FAQs boost SEO because they immediately deliver the answers users seek, thereby resolving their search intent and contributing to an excellent experience on the website. Since Google, the leading search engine, prioritizes user experience, having well-structured FAQs can lead to higher search rankings for your webpage. Also, FAQs make it easier for Google to understand and index your website for its SERP.
See what we did there?
We gave you the answer to your search query in the first paragraph.
That’s what an FAQ does – immediately address a user’s search intent.
We saved you valuable time and helped you have a productive day. You can leave this page now and proceed to your next task.
But you won’t.
We didn’t just give you a default answer you can find on any other website. We provided you with a comprehensive and detailed explanation of how FAQs enhance SEO.
Now, you’re interested in learning more about FAQs.
“What else can Mountaintop Web Design teach me about FAQs and how they enhance my SEO strategy?”
In this article, you’ll learn:
- What is an FAQ?
- 6 ways FAQs can boost SEO
- How to find the right FAQs for your website
- FAQs on FAQs
Let’s begin!
What Is An FAQ Page?
An FAQ page is a specific section on the website that offers quick, concise answers to frequently asked questions about the business, its products, and services.
To ensure users of value, usability, and navigability, an FAQ page organizes the questions into different categories.
An e-commerce website might organize its FAQ page into the following categories:
- General Information
- Order Inquiries
- Products and Stocks
- Delivery/Shipping
- Payment
- Refunds and Cancellations of Orders
- My Account
The purpose of an FAQ page is to simplify the customer’s journey.
Customers who want to update their payment method will click the “Payment” box. They’ll see a list of questions and navigate to “How do I change my payment method?”
An effective answer must directly respond to the question.
In our example, “How do I change my payment method?”, the answer starts by reframing the question as a statement:
“You can change your payment method by following the process below.”
The process is outlined in bullet point format. If needed, links to relevant pages, such as “My Account” or “My Order,” are included.
Here’s a follow-up FAQ you might be asking:
“Why are FAQs written in the first person POV?”
FAQs are written in the first-person point of view to foster a sense of empathy and a feeling of relatability. By doing so, the FAQ enhances customer engagement.
Now, let’s find out the ways FAQs can boost SEO.
6 Ways FAQs Can Boost SEO
It’s your first time at Cherry Creek Shopping Center. You have a meeting at Starbucks, but you don’t know where it is.
You can Google directions, or walk to the Information Center, where you’ll see an illuminated floor directory.
Relieved that you know where Starbucks is located, new questions pop into your head:
- “How do I get to Denver Union Station from Starbucks?”
- “Where do I get a taxi?”
- “Does the mall have a locker where I can store my belongings?”
To address these inquiries, the Information Center has established a nearby counter managed by two customer service agents trained to assist mall visitors with all their questions.
Satisfied with the experience, you head to your Starbucks meeting relaxed and impressed with the service afforded by Cherry Creek Shopping Center.
To quote Arnold’s most famous movie line:
An FAQ page is your website’s information center. It can give your SEO strategy a boost and generate frequent website visits… if done correctly.
1. FAQs Make Google Happy
A search engine’s job is to find web pages with information that’s relevant to users’ queries.
The FAQ page organizes the most frequently asked questions by category. All questions users have about the business, its products, services, and processes can be found and indexed by search engines on the FAQ page.
The FAQ page improves your website’s visibility to search engines. It makes the search engine’s job of indexing and understanding relevant and useful content much easier.
Your FAQ page might appear in Google’s featured snippets – a search results box that summarizes and organizes pieces of information that a user might find valuable.
The featured snippets box can appear at the top of the SERP or in the “People Also Ask” section and can include images and videos.
Later, we’ll discuss how the “People Also Ask” section can help you craft effective FAQs.
2. Naturally Incorporate Powerful Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are specific search queries that include parameters. These parameters provide detailed information to define the search.
For example, instead of “cheeseburger,” a long-tail keyword search would read, “best Wagyu cheeseburger grilled over lava rocks near me.”
Long-tail keywords are great for SEO for two reasons:
- The details tighten up the search parameters and become relevant only to a small number of websites that feature the specific products or services.
- Their specificity results in producing SERPS that feature webpages characterized by low search volume and low competition keywords.
Thus, using long-tail keywords makes it easier to rank higher in unpaid search results.
To better understand, go back to our example of a long-tail keyword.
How many restaurants near you grill Wagyu cheeseburgers over lava rocks? If there are 10 burger restaurants in your area, probably only one or two use lava rocks to grill their Wagyu burgers.
The FAQ page is the ideal section to incorporate long-tail keywords. An FAQ allows you to use long-tail keywords naturally. Use them to give users more detailed answers.
3. Increase Time on Page and Reduce Bounce Rate
We mentioned that because we gave you the answer to your search query in the first paragraph, you could already leave our website.
Yes, that option is available to all visitors.
If many visitors opted out after reading the first paragraph, our bounce rate would increase, and Google would penalize us in the search ranking.
So why risk it?
User intent.
In the latest Quality Rater Guidelines, it’s evident that Google highly values search intent as a ranking factor.
(Source: Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines)
It’s okay to take the risk because we know Google has our back.
Google rewards content that immediately addresses user intent.
Similarly, users appreciate the quick assist. It will encourage them to explore our website further and see what else we offer in terms of content, products, and services.
The FAQ page is a logical next destination.
When writing your FAQs, provide links to other pages, such as the products page, home page, contact us page, and relevant blogs.
Thus, an FAQ page can be used to improve your internal linking strategy.
4. Improve Mobile-Friendliness of Your Website
Google made the shift to mobile-first indexing in 2016.
Previously, Google indexed websites by crawling their desktop versions and retrieving the indexed pages for both desktop and mobile search results.
Mobile-first indexing means that mobile search is the primary index, while desktop search is now considered secondary.
Google anticipated the growth of mobile search back in 2015 when it updated its search algorithm and included mobile-responsiveness as a ranking factor.
Websites that weren’t mobile-responsive would be penalized in the search rankings.
A decade later, Google has been proven correct.
59.99% of online searches are conducted on mobile phones. People who need immediate answers will go to the FAQ page.
A well-organized FAQ page that is mobile-responsive, offers excellent navigability, and includes a comprehensive list of answers to various questions will be appreciated by mobile users and by Google.
5. Create Another Customer Service Channel
Do you remember our analogy between a mall’s information center and an FAQ page? The information center is one of the mall’s customer service channels.
An FAQ page can serve as another customer service channel for your website. The other standard customer service channels are the chatbox, email support, and contact forms.
Some users might not want to engage with a chatbot or a live agent because a chat session could take time. Similarly, responses to emails and contact forms can take 24 hours or longer.
Phone call? Customers won’t be happy queuing to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” for 10 minutes.
However, a well-crafted FAQ page provides users with a centralized location to quickly find the answers they need. These answers may include links to landing pages where users can complete specific actions.
Users might click on your URL feeling anxious, stressed, or impatient, but they’ll click out happy, impressed, and fulfilled.
And they’ll be back!
6. Enhance Your Reputation as an Expert
Problems at work? Having issues with your significant other? Are you planning to start a weight-loss program? Are you considering a career change?
We have people in our lives whom we go to for answers to specific questions. Over the years, they’ve given us valuable advice that has helped us overcome challenges in different aspects of our lives.
The FAQ section can do the same for your business.
The FAQ section gives you a platform to build your reputation as an authority in the industry and an expert in the subject matter.
If you consistently provide users with the best answers to their questions, solve their problems, and guide them to make the right decisions, they will continuously return to your website.
Take note: The best answers to users’ questions.
Your answers should be better than the competition. Provide information that your competitors don’t.
If you sell supplements online and a common FAQ in the industry is:
“How many grams of creatine should I take to maximize its benefits?”
The usual answer is:
“Take the recommended dosage of five grams to maximize the benefits of creatine.”
Go a step further:
“The recommended dosage for creatine to maximize the benefits of creatine is 5 grams daily. However, the latest research (link to resource) shows that the right dosage depends on body weight, with 0.05 to 0.11 grams per kilogram as the range that delivers the best results.
“We recommend starting with 0.05 g per pound. If there’s no discomfort and discernible improvement in performance, increase the dosage to 0.11 g per kilogram.”
Impressive, right?
You’ll win the trust and respect of the user and Google.
How To Find The Right FAQs For Your Website
The key to having a successful FAQ page that delivers results for your SEO strategy is finding the right questions.
Here are four ways to find the right questions for your website:
1. Use Google’s People Also Ask Feature
If you search for “FAQ”, you’ll see a set of questions displayed in a box located in the middle of the SERP.
This pop-up box is a Google feature called “People Also Ask.” It lists other questions related to your original query that people are commonly searching for.
If you noticed, we created headers for some of these PAA questions so we can give readers more detailed answers. However, we left out “Do you say FAQ or FAQs” as it’s not relevant to the article.
In the next section, we’ll discuss how FAQs can be used as headers and add value to your blog.
2. Use Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, and Ahrefs can help you find the keywords commonly used by consumers and businesses engaged in your industry.
Google Trends, Answer the Public, and Google Search Console are excellent tools for researching topics that consumers are frequently discussing.
How do you use the keyword list provided by these research tools?
- Identify the long-tail keywords that are phrased as a question and organize them in a spreadsheet.
- Identify high-search-volume keywords and use them to create a Google search query. Visit the websites listed in the search engine results page (SERP) and take note of the headers.
Many content writers use FAQs as headers on their blogs for two reasons:
- FAQs respond to the user’s query, and using them as headers makes it easier for them to navigate content.
- FAQs as headers help search engines understand the relevance and structure of the blog.
In many blogs, some headers are presented as a question to correspond with the original format of the search query.
For example, in this blog, our first header is “What Is An FAQ Page?”
3. Engage Your Customers
Go to the source – your customers.
“What questions do you want answered?”
- Use social media: Post the aforementioned question and similar queries on your social media pages.
- Comments section: Check out the comments posted by followers on your blogs and social media.
- Email: Send out customer surveys and questionnaires. Review the emails sent out by email and summarize the inquiries.
- Chat support: Review your chat logs. What questions are customers frequently asking your chatbot or live agents? Send quick surveys to loyal customers.
4. Spy on the Competition
What are your competitors up to?
- Website: Read the questions posted on their FAQ pages. Review and analyze the answers to the FAQs. Are they correct and updated?
Check the blog page. Which blogs have the highest engagement levels? What are the common comments posted by users? - Social Media: Analyze the interactions between your competitors and their customers. What are the common issues or problems raised by commenters?
Again, give your users answers that are more comprehensive and informative than your competitors.
FAQs On FAQs
1. “Are FAQs a ranking factor?”
No, FAQs aren’t a ranking factor in Google’s search algorithm.
However, when properly done, an FAQ page will help your website comply with Google’s prominent ranking factors, such as addressing user intent, providing an excellent user experience, and creating quality content.
2. “What are the benefits of having an FAQ page on my website?”
Here are the five benefits of having an FAQ page on your website:
- As we discussed, an FAQ page can boost your SEO strategy.
- Enhance user experience.
- Improve the customer service process.
- It could help convert visitors into paying customers.
- Creates an opportunity for your business to prove itself as a valuable resource.
3. “What are your best tips for writing an FAQ?”
Here are our five best tips for writing an FAQ:
- Incorporate long-tail keywords.
- Write naturally.
- Prioritize user intent; give the answer immediately.
- Keep mobile-friendliness in mind; use short paragraphs and organize with bullet points.
- Always update your FAQs.
4. “How many questions should I have on my FAQ page?”
As many as possible.
Try to cover as many topics as possible… BUT make sure the topics are relevant and in demand from your customers.
5. “Do I need an FAQ page if I already have a Help Center?”
Yes.
An FAQ gives direct answers to specific questions from users. A Help Center provides resources that users can use for research.
For example, a Help Center can provide users access to pages that outline processes for billing, updating account information, canceling subscriptions, requesting refunds, or troubleshooting.
5. “Do I need an FAQ on every webpage?”
No. One dedicated webpage will suffice.
You can include the FAQ page on the menu or provide users with a link that will take them to a landing page.
Conclusion
An FAQ page can boost your SEO strategy, build your brand, cultivate strong relationships with your customers, and enhance your reputation as an expert… but it must be done correctly.
It must be well-thought-out, organized, comprehensive, and provide the best answers to the most frequently asked questions by users.
The best answers must also be written correctly.
Your responses to FAQs should include relevant long