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. Save."},{"@type":"HowToStep","position":5,"name":"Validate in the Rich Results Test","text":"Submit the home page URL. Confirm the LocalBusiness type is detected and zero errors are reported."}]}]}
§ 3.3 ARTICLE
Published VerifiedEvery 6 weeks Sources4 named Authored bySquareRank Team

Schema · § 3.3 · How-to

LocalBusiness schema for Squarespace service-area sites

LocalBusiness is the Schema.org type for businesses that serve customers at a physical location or in a defined geographic area — therapists, lawyers, restaurants, salons, photographers with a studio, contractors. Google's canonical documentation1 names two required fields (name, address) and recommends seven more (geo, openingHoursSpecification, priceRange, telephone, url, image, aggregateRating). On Squarespace it installs site-wide via Settings > Advanced > Code Injection > Header — the business doesn't change page to page.

This is the highest-leverage schema type for any service-area business on Squarespace. Done right, it lifts the local knowledge panel, sharpens local-search citations, and gives AI engines a confident answer to “where is this business” queries. Done wrong — or not installed — the business shows up as a website without an entity attached, which AI engines deprioritise in local contexts.

What LocalBusiness schema is

LocalBusiness is the Schema.org type for a business with a physical presence — an office, a studio, a storefront — or a defined service area. The Schema.org inheritance chain runs Thing > Place > Organization > LocalBusiness, which means a LocalBusiness inherits Organization's properties (name, url, logo, sameAs) and adds physical-presence properties (address, geo, openingHoursSpecification, priceRange). Schema.org provides dozens of subtypes (Dentist, Restaurant, MedicalBusiness, ProfessionalService, AutomotiveBusiness) — use the narrowest subtype that genuinely fits.

The subtype choice matters more than most owners realise. "@type": "LocalBusiness" works, but "@type": "MedicalBusiness" on a therapy practice or "@type": "ProfessionalService" on a law firm gives Google's understanding layer a sharper signal about what the business actually does. The Schema.org vocabulary2 has the full subtype tree; pick the leaf node that matches your business.

When to use LocalBusiness schema

Use LocalBusiness when the business has a physical address customers can visit, or when it serves a defined geographic area customers can locate. Therapists with a clinic address, lawyers with a downtown office, photographers with a studio, restaurants, contractors, salons, dentists. Do not use LocalBusiness for purely remote businesses without a service area — those use Organization. Do not use it for productised services that ship globally — those use Service.

The edge case: a business that operates remotely but serves a defined area. A wedding photographer based in Brooklyn who covers all five boroughs and parts of Long Island still qualifies for LocalBusiness, with the service area defined via areaServed rather than a customer-visitable address. A consultant who serves clients worldwide from a home office does not qualify — use Organization + optionally Service.

Rich-results status in 2026

LocalBusiness structured data remains active in 2026. Google uses it to surface knowledge-panel data (business name, hours, phone, address, rating snippet) and to populate the local pack when the page ranks for a local query. The Restaurant carousel feature exists but is limited to a small registered set of restaurant providers — most Squarespace restaurant sites do not qualify. Beyond Google, LocalBusiness markup is the schema AI engines consult most often when answering 'where is X' or 'what does Y do' questions about a named business.

The honest framing: LocalBusiness schema doesn't guarantee a knowledge panel, but a knowledge panel rarely appears without it. Combined with a verified Google Business Profile and consistent NAP (name, address, phone) across the site, the schema closes the loop on local-search entity recognition.

LocalBusiness schema in 2026

2

required fields: name and address. Everything else is recommended.

Google Search Central · 2025-12-10
5+

recommended fields that meaningfully affect knowledge-panel surfaces: geo, openingHoursSpecification, priceRange, telephone, url.

Google Search Central · 2025-12-10
8

Schema.org subtype branches under LocalBusiness — choose the narrowest match (Dentist, Restaurant, ProfessionalService, etc.).

Schema.org · 2026-03-19

Required and recommended fields

Two fields are required per Google's canonical documentation: name (the business name) and address (a PostalAddress object with streetAddress, addressLocality, addressRegion, postalCode, addressCountry). Recommended fields that meaningfully affect knowledge-panel surfaces and AI engine extraction: geo (a GeoCoordinates object with latitude and longitude, minimum five decimal places), openingHoursSpecification (per-day hours), priceRange (the $ scale), telephone (with country code), url (canonical home page), image, aggregateRating (for review-aggregating sites only — see the self-serving rule on the Review leaf).

