We all know the value of a great FAQ page. There’s no question about the fact that having an efficient, well-written, and presentable FAQ section on your site is a surefire way to demonstrate great customer care. Interestingly, these pages are as popular with search engines as they are with customers. They provide ample opportunity to drive organic traffic to your site while simultaneously providing an invaluable service to your client base.
FAQ content is well understood as a powerful inroad for targeted traffic, and should be considered as a key strategy to boost Google’s opinion of your SEO. Knowing how to make the most of your FAQ page allows you to build, restructure, and reimagine what some site owners have come to view as throwaway content.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at five essential steps for FAQ SEO success.
Keep Things Relevant
As with any aspect of online business, the ways your customers can discover your site is rapidly evolving. Indeed, the recent rise of voice searches has proven how quickly SEO can change.
Google recently reported that as many as 20% of searches are voice-activated, demonstrating that potential customers are on the constant lookout for quicker and easier ways to get answers. Google itself is in a constant state of evolution and development. Savvy business owners would do well to regularly appraise their sites to ensure they’re in line with Google optimization. Or, risk slipping down the search listings and missing out on potential new clients.
Before you begin creating an FAQ page, it’s important to be crystal-clear on what kinds of questions your client base is asking, or would be likely to ask about your products and services. Once you align these questions and answers with Google’s SEO expectations. With 87.96% of internet users worldwide using Google, it’s safe to say your customers will be doing so as well. You should be able to construct a highly SEO-friendly page capable of driving organic traffic to your site.
While this might sound like a lot of work, bear in mind that good SEO can supercharge your online presence, increase trust among your customer base, and ensure your content marketing stays in top condition.
Structured Data is King
An FAQ page needs structured data. Not only is this the best way to look more attractive in the SERP, it’s also the quickest way to establish a better average click-through rate. Google has been rapidly evolving during the pandemic, partly to further support affected businesses. They’ve added extra support for structured FAQ data in both Google Assistant and general Google searches. The result? Having a great FAQ page is going to be more beneficial than ever before.
When you implement structured data into your FAQ page, your content becomes eligible to offer Q and A material directly on the SERP. This increases your presence in ways hitherto difficult to obtain.
Utilize Visual Content
It’s an overused phrase, but it remains true: a picture really is worth a thousand words. When it comes to answering FAQs, often visual content works better, and it’s an increasingly known fact that Google loves pictures and videos.
Graphics, charts, illustrations, and how-to videos are an excellent choice for any FAQ page. They break down big chunks of dry text while at the same time increasing engagement level.
Make Your FAQ Page Perfectly Navigable
It doesn’t matter how beautifully written an FAQ page is if customers can’t find, navigate, or work out where the answer to their burning question is. This is essentially a matter of structure and design. Having a logical, clear, and concise structure to your FAQ page will boost customer satisfaction. It will also increase SEO viability of the entire website.
Consider dividing questions into different categories. Make use of easily-understandable subheadings and subcategories. For example, you might have a subsection on product sizes, another on colors, and one on shipping or returns. The list goes on.
Each FAQ post or section should feature its own SEO-friendly URL. This allows customers to be directed straight to the answer they’re seeking. This is a fantastic way to not only increase customer interaction efficiency, but also build trust and spread useful tidbits of information across various channels.
Stay On Top of Analytics
Once your FAQ page is up and running, you’ll need to stay on top of your analytics and track keyword growth. This way, you’ll be able to see organic traffic growing. As well as gaining insights into how customers find your site and how your keywords are ranking.
If your business has a customer service department that deals directly with the customer base, that should be your first port of call. Maintaining secure communication channels is not only a good business practice but provides easy behind the scenes access to customer queries, emails, and messages that allow you to find out which questions arise most frequently. Weave these into your FAQ list.
Alternatively, you could deploy online survey tools and analytics or even spend time on a competitor’s website to sift through their most common questions. This insight should provide guidance to tweaking your website to optimize SEO and provide a valuable resource to site visitors.
Optimized FAQ Pages: Essential, not an Afterthought
It’s fair to say that many FAQ pages look completely at odds with the websites they are embedded in. Seemingly, a rushed afterthought tacked on by the web designers at the end of a long day. However, when executed logically and with SEO in mind, they are a fantastic way to drive organic traffic, build customer relationships, and reach out to a wider client base.
If you haven’t optimized your FAQ page yet, it’s time to do so. After all, a competitive edge isn’t always this easy to come by.
