Building Local Trust: A LocalBusiness & FAQ Schema Strategy
Client: A family law firm in a competitive metropolitan area.
Challenges We Faced
The client’s website was well-designed but completely unoptimized for local, high-intent searches:
Low “Map Pack” Rankings
They were invisible for “family lawyer near me.”
No Local Business Schema
A Full Schema Markup Audit found no schema to tell Google their address, phone number (NAP), or hours.
No FAQ & How-To Schema
Their “Practice Area” pages had Q&A sections, but they weren’t marked up, giving them no extra SERP real estate.
Low CTR
Their “plain blue links” were getting lost among competitors who had rich snippets.
Missing Review Schema
Client reviews weren’t marked up, so star ratings didn’t show in search results, lowering click-through rates.
Dominate Your Local Market
“Want to own more search real estate? Our FAQ & How-To Schema service will give you drop-down Q&A’s right in the search results.”
Our Approach – How We Solved These Challenges
Comprehensive Schema Audit
We used the Schema.org Validator and SEMrush to find all missing and incorrect structured data.
Local Business Schema
We implemented LegalService and LocalBusiness schema on their “Contact” and “Homepage,” including their NAP, hours, and geo (latitude/longitude) coordinates.
FAQ & How-To Schema
This was the key. We took the 5-10 most common questions on their “Divorce” and “Child Custody” pages and marked them up with FAQPage schema.
Review & AggregateRating Schema
We implemented AggregateRating schema (based on their 50+ GMB reviews) to get stars to show up for their main brand search.
Results
| Metric | Before | After | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Map Pack” Rankings (“family lawyer [city]”) | 14th | 3rd | +11 spots |
| “FAQ” Rich Snippets (SERP Clicks) | 0 | 1,200/mo | +1,200/mo |
| Organic “Consultation” Leads | 10/mo | 35/mo | +250% |
Free Local Schema Audit
“Not sure if your local schema is set up correctly? Book a Free Local SEO Analysis and let our schema markup implementation company fix it!”
Advice for Marketers & Brand Owners
- Local Business Schema is a powerful trust signal for local SEO and “Map Pack” rankings.
- FAQ & How-To Schema is the easiest way to take up more space on the search results page. It pushes your competitors down.
- You canuse AggregateRatingschema (with reviews from a 3rd party like GMB) on your homepage to get stars for your brand.
Extra Factors That Made It Work
- The FAQ & How-To Schema implementation was a massive win, immediately giving them 3-5 extra lines of real estate in the SERPs.
- The Local Business Schema (with geo-coordinates) helped solidify their GMB and “Map Pack” rankings.
