Structured data is code on your website that tells AI, in a format it doesn't have to interpret, who your brand is, what you sell and why it's credible.
For skincare brands, five types do most of the work: Organization, Product, Person, FAQPage and ScholarlyArticle. Together they connect your brand, your products, your experts and your evidence.
Your customers never see it. AI and search engines read it on every page.
1. Organization: who you are
This tells AI your brand name, logo, description, founders and official social profiles. The most important field is sameAs, which links your website to your Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and retailer pages, so AI knows they're all the same brand.
Why it matters: brand names get confused. If another company has a similar name, Organization data helps AI tell you apart.
2. Product: what you sell
Each product page should describe the product, brand, price, availability, ingredients and, where you have them, ratings. Use the same product name everywhere: site, Amazon, Sephora, Ulta.
Why it matters: when someone asks "best vitamin C serum for sensitive skin," AI needs clear product facts to consider you.
3. Person: who stands behind it
Your founder, formulator or consulting dermatologist should each have Person data, with their job title, credentials and links to their professional profiles, connected to your Organization.
Why it matters: AI gives weight to expertise it can verify. "Formulated by a board-certified dermatologist" means more when that dermatologist is named and linked.
4. FAQPage: the questions you answer
Marking up your FAQs tells AI exactly which questions you answer and what your answers are. Write them the way customers ask: "Can I use this with retinol?"
Why it matters: these are the questions people ask AI. Clear, marked-up answers are easy for it to quote.
5. ScholarlyArticle: the evidence
If you have a clinical study, publish it on its own page and mark it up as a study, with authors, date and a link to the products it supports.
Why it matters: clinical evidence is one of the strongest signals in skincare AI answers, and this makes yours machine-readable.
Getting it right
- Put it in the page HTML, not loaded later by a script. Some crawlers won't wait for it.
- Match what's visible. Structured data should describe what's actually on the page.
- Connect the pieces. Link products to your Organization, people to your Organization, and studies to products.
- Test it with the Schema.org validator or Google's Rich Results Test.
Not sure what AI can read on your site? Get your free AI Snapshot.
Questions
- What is structured data?
- Code on your website that describes your content in a standard format search engines and AI can read without guessing.
- Does structured data help with ChatGPT?
- It helps AI understand and connect facts about your brand. It isn't a guarantee of recommendation, but it removes a lot of guesswork.
- Do Shopify stores have structured data already?
- Most Shopify themes include basic Product data. Organization, Person and study markup usually need to be added.
- Skincare