Local Business Schema Image requirement

[tntdental]

Hello,

I work exclusively with Dentists and we have been putting our json schema in the footer for a while now. Just recently they made 'image' a requirement for the Dentist category. We already use the logo in our schema and that is an image. Since the schema is in the footer, it is on every page, and the only image on every page is the logo. Does the image we add to our schema need to be on the actual web page or could it be anything related to the business, like an image of the practice or the dentist? Would it hurt to have the logo listed twice in the schema - once as the logo and once as the image? Trying to figure out what the best thing to do is for the required 'image' field for a dentist.

Thanks! Angela

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Angela,

Could you offer a bit more background on this as to who made Schema a requirement for dentists? Schema is an optional technology, typically, so I'm trying to understand the circumstances in which you're hearing that it's mandatory. Thanks!

[martinxm]

Hi. First, I had a speech therapy clinic in Madrid (related with dentist). We have our website optimized for Schema.org.

This technology is not mandatory, but it is recommended to provide data to search engines such as Google or Bing.

Our website is configured with the option of Local Business, but I did not know anything about the images that can be put.

I understand that the images can only be put in Blog Articles and in Cooking Recipes.

If I'm wrong, please correct me. Thank you.

[DonnaDuncan]

Hi Tim,

You are (fortunately) not the first to run into this problem.

https://www.liontreegroup.com/tips-and-tricks/schema-error-localbusiness-a-value-for-the-image-field-is-required/

The solution places a hidden image in the footer. Not ideal, but a potential work around. Perhaps Miriam can comment on whether she thinks it might be a risky tactic.

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

I think the OP is not saying Schema is mandatory but that "Just recently they made 'image' a requirement for the Dentist category." having an 'Image' in the dentist schema is now an option.  Again - it's not mandatory.  Test it.  I am a dentist and find that sometimes images get shown for products and most of the time they don't.

It has nothing to do with the JSON that I create for the dentist category.  I have better success just marking all your products and services up as products with the price etc and making your pages have good structure, H1 etc.  Make all the FAQ's H3 and they'll get blue hyperlinks in the serp when people ask that question or a part of it.

PM me. Schema hasn't really helped us a huge amount. Sometimes I completely forget to mark up a new page and it ranks and has all the bells and whistles of schema because google has detected them.  I do use wordpress though and they are good at telling Google what's on the page.

[tntdental]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the answers so far.

To clarify, I didn't mean that schema is a requirement on websites. I meant that we do choose to use a schema in our footer and until recently - maybe in the past three weeks - our schema passed the structured data testing tool.

They are now throwing the following error when we test the schema - https://gyazo.com/e88390bffd1b280e48904958da145fb0

We use a type of Dentist -  "@type": "Dentist",

The lions group post is interesting........

I am just not sure what kind of image google wants to see since we already use the logo field. My first thought is to use an image of the practice if available, but since the practice image is not on every page of the website, but the schema is, would that hurt us? Or does it not matter?

Thanks! Angela

e88390bffd1b280e48904958da145fb0

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

Hey Tim,

I would have a page for everything you offer.  That's by far the best strategy.  So on your Invisalign page have a picture of Invisalign and don't mark it as dentist schema mark it as product.  I think the dentist schema is rubbish myself.  You're much better off using an image of All on Four on your All on four product page and marking it up that way.

Nobody is interested n your brand and logo if your a small local practice.  They search things like 'Braces New York' and want to see the options for all the braces you offer or your orthodontist.

I use the data highlighter for this because it gets us better results.  On the homepage you can't get review schema to show stars and all you're going to achieve is getting your logo up there when someone types in the name of your dentist so what's the point?

Go for unbranded products and keywords and mark them up with price, availability and an image with an alt tag with your location in it. that works for us.

Sometimes having dentist schema in the site wide footer just overrides our product schema for the services pages so I don't use it.  For your dentists mark them up individually as people with their headshots there and what they do and their postnominals and qualifications.

Also make sure your GMB has orthodontist, endodontist, oral surgeon etc so that you show as an orthodontist in the maps when someone types in braces.  Also having reviews mentioning the products helps.

Google ignores about 70% of our mark-up anyway and I think it's becoming less important as google figures out what things are and what they mean.  But a granular approach works the best. So one page for everything you do with the dentist as author marked up with the products they offer marked up and then it makes the dentist one kind of obsolete.

This is just my experience in our practice but we're ranking number one for pretty much everything now. Interestingly we're not doing so well for just the term 'dentist' but on the other hand we're ranking really well for 'emergency dentist' and I think the two might be competing with one another. Emergencies is much higher volume and makes us more money. being number one for dentist didn't actually get us many good patients.

Being number one for Veneers Cost or Invisalign or Fastbraces or Emergencies does. So perhaps focus more on those.  Dentists make the big mistake of putting everything they do on the homepage and that is a big mistake because you can never compete with my specific page that answers a customers specific dental query.  If I had toothe ache I'd google painful tooth and google returns our emergencies page.  I don't google 'dentist' If I need braces I google braces - not 'dentist'

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