Home-Inspection Readiness: FAQ Schema, Machine-Readable...

A homebuyer in a hurry doesn't open ten inspector websites anymore. They ask an assistant: "who's the best home inspector in [city], and what does an inspection actually cover?" The answer gets assembled from whatever the machine can read — the schema graph, the FAQ markup, the review data an engine can lift — not from the hero video or the badge wall.

I added a property-inspection readiness check to the Mega Analyzer after running a stack of national franchises and strong independent home-inspection firms through the same deterministic pass an AI engine would: pull the page, parse the schema, ignore the marketing. The result was the opposite of what I see in most local-service verticals. The best inspection sites are schema leaders — a HomeAndConstructionBusiness node with a real address and phone, Service and Product nodes on every service page, Article markup on a deep blog, even VideoObject. They out-structure their entire peer set.

And then they leave the two highest-leverage things on the table.

Miss #1: the FAQ page with no FAQPage schema

The single most common defect: a dedicated /faq/ page with a thousand-plus words of genuine question-and-answer copy and zero FAQPage markup. The content is already written. It's already the exact shape AI Overviews and "People also ask" prefer to lift. It just isn't wrapped:

{
  "@type": "FAQPage",
  "mainEntity": [{
    "@type": "Question",
    "name": "How long does a home inspection take?",
    "acceptedAnswer": {
      "@type": "Answer",
      "text": "A standard single-family inspection takes 2 to 3 hours..."
    }
  }]
}

Here's why it matters more for inspectors than almost anyone: in the home-inspection category, nobody in a typical peer set ships FAQPage. It's an open lane. The first firm to wrap its existing Q&A in schema doesn't reach parity — it takes a category lead on exactly the informational queries ("what does a home inspection include," "do I need a sewer scope," "is radon testing worth it") that feed the buyer funnel.

Miss #2: thousands of five-star reviews the machine can't count

A home inspector's review corpus is its single biggest trust asset, and it is usually invisible to AI. The page says "6,000+ 5-star reviews"; the schema says nothing an engine can lift. A bare Rating type floating in the graph is not the same as a structured AggregateRating with a ratingValue and a reviewCount:

"aggregateRating": {
  "@type": "AggregateRating",
  "ratingValue": "4.9",
  "reviewCount": "6128",
  "bestRating": "5"
}

One caveat that matters: source that number from a verifiable platform total and never inflate it. "Largest," "most-referred," and "N+ five-star reviews" are advertising claims under FTC substantiation rules, and the moment you put the count in schema, the machine-readable number carries the same burden as the visible copy.

The three validity defects that quietly suppress rich results

The check also flags a cluster of schema-hygiene bugs I see constantly on inspection sites built on WordPress with a Rank Math or Yoast "Person or Company" toggle set wrong:

The ["Person","Organization"] dual-type. A firm node typed as both a Person and an Organization is invalid — an inspection company is a HomeAndConstructionBusiness, not a person. Switch the global type and change the @id from #person to #org; the references cascade.
The placeholder Person node. A node typed Person whose name is a slug or a set of initials (a CMS default that leaked into production). It pollutes the firm's entity graph. Replace it with the real owner or remove it.
Alt-text on the programmatic gallery. Inspection firms that auto-generate a per-address "sample report" page for SEO often ship those photo galleries with most images missing alt — a WCAG 1.1.1 Level A failure that multiplies across every generated page and is the most common image defect in ADA web demand letters against local service businesses.

The credential layer AI actually verifies

Many states — Colorado among them — don't license home inspectors, so association membership is the credential. The check looks for an InterNACHI or ASHI membership statement and the find-an-inspector profile in the firm's sameAs, an E&O / general-liability line, NRPP/AARST certification on radon pages, and — for any market that does license inspectors, like Texas through TREC — the license number disclosed on that market's pages. These are the links an answer engine traverses to confirm you're a real, certified inspector and not a lead-gen shell.

None of this is a rebuild. It's a FAQPage wrapper around copy you already wrote, an AggregateRating sourced from a number you already earned, three template fixes, and a credential line. Run your own site through the Mega Analyzer and the Schema Validator, and check the gallery pages with the WCAG Accessibility Audit.

Fact-check notes and sources

FAQPage / rich results behavior: Google structured data for FAQ and the AggregateRating / Review snippet guidance.
FTC substantiation of advertising claims: the FTC's advertising FAQ and the Endorsement Guides (claims and review/testimonial substantiation).
WCAG 1.1.1 (non-text content, Level A): Understanding SC 1.1.1. ADA Title III web-litigation context: DOJ web accessibility guidance, March 2022.
Inspector credentials: InterNACHI Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics; radon proficiency via NRPP/AARST. State licensing varies — Texas licenses inspectors via TREC; Colorado does not license home inspectors.

Your Home-Inspection Site Has 6,000 Reviews the AI Can't Read — Here's the Fix