Schema markup: what actually moves the needle

Structured data is one of the few SEO levers that is both fully in your control and genuinely
understood by the machines reading it.

The four worth doing

Organization — one block, on the home page, with your logo, contact points and social profiles.
It is what powers the knowledge panel.

BreadcrumbList — on every page deeper than the first level. It changes how your URL renders in
results, which changes click-through.

Article / BlogPosting — publish date, modified date, author, image. It is the difference between
appearing in Top Stories and not.

FAQPage — genuinely useful when the questions are real. Ruthlessly demoted when they are not.

What to skip

Aggregate ratings you cannot substantiate. Product schema on a page that does not sell anything.
HowTo markup on an article that is not a how-to. Every one of these is a manual action waiting to happen.

How to check

Validate with the Rich Results Test, then watch the Enhancements report in Search Console for a fortnight.
If nothing appears, the markup is not the problem — the page is.