Entity Types That Matter for Business
Session 1.5 · ~5 min read
Not all entities are created equal in Google's ranking systems. For business visibility specifically, four entity types carry the most weight. Each type has different properties, different recognition paths, and different search features it can trigger. Understanding which types apply to your business determines where you focus your entity infrastructure work.
The Four Business Entity Types
The company itself"] B --> P["Person
Founder, CEO, expert"] B --> L["LocalBusiness
Physical location"] B --> PR["Product / Service
What you sell"] O -->|"founder"| P O -->|"location"| L O -->|"offers"| PR style B fill:#2a2a28,stroke:#c8a882,color:#ede9e3 style O fill:#2a2a28,stroke:#6b8f71,color:#ede9e3 style P fill:#2a2a28,stroke:#6b8f71,color:#ede9e3 style L fill:#2a2a28,stroke:#6b8f71,color:#ede9e3 style PR fill:#2a2a28,stroke:#6b8f71,color:#ede9e3
| Entity Type | Schema.org Type | Key Properties | Search Features Unlocked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organization | Organization | name, url, logo, foundingDate, founder, address, sameAs, description | Knowledge Panel, branded SERP, AI Overviews |
| Person | Person | name, jobTitle, worksFor, image, sameAs, knowsAbout, alumniOf | Author authority, E-E-A-T signals, personal Knowledge Panel |
| Local Business | LocalBusiness (subtypes) | name, address, geo, openingHours, telephone, priceRange | Local Pack, Maps, "near me" queries |
| Product/Service | Product, Service | name, description, brand, offers, aggregateRating | Product rich results, star ratings, price display |
Organization: The Foundation
The Organization entity represents your company as a whole. It is the anchor point that all other entity types connect to. The Person entity connects through "worksFor" or "founder." The LocalBusiness connects through "location" or as a subtype. Products connect through "manufacturer" or "brand."
Organization schema should be present on every page of your website, typically in the site-wide header or footer markup. It declares: this website belongs to this organization, and here are its properties.
A well-structured Organization entity includes 15+ properties: name, legalName, url, logo, image, description, foundingDate, founders, address, telephone, email, sameAs (array of social profile URLs), numberOfEmployees, areaServed, and industry.
Person: The Trust Multiplier
Person entities are critical for E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), which Google uses to evaluate content quality. When a recognized Person entity authors content for a recognized Organization entity, both signals reinforce each other.
Consider two scenarios:
- A blog post by "Admin" on a website with no author bio and no Person schema.
- A blog post by "John Smith, Mechanical Engineer, 15 years in pump systems" with a linked bio page, Person schema, LinkedIn profile, and industry publications.
Google treats these identically from a keyword perspective. From an entity and E-E-A-T perspective, they are worlds apart.
Every piece of content should be attributed to a named Person entity. Anonymous content has no entity authority.
LocalBusiness: The Geographic Anchor
If your business has a physical location where customers visit, LocalBusiness schema (and its many subtypes like Store, Restaurant, ProfessionalService) is essential. LocalBusiness is a subtype of Organization, so it inherits all Organization properties and adds location-specific ones.
The critical addition is geographic data: latitude/longitude coordinates, opening hours, and service area. This data feeds directly into Google Maps and the local pack, the three-business carousel that appears for location-based searches.
For businesses with multiple locations, each location is a separate LocalBusiness entity connected to a parent Organization entity.
Product/Service: The Commercial Layer
Product schema enables rich results in search: price, availability, review stars, and images directly in the search result. Service schema is less visually rich but still valuable for connecting your entity to specific service categories.
Product entities are particularly important for e-commerce, but they apply to any business that sells identifiable products. A pump supplier should have Product schema for each pump model. A consulting firm should have Service schema for each service offering.
How the Types Interconnect
Entity infrastructure is most powerful when the entity types are connected. The connections tell Google a complete story:
Organization is always the highest priority because it is the foundation. For businesses with a physical location, LocalBusiness ranks equally high. Person is essential for content-heavy businesses where author authority matters. Product/Service rounds out the stack but is less urgent than the identity types.
Further Reading
- Schema.org: Organization - Full property list for the Organization schema type
- Schema.org: LocalBusiness - Full property list and subtypes for local business entities
- Introduction to Structured Data - Google's documentation on implementing schema types
Assignment
For your business, list one entity for each type: (1) your Organization, (2) one key Person (founder or expert), (3) one LocalBusiness location (if applicable), (4) one Product or Service. For each, write whether Google currently recognizes it as an entity (has a Knowledge Panel, appears in structured results) or not. This is your entity type inventory.