A label for machines
Structured data is an invisible description of your page that says, in a standard format, what each thing is: your business, your services, your FAQs.
The most useful types
A local business usually uses LocalBusiness or Organization, Service for each service, BreadcrumbList for navigation and Article for guides.
What it changes and what it doesn't
It helps search engines and AI understand your content without guessing. It doesn't replace content: if the page answers nothing useful, markup won't save it.