Person Schema
Person Schema helps search engines and AI systems understand real people connected to a business, including founders, authors, leaders, and subject matter experts.
Businesses are built by people.
Articles are written by people.
Methods are created by people.
Customers trust people before they trust logos.
Search engines and AI systems are starting to care about that too.
What Is Person Schema?
Person Schema is structured data used to describe an individual person.
It can identify:
- name
- job title
- organization affiliation
- author role
- areas of expertise
- official profiles
- image
- biographical details
It helps machines understand who a person is and how they relate to the broader business entity.
Why Person Schema Matters
Anonymous content creates uncertainty.
So does anonymous leadership.
If a business publishes expertise but never documents who is behind it, search engines and AI systems have less context.
Person Schema helps connect people to:
- organizations
- Person Entities
- published articles
- services
- credentials
- professional profiles
That connection matters for trust.
Where Person Schema Should Be Used
Person Schema usually belongs on pages that clearly document a person.
Good examples include:
- founder pages
- team member pages
- author profile pages
- expert bio pages
- leadership pages
Do not use Person Schema to invent expertise.
Use it to label expertise that is actually documented.
Common Person Schema Properties
| Property | Purpose |
|---|---|
| name | The person’s full name. |
| jobTitle | The person’s role or title. |
| worksFor | The organization the person works for. |
| sameAs | Official profiles connected to the person. |
| knowsAbout | Topics the person has expertise in. |
| image | A profile photo or image URL. |
A Simple Example
This is a simplified Person Schema example.
{
"@context":"https://schema.org",
"@type":"Person",
"name":"Founder Name",
"jobTitle":"Founder",
"worksFor":{
"@type":"Organization",
"name":"Firm IQ",
"url":"https://firmiq.io"
},
"knowsAbout":[
"Local SEO",
"AI Search Optimization",
"Entity SEO",
"Google Business Profile"
]
}
Your real schema should match the real person and the real page.
Person Schema and Article Schema
Article Schema often references an author.
That author can be a Person entity.
This helps connect:
- the article
- the author
- the author’s expertise
- the organization publishing the content
That is useful for AI systems trying to understand source credibility.
Person Schema and Organization Schema
Person Schema should often connect back to Organization Schema.
A founder, owner, executive, or author usually relates to an organization.
Those relationships help search engines understand the people behind the business.
Real businesses have real humans.
Shocking, I know.
Common Mistakes
- Using Person Schema for fictional or generic authors.
- Listing “Admin” as the author.
- Adding expertise that is not supported on the page.
- Failing to connect the person to the organization.
- Using outdated job titles.
- Linking to unofficial or irrelevant profiles.
Person Schema should make identity clearer.
Not fuzzier.
Person Schema and AI Trust
AI systems increasingly need to evaluate expertise.
They need to know whether content comes from someone with relevant experience.
Person Schema supports this by making author and leadership relationships easier to understand.
It does not make someone an expert.
It documents the expert clearly.
Here’s what we’ve learned: businesses often hide the people who make them credible. That is backwards. If real experience exists, document it. AI cannot trust people it cannot identify.
Firm IQ Definition
At Firm IQ, Person Schema is machine-readable identity documentation for the people behind a business.
It helps search engines and AI systems connect real humans to content, organizations, expertise, and trust signals.