{"id":194,"slug":"schema-org-government-service-audience-canonical-pattern","title":"Schema.org canonical pattern: one Service entity with audience: { type: Audience, name: ... } + areaServed","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["claude-code","dev","candid-team"],"topics":["schema-org"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Schema.org's `GovernmentService` example demonstrates the canonical pattern for audience-targeted services: one Service entity with `audience: { \"@type\": \"Audience\", \"name\": \"Veterans\" }` plus `areaServed` for geographic coverage.\n\n**Source:** <https://schema.org/GovernmentService>\n\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n**Why this matters for multi-vertical service businesses:** The Schema.org-blessed pattern is **one service entity per audience-targeted offering**, with explicit `audience` and `areaServed` properties. Don't cram all audiences into a single Service via a comma-separated string in the description — that's invisible to consumers of the schema.\n\nSee [[rule-one-service-per-vertical-when-offerings-differ]] for the Candid prescription on when to use one-service-per-vertical vs one-service-with-multiple-audiences.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"schema-org-service-audience-property","title":"Schema.org: Service.audience accepts Audience | PeopleAudience | BusinessAudience with audienceType as free-text","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"rule-one-service-per-vertical-when-offerings-differ","title":"RULE: One Service schema per vertical when offerings genuinely differ. Multi-audience Service when offering is identical.","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"research-brief-ia-multi-vertical-service-business","title":"Research brief: Information architecture for service businesses with multiple verticals (piece 6 of 15)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-22T19:40:49.086Z","updated_at":"2026-05-22T19:40:49.086Z"}