets for AI summaries and SERP features. 

You should also include the FAQPage schema on product pages that contain FAQs, as well as any help center pages that feature commonly asked questions. 

Here are some best practices for using this type of schema:

  1. Phrase the questions exactly the same way as users ask them in search (i.e., do keyword research to find popular question-based queries). 
  2. Provide clear, succinct answers to questions (short sentences with basic language, no industry jargon). 
  3. Answer questions immediately, don’t meander or go off-topic. 

Also, only use FAQPage if you’re answering multiple questions on a single web page. For content that focuses on a single question (even if there are multiple answers), you should use the QAPage schema instead.  

Schema type #2: HowTo 

The HowTo schema lets AI tools know that you’re explaining how to achieve a desired result through a series of helpful steps. 

Its properties make it easy for AI to pull step-by-step instructions for how-to queries (like ‘how to tie a full windsor knot’). 

You should include the HowTo schema for:

  1. Ultimate guides
  2. Tutorials 
  3. Product assembly instructions 

Including the HowTo schema will boost your E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) because you’re demonstrating your expertise by teaching readers a new skill. 

Without using the HowTo schema, it may not be abundantly clear to crawlers and AI tools that you’re teaching your readers something, so it’s crucial to include it. 

Schema type #3: BlogPosting

If you engage in any type of SEO or content marketing, you’re bound to have blog content on your website. 

Including BlogPosting schema provides search engines and AI with important metadata for blog posts, such as:

  1. The author 
  2. Date 
  3. The subject matter
  4. Publication 
  5. The intended audience 

These attributes are extremely important for strengthening your E-E-A-T on Google, and they make it easier for AI tools to cite your blog content. 

Schema type #4: Product and Review schemas 

So far, we’ve looked at schemas that enhance informational content, but what about schemas for content aimed at generating sales?

The Product and Review schemas come in handy for bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) content like product pages and customer reviews. 

Product schema notifies search engines and AI that products are available for purchase and includes attributes like the manufacturer, materials, and relevant keywords. 

 The Review schema clarifies that the content is reviewing a product (and that users aren’t able to make an immediate purchase there). 

Tips for Auditing and Improving Structured Data 

When it comes to maintaining your structured data, there are two Google tools you should keep at the ready. 

They are:

  • Google’s Rich Results Test. First, Google’s Rich Results test is specifically designed to test your structured data to see if it qualifies for rich snippets. It will clue you in on any major errors or issues it finds, which makes troubleshooting quite easy. 

  • Google Search Console’s Enhancements Report. The Enhancements Report in Google Search Console provides further insights into your structured data. In particular, it lets you know how your structured data has performed over time, and will alert you to missing fields, general issues, and validation errors. 

Periodically using both tools will ensure you’re getting the most out of your structured data and schema markup. 

The Verdict: Should You Use Structured Data to Optimize for AI?

So, knowing what you know now, should you use schemas to enhance your GSO?

Our recommendation is a definite yes. 

After all, including structured data can only help your online visibility in AI tools, and it’s highly beneficial for traditional SEO at the same time. 

In other words, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain! 

Are schema markup and SEO not something you have time for?

Managed SEO is the answer to your prayers, so check out HOTH X to have our expert team launch a winning SEO/GSO campaign for you!