  • name — required. The business name as displayed.
  • address — required. A PostalAddress object.
  • geo — recommended. Latitude + longitude, five decimal places.
  • openingHoursSpecification — recommended. An array of objects, one per day or range.
  • telephone — recommended. Include country code.
  • url — recommended. Your canonical home page.
  • image — recommended. A representative image of the business.
  • priceRange — recommended. Under 100 characters; $$, $$$ or a stated currency range.
  • sameAs — recommended. Array of URLs to verified profiles (Google Business Profile, Yelp, Facebook).

Copy-paste JSON-LD example

The block below is a complete LocalBusiness schema for a Brooklyn-based therapy practice on Squarespace. Replace the business name, address, geo coordinates, hours, and same-as URLs with your real values. The subtype is MedicalBusiness because the example is a therapy practice — pick the narrowest subtype that fits your business.

JSON-LD MedicalBusiness (LocalBusiness subtype) schema for a Brooklyn therapy practice 
 <script type="application/ld+json"> { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "MedicalBusiness", "name": "Park Slope Therapy Collective", "url": "https://parkslopetherapy.com/", "telephone": "+1-718-555-0142", "priceRange": "$$", "image": "https://parkslopetherapy.com/images/storefront.jpg", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "418 7th Avenue, Suite 3", "addressLocality": "Brooklyn", "addressRegion": "NY", "postalCode": "11215", "addressCountry": "US" }, "geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": 40.66723, "longitude": -73.98142 }, "openingHoursSpecification": [ { "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification", "dayOfWeek": ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday"], "opens": "09:00", "closes": "19:00" }, { "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification", "dayOfWeek": "Friday", "opens": "09:00", "closes": "15:00" } ], "sameAs": [ "https://www.google.com/maps/place/?q=place_id:CHIJ...", "https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/park-slope-therapy-collective" ] } </script>

Where to paste it on Squarespace

LocalBusiness goes site-wide because the business doesn't change page to page. Open Settings > Advanced > Code Injection > Header. Paste the entire script block. Save. Verify by viewing source on any page and searching for application/ld+json — the LocalBusiness block should appear once per page (the same block on every page). On Personal-tier Squarespace this isn't possible; the workaround is a plan upgrade or a header-loaded third-party tool, neither ideal.

A common mis-install: pasting LocalBusiness schema into the home page's Page Settings Code Injection instead of the site-wide Code Injection. The schema then only emits on the home page, which means — when a deep page (a service page, a blog post) ranks for a local query — Google has no LocalBusiness signal on that page. Site-wide placement fixes that.

Validation steps

Run the home page URL through Google's Rich Results Test. Confirm LocalBusiness (or the specific subtype you chose) is detected and zero errors are reported. Common errors: missing addressCountry (a two-letter ISO 3166 code, not the full country name), latitude/longitude with fewer than five decimal places, openingHoursSpecification with malformed day names (Sun instead of Sunday). Fix each error reported by the tool, save, and re-run.

A second validation pass worth running: Google Business Profile alignment. If the business has a verified Google Business Profile, the name, address, and phone in the LocalBusiness schema should match the profile exactly. Mismatched NAP across schema and GBP suppresses knowledge-panel surface frequency — Google treats the mismatch as a confidence signal against the entity.

Common gotchas on Squarespace

Four gotchas catch most LocalBusiness installs on Squarespace. First: using @type LocalBusiness instead of the narrower subtype that genuinely fits — a Dentist site should declare Dentist, not LocalBusiness. Second: pasting in Page Settings instead of Site-wide Code Injection — schema then only fires on the home page. Third: addressCountry as a full country name instead of the ISO 3166 two-letter code — fails validation. Fourth: low-precision geo coordinates (three decimal places where five are needed) — passes validation but degrades local-pack accuracy.

A fifth gotcha specific to multi-location businesses: one LocalBusiness block per location, ideally with each location on its own page. Squeezing multiple addresses into one schema block via a comma-separated address string fails validation. The correct pattern is one LocalBusiness object per address, either as a @graph array site-wide or as per-page schema on dedicated location pages. The full multi-location pattern is out of scope here — we cover it in the local SEO cluster.

LocalBusiness inherits from Organization, so the two types overlap. Use LocalBusiness when there's a physical address or service area; use Organization when there isn't. Service is the type for productised offerings that LocalBusinesses deliver — a therapist's individual therapy service, a photographer's wedding package. BreadcrumbList belongs alongside on every page. AggregateRating layers on LocalBusiness when there are genuine independent reviews — see the Review leaf for the self-serving disqualifier.

Keep reading · § 3.3