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For a business with multiple physical locations, create a location-specific LocalBusiness entity for each location page, using the most specific subtype that accurately describes the business. Model a department within one location as a nested department—not as another location. For Google’s Local Business rich-result eligibility, the documented required properties are the business name and physical address; other fields should be added when they are accurate and useful.
Choose the entity that matches the page
Start by asking what the page represents: a distinct physical place customers can visit, or a department inside another location? That distinction determines whether the page should describe its own local business or a nested part of a parent business.
| Page subject | Schema model | How to decide |
|---|---|---|
| A distinct physical location | A location-specific LocalBusiness entity, using the most specific applicable subtype |
Use this when the page represents a separate business location, with its own location details. Examples of more specific types include Restaurant, DaySpa, and HealthClub. |
| A department within one location | A department nested under the parent business |
Use this when it shares the parent location and is a department rather than a separate physical site. Put properties that differ, such as hours or phone, on the department item. |
Google advises defining each local business location as a LocalBusiness type and selecting the most specific subtype that fits. Its department guidance says to use the store name plus department name unless the department has its own explicit brand. See Google’s Local Business structured-data documentation.
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Build one location entity per location page
The following is a reusable pattern, not tested or deployed code. Replace the illustrative business details with facts that are accurate for the specific location and visible on its page. Give every location a stable, fully qualified page URL and a stable identifier in a production implementation.
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<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Store",
"name": "Example Store — Downtown",
"url": "https://www.example.com/locations/downtown/",
"telephone": "+1-555-0100",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "100 Main Street",
"addressLocality": "Example City",
"addressRegion": "CA",
"postalCode": "90000",
"addressCountry": "US"
},
"geo": {
"@type": "GeoCoordinates",
"latitude": 34.00000,
"longitude": -118.00000
},
"openingHoursSpecification": [
{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"dayOfWeek": ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday"],
"opens": "09:00",
"closes": "17:00"
}
]
}
</script>Store is only an illustrative subtype in this example. Choose the specific type that describes the actual location; do not use fields simply because they appear in the pattern.
Separate required fields from useful extras
Google’s documented required properties for Local Business rich-result eligibility are the business name and a physical address of type PostalAddress. Google recommends including the address parts that apply, such as street address, locality, region, postal code, and country; that recommendation does not make every listed address field individually mandatory. The Local Business documentation also lists details such as URL, telephone, geographic coordinates, and opening hours as recommended properties.
| Property | How to use it | Status in Google’s Local Business guidance |
|---|---|---|
name |
Use the name of the business at this location. | Required for Local Business rich-result eligibility. |
address |
Use the location’s real physical address in a PostalAddress. Include applicable components. |
Required for Local Business rich-result eligibility. |
url |
Use the fully qualified URL for this specific location page. | Recommended. |
telephone |
Use the primary customer contact number for the location, including country and area codes. | Recommended. |
geo |
If supplied, use the location’s coordinates. Google specifies at least five decimal places for latitude and longitude. | Recommended. |
openingHoursSpecification |
Provide the actual hours for this location. | Recommended. |
image |
Use images that represent the marked-up business. Google recommends multiple high-resolution images in 16:9, 4:3, and 1:1 aspect ratios. | Recommended. |
Only include values that are correct for the particular business and page. If department details differ from the parent location, put those values on the nested department item rather than making them appear to describe the whole business.
Keep the markup aligned with the page
Structured data should describe content visitors can see and that accurately represents the page. Google’s general structured data guidelines identify mismatches with the main content, hidden referenced content, and inaccurate or guideline-violating markup as reasons a search feature may not be shown. JSON-LD is one of Google’s supported formats and its recommended format.
For a page specifically about one customer-facing location, location-specific LocalBusiness markup is the clearest match to Google’s Local Business feature guidance. Google’s Organization guidance also allows an organization to provide multiple addresses when it operates in multiple cities, states, or countries. Organization-level addresses describe the organization; they do not replace the location entity for a page whose subject is a particular business site.
Validate, deploy, and check how Google sees the page
- Add the required name and physical address, then follow Google’s general and feature-specific structured-data guidelines.
- Test the page with Google’s Rich Results Test and correct any reported issues.
- Deploy the markup on a few location pages first, then use URL Inspection in Search Console to check how Google sees them.
- Make sure Google can access the pages: they must not be blocked by
robots.txt, anoindexdirective, or a login requirement. - Submit a sitemap to help communicate future page changes. Allow time for recrawling: Google says pages may take several days after publishing to be found and crawled.
Valid markup makes a page eligible for a search feature; it does not guarantee that the feature will appear. Google says its systems decide what presentation is appropriate, and that it “does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results.” See the Local Business guidance and general structured data guidelines.
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