🧩 Structured Data

The AEO foundation: give AI engines a name badge for every page on your site.

Structured data is the machine-readable layer that tells AI engines what your content actually is, who created it, and which brand stands behind it. Without it, they're guessing. These 7 free AEO guides walk you through exactly what to add and why it matters for getting your brand cited.

7 guides in this topic Around 60 minutes total reading Full implementation guides: PRO+ and AGENCY

7 guides covering structured data from the basics right through to validation. Start with Guide 1 if you're new to AEO. Jump straight to any guide if you know what you're looking for.

Topic depth

All Structured Data AEO guides

7 guides
Guide 1 of 7 Start here

What is structured data and why does it matter for AI search?

The AEO foundation. What structured data actually is, why AI engines need it, and how it changes the way machines read your site.

Guide 2 of 7 PRO+

How to add FAQ schema to your website

FAQ schema is one of the highest-impact AEO changes you can make. Here's what it is, where to add it, and what it does to your citation potential.

Guide 3 of 7 PRO+

How to use Article schema to get cited by AI

Article, BlogPosting, NewsArticle. Which AEO schema type you need, which fields actually matter, and how to connect your content to the publisher behind it.

Guide 4 of 7 PRO+

What is Person schema and why should you use it?

AI engines want to know who wrote your content. Person schema connects a name on a page to a real, verifiable individual and strengthens your AEO trust signals.

Guide 5 of 7 PRO+

How to write Organisation schema that AI engines trust

Organisation schema tells AI engines who the business behind the website actually is. The fields that matter most for AEO, and how to get them right.

Guide 6 of 7 PRO+

What is BreadcrumbList schema and do you need it?

Breadcrumb schema helps AI engines understand your site's structure and where each page sits within it. Here's when it matters for AEO and how to implement it cleanly.

Guide 7 of 7 PRO+

How to validate your structured data

Adding AEO schema is only half the job. Broken or mismatched structured data is worse than none at all. This guide shows you how to check it properly before it goes live.

Did you know Caijo could do this...

Caijo scans every page on your site and tells you exactly which structured data is missing, broken, or mismatched.

Most sites have AEO structured data problems they don't know about. A schema type that doesn't match the page content. An author field that contradicts the visible byline. A JSON-LD block with a syntax error that silently kills the whole thing. CaijoBot finds all of it, scores the impact, and gives you a prioritised fix list in plain English. Free users get the headline score. PRO+ and AGENCY users get every fix, every field, every recommendation.

Frequently asked questions about structured data and AEO

Structured data is machine-readable markup added to a web page that tells AI engines and search engines what the page is, who created it, and what it's about. For AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation), structured data matters because it removes ambiguity. Instead of an AI engine having to infer whether your page is a blog post, a product page, or a company's About page, you tell it directly using a standardised format called JSON-LD. That clarity makes it easier for AI engines to classify, trust, and ultimately cite your content.
For most sites, the highest-impact structured data types for AEO are FAQPage, Article (or BlogPosting), Organisation, and Person. FAQPage schema is particularly powerful because it directly presents question-and-answer pairs that AI engines can extract and use in responses. Article and BlogPosting schema helps AI engines understand who published the content and when it was last updated. Organisation and Person schema build the entity signals that establish your brand and authors as credible, verifiable sources.
No. Structured data improves how clearly AI engines understand your content, but it doesn't guarantee citations. You still need well-written, genuinely useful content that directly answers questions people are asking. Think of structured data as making your content easier to understand and classify correctly. It removes friction, but the content itself still has to earn the citation. AEO is about combining strong structured data with strong content, not treating either one as a shortcut.
The quickest way to check is Google's Rich Results Test and Schema.org's Validator, both of which are free and give you instant feedback on whether your JSON-LD is valid and well-formed. For a deeper AEO audit that scores how your structured data affects your overall citation potential, run a free scan with Caijo. CaijoBot checks not just whether your schema is technically valid, but whether it's correctly matched to your page content, consistently applied across your site, and connected to the right entity signals.
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