In one sentence
Structured data means writing the contents of a web page not just as "a visual presentation for humans," but separately as "meaning for machines (AI)."
What does this look like in practice?
Suppose a restaurant page says "Tokyo Station Mae Ramen Yokocho, hours 11:00-23:00."
In plain HTML, the AI only sees "a blob of text." It can't tell whether "Tokyo Station Mae" is a store name or a place name, or whether "11:00-23:00" is the business hours or a wait time.
Add structured data:
{
"@type": "Restaurant",
"name": "Tokyo Station Mae Ramen Yokocho",
"openingHours": "Mo-Su 11:00-23:00"
}
Now the AI understands accurately: "Store name: Tokyo Station Mae Ramen Yokocho, business hours: Mon-Sun 11:00-23:00."
As a result, when someone asks an AI "Which ramen shops near Tokyo Station are open late?", the probability of being cited accurately goes up.
Why it matters (validated by GEO Meter data)
Implementing structured data is a foundational, high-impact measure for earning AI citations. Because AI crawlers can understand the meaning of body text in machine-readable form, the priority as a citation candidate tends to rise.
- AI's comprehension improves dramatically
- Probability of being cited reliably increases
- Also benefits Google rich results (secondary SEO effect)
- Implementation cost is moderate (1-2 days of engineering work)
Standard format
There are several ways to write structured data, but the Schema.org vocabulary x JSON-LD format is the current industry standard.
- Schema.org: the "vocabulary" for what to express
- JSON-LD: the "grammar" for how to write it
With this combination, you can express nearly all structured data.