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When it comes to using Schema for the homepage on a site, there are two types that I gravitate towards and recommend (especially for eCommerce stores).
The two types are Organization and WebSite Schema, being tags that I see genuine utility in for sites when added, but I regularly see as missing from the homepage for sites.
WebSite Schema is a special one in particular, having influence over the Site Name that appears in search results, where Google will often look to the name specified within this tag and present it in SERPs.
For large eCommerce stores that may have various regional domains, while the homepage for the core region (such as the US) might have the correct tag, it is not uncommon for WebSite to be missing from the homepage across other regions.
This can result in some messiness in Google's SERPs and confusion in the signals received. For instance, a site that I was working with recently didn't have WebSite on their AU domain, resulting in it randomly having the NZ domain (e.g. Example.co.nz) showing as the site name, when it should have just been 'Example' or 'Example AU' appearing.
For Organization Schema, this is one that is effectively a no-brainer. I've seen it become quite influential in recent years, with an example being a site I was working with not being able to be shown as an entity within autocomplete. After adding Organization, the large card treatment within autocomplete for the brand started showing a week after implementing.
Similar can be said about the brand/merchant knowledge panel for sites. The trend for the eCommerce version of this panel has been heavily skewed toward being influenced by Merchant Centre Next more recently, with there now being features such as payment options, trending products, shipping and returns, and even an AI Chat that serves free listing results.
While there are various factors that come into play to have this panel consistently appear for your brand (prominence and size, along with a Wikipedia article often being a key step), I do find that the information provided within Organization is a core fallback signal to influence some of the inclusions.
We saw the influence of Organization increase for merchant knowledge panels more recently, where Google now allows you to specify product policies such as 'returns' within this markup, again solidifying the importance of having this markup located on the homepage of your site.
On the most basic level for Schema implementation, I would suggest ensuring that you have both Organization and WebSite located on the homepage of your site. There are obvious benefits that shouldn't be ignored for SEO.
Author: «Brodie Clark»
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