Schema markup is structured data code you add to your HTML that tells search engines exactly what your content means. Instead of guessing whether a number on your page is a price, a rating, or a date, the search engine reads your schema and knows for certain. This lets Google, Bing, and others display enhanced search results—star ratings, event dates, product prices, FAQ dropdowns—directly in the SERP. The markup uses a standardized vocabulary from Schema.org, a collaborative project by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex. You implement it in one of three formats: JSON-LD (recommended by Google, lives in a script tag), Microdata (inline HTML attributes), or RDFa (less common). JSON-LD is cleanest because it sits in the head or footer without cluttering your visible HTML. Common schema types include Article, Product, LocalBusiness, Event, FAQ, HowTo, and Review. For an Ottawa plumbing company, LocalBusiness schema tells Google your NAP (name, address, phone), service area, hours, and aggregate rating. For a blog post, Article schema flags the headline, author, publish date, and featured image. Google uses this to populate rich snippets, knowledge panels, and carousels. Schema doesn't directly boost rankings—it's not a ranking factor—but it dramatically improves click-through rate when your result shows stars, prices, or event times while competitors show plain blue links. Higher CTR signals relevance, which can indirectly lift rankings over time. We've seen local service pages jump from 2% to 5% CTR after adding LocalBusiness and AggregateRating schema, purely from the visual advantage. At Ottawa SEO, we deploy schema on every relevant page: Organization markup on the homepage, LocalBusiness on location pages, Article on blog posts, Product on e-commerce. We validate with Google's Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator, then monitor Search Console for rich result errors. The key is accuracy—don't mark up content that isn't on the page, or Google will ignore your schema site-wide. Keep it honest, keep it current, and you'll own more SERP real estate than competitors who skip it.