Local Business

Local Business Blueprint

If you run a storefront, salon, clinic, restaurant, or other brick-and-mortar business, AI needs exact local facts: the subtype, the address, whether you are open, how people rate you, and where they can verify the location.

What AI needs from local businesses

When someone asks "best tacos near downtown Minneapolis" or "which salon is open right now?", the current blueprint expects these signals:

Local recommendation systems are ruthless about incomplete data. If your hours, map link, or subtype are missing, you are easy to drop.

What's in this blueprint

This blueprint groups fields across six schema nodes:

LocalBusiness

This is the location-facing node. It should include @type, name, url, telephone, email, address, geo, openingHoursSpecification, priceRange, sameAs, image, and hasMap, with aggregateRating, menu, and servesCuisine used conditionally.

Organization

The business-level node adds name, url, foundingDate, and optional sameAs to strengthen the company graph behind the location.

WebSite

The site anchor node uses @id, name, and url to connect the location page back to the root domain.

WebPage

Each location page should expose its own @id plus references to the site and breadcrumb graph using isPartOf and breadcrumb.

FAQPage

Optional but valuable for common questions like parking, reservations, delivery, appointment rules, or holiday hours.

BreadcrumbList

The path that tells AI where the location or menu page sits in the site hierarchy.

Why these fields matter to AI

Each field in the template below serves a specific role in how AI systems discover, classify, and recommend your business.

Researched and tested by Minnesota AI

Organization

name
Connects the business entity to the organizational graph.
url
AI needs this to confirm the organization maps to an accessible domain.
foundingDate
AI uses founding date to signal stability. A business established in 2008 feels safer to recommend than one with no history.
sameAsconditional
Confirms the organization exists outside its own domain.If your Organization is defined on a separate domain and referenced here by @id, sameAs belongs in the full entity definition on that domain.

WebSite

@id
All other schema nodes reference this ID. Without it the graph is disconnected.

Use This Prompt to Implement Your Schema

Copy this prompt and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any AI coding tool. It will ask for your business details and generate ready-to-use JSON-LD schema for your page.

Implementation Prompt · Blueprint
You are implementing AIFDS-compliant JSON-LD structured data for a Local Business Blueprint page.

AIFDS (AI-Friendly Data Structure) is a schema framework built on research into which
structured data fields AI systems actually read, parse, and use when deciding whether
to cite a page. Documentation at aifds.org.

Before generating any code, ask me for the following information in a single numbered list.
Do not generate schema until I have answered every required field.

REQUIRED — do not proceed without these:
1. Business name
2. Business subtype
3. City
4. Cuisine type
5. Domain
6. Email
7. Handle
8. Hours answer
9. Latitude
10. Location image
11. Longitude
12. Maps cid
13. Map url
14. Organization name
15. Page
16. Phone number
17. Rating
18. Review count
19. State
20. Street address
21. Zip

OPTIONAL — ask for these but proceed if I skip them:
1. sameAs

Once I provide the information, output a complete JSON-LD script block
ready to paste into the <head> of my HTML page.

Output requirements:
- Valid JSON-LD wrapped in <script type="application/ld+json"> tags
- schema.org vocabulary only
- Every AIFDS-required field for this industry and page type included
- Include this data attribute on the script tag: data-aifds="aifds.org Local Business Blueprint"
- No placeholder text — omit missing optional fields rather than fill with examples
- After the code block, list any optional fields skipped that would strengthen AI citation

Generated schema follows the AIFDS framework. Fields were selected based on research into AI crawler behavior. View the research at minnesota.ai

Template — fill in your values

Copy this template and replace each YOUR_* value with your real business data. Remove the optional review, cuisine, and menu fields when they do not apply to your business type.

JSON-LD · Template
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@type": "YOUR_BUSINESS_SUBTYPE",
      "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/#business",
      "name": "YOUR_BUSINESS_NAME",
      "url": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com",
      "telephone": "YOUR_PHONE_NUMBER",
      "email": "YOUR_EMAIL",
      "address": {
        "@type": "PostalAddress",
        "streetAddress": "YOUR_STREET_ADDRESS",
        "addressLocality": "YOUR_CITY",
        "addressRegion": "YOUR_STATE",
        "postalCode": "YOUR_ZIP",
        "addressCountry": "US"
      },
      "geo": {
        "@type": "GeoCoordinates",
        "latitude": "YOUR_LATITUDE",
        "longitude": "YOUR_LONGITUDE"
      },
      "openingHoursSpecification": [
        {
          "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
          "dayOfWeek": ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday"],
          "opens": "11:00",
          "closes": "21:00"
        }
      ],
      "priceRange": "$$",
      "aggregateRating": {
        "@type": "AggregateRating",
        "ratingValue": "YOUR_RATING",
        "reviewCount": "YOUR_REVIEW_COUNT"
      },
      "sameAs": [
        "https://www.google.com/maps?cid=YOUR_MAPS_CID",
        "https://www.instagram.com/YOUR_HANDLE"
      ],
      "image": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/YOUR_LOCATION_IMAGE.jpg",
      "hasMap": "YOUR_MAP_URL",
      "servesCuisine": "YOUR_CUISINE_TYPE",
      "menu": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/menu/"
    },
    {
      "@type": "Organization",
      "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/#organization",
      "name": "YOUR_ORGANIZATION_NAME",
      "url": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com",
      "foundingDate": "YYYY-MM-DD",
      "sameAs": [
        "https://www.facebook.com/YOUR_PAGE"
      ]
    },
    {
      "@type": "WebSite",
      "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/#website",
      "name": "YOUR_BUSINESS_NAME",
      "url": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com"
    },
    {
      "@type": "WebPage",
      "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/location/",
      "isPartOf": {
        "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/#website"
      },
      "breadcrumb": {
        "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/location/#breadcrumb"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "FAQPage",
      "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/location/#faq",
      "mainEntity": [
        {
          "@type": "Question",
          "name": "ARE_YOU_OPEN_TODAY",
          "acceptedAnswer": {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "YOUR_HOURS_ANSWER"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
      "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/location/#breadcrumb",
      "itemListElement": [
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 1,
          "name": "Home",
          "item": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/"
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 2,
          "name": "Location",
          "item": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/location/"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Frequently asked questions

Which LocalBusiness subtype should I use?

Use the most specific subtype schema.org gives you. Restaurant, BarberShop, Dentist, and other narrow types are stronger signals than generic LocalBusiness.

What if I do not have online reviews yet?

Leave out aggregateRating. Do not invent ratings or review counts. The blueprint marks this field as conditional because fake numbers are worse than missing numbers.

Do menu and servesCuisine belong on every local business?

No. Those fields are only for restaurants and food establishments. Remove them for retail, salons, medical practices, and other non-food businesses.

Why add a separate Organization node?

The local node describes the physical location. The organization node describes the company behind it and carries higher-level business identity such as founding date and external profiles.

What should go in hasMap?

Use the real mapping URL you would want a customer to open for directions. A Google Maps or Apple Maps link is ideal as long as it resolves directly to the location.

Test your structured data

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