Schema Markup for Calgary Local Businesses — The Complete 2026 Guide

Structured Data Is No Longer a Nice-to-Have

Schema markup is structured data vocabulary that tells search engines and AI systems exactly what your business is, where it’s located, what services you offer, and what your customers think of you. Without it, Google has to guess this information from your page content. And in 2026, guessing means getting skipped.

After auditing hundreds of Calgary business websites, we see the same pattern: companies invest heavily in content and backlinks while completely neglecting structured data. Then they wonder why competitors with weaker content outrank them in the Map Pack and AI Overviews.

The difference is almost always schema markup. Here’s exactly what you need and how to implement it.

What Schema Markup Does for Your Calgary Business

Schema markup enables three things that directly impact your bottom line. First, rich results in search: star ratings, business hours, price ranges, and FAQ dropdowns appearing directly in search results. These rich snippets increase click-through rates by 20-30% according to multiple industry studies.

Second, AI search visibility. Google’s AI Overviews and tools like ChatGPT rely on structured data to understand and recommend businesses. If your structured data is clean and comprehensive, AI systems can confidently cite you. If it’s missing or contradictory, they skip you.

Third, entity disambiguation. In a city like Calgary with thousands of businesses, schema markup helps Google understand that your business is a distinct, verified entity, not just another mention of a keyword.

The Five Schema Types Every Calgary Business Needs

1. LocalBusiness Schema (Homepage)

This is your foundational entity declaration. It tells Google your business name, address, phone number, coordinates, hours, payment methods, and founding date. Use the most specific subtype available: if you’re a dentist, use the Dentist type, not the generic LocalBusiness type.

Critical fields that most businesses miss: geo coordinates (latitude and longitude must be exact, not rounded), opening hours specification with separate entries for different day patterns, and areaServed with specific cities rather than just a province.

2. Service Schema (Each Service Page)

Each service page should declare what that service is, who provides it, where it’s offered, and what the output is. Use OfferCatalog to list sub-services. The provider field should reference your homepage LocalBusiness entity via the @id property rather than re-declaring all your business details.

This is the single most common error we find in audits: businesses re-declaring their full NAP on every service page, often with slight variations that create conflicting signals.

3. FAQPage Schema (Wherever You Answer Questions)

FAQ schema generates the expandable question-and-answer dropdowns in search results. More importantly, it feeds AI systems with clean, extractable Q&A pairs. Every service page and blog post that answers customer questions should have FAQPage schema.

Write FAQ answers at a practitioner level, not a marketing level. Instead of “We offer the best SEO services in Calgary,” write “Local SEO campaigns for Calgary businesses typically take 3-6 months to show meaningful ranking improvements. The timeline depends on your current domain authority, competitive density of your target keywords, and the quality of your Google Business Profile.”

4. BreadcrumbList Schema (Every Page)

Breadcrumb schema shows Google your site hierarchy and generates navigation breadcrumbs in search results. It’s simple to implement and signals a well-organized website. Home > Services > Your Service Name is the standard pattern for service-based businesses.

5. Person Schema (About Page)

For small businesses where the founder is the primary service provider, Person schema establishes authorship and expertise. Include jobTitle, knowsAbout, hasCredential, and worksFor linking back to your business entity. This directly supports E-E-A-T signals.

The Seven Most Common Schema Errors We Find in Audits

After auditing schema on hundreds of local business websites, these errors appear consistently:

NAP inconsistencies across pages. Your street address reads “30 Ave SW” on one page and “30 Avenue Southwest” on another. Your postal code has a space on the homepage but no space on the contact page. These contradictions confuse search engines.

Duplicate entity declarations. Every page re-declares the full LocalBusiness entity instead of referencing the homepage entity via @id. This creates multiple conflicting entities instead of one authoritative one.

Wrong geo coordinates. Latitude and longitude are rounded or copied from a different tool, placing your business pin blocks away from your actual location.

Invalid property usage. Properties assigned to the wrong schema type. Position on a Service type instead of a ListItem. serviceType used where additionalType belongs.

Keyword-stuffed fields. The alternateName field reading “Company Name, Best Service, Top Provider, Expert” instead of an actual business alias. This triggers spam signals.

Conflicting founding dates or ratings. Different JSON-LD blocks on the same site showing different aggregateRating values or foundingDate years.

Missing schema entirely. Service pages, contact pages, and blog posts with zero structured data, leaving AI systems nothing to work with on those URLs.

How to Validate Your Schema

Use Google’s Rich Results Test to check what Google sees on each page. Use the Schema Markup Validator at validator.schema.org for comprehensive validation against the full schema.org vocabulary. Run both tools on every page after implementation.

Check that every property resolves without warnings. Verify your NAP is identical across all pages. Confirm your geo coordinates place the map pin on your actual building.

Schema and the December 2025 Core Update

The December 2025 Google Core Update hit sites with inconsistent or missing structured data harder than previous updates. Sites with contradictory entity signals across pages saw disproportionate ranking drops. The update reinforced what structured data practitioners have been saying for years: Google is moving from keyword-matching to entity-understanding.

If your rankings dropped in December 2025, an immediate schema audit should be step one of your recovery plan.

Getting Your Schema Right

Schema implementation is technical work that requires precision. One missing comma in your JSON-LD breaks the entire block. One inconsistent address format creates conflicting entities. At MRC SEO Consulting, structured data auditing and implementation is part of every SEO engagement. We build clean, validated JSON-LD that creates a single authoritative entity graph across your entire website.

Request a free schema audit to see exactly what’s broken on your site and what it’s costing you.