Structured Data
Structured data is machine-readable markup you add to a page, usually schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD, that explicitly tells engines what the content is: this is a product, this is its price, this is a review, this is an FAQ. Instead of leaving an engine to infer meaning from prose, you state it directly in a format it parses cleanly.
Why it matters to a lean founder: structured data removes ambiguity, and ambiguity is what stops engines citing you. It powers rich results in classic search (star ratings, prices, FAQs) and gives AI engines clean, trustworthy facts to lift into an answer. It also reinforces your entity, helping engines connect your pages to your brand, products and category. It's high-leverage and low-cost: you add markup once, most modern site builders and CMSs support it, and you validate it with free tools like Google's Rich Results Test. For founders without a big content team, it's one of the cheapest ways to make a site legible to machines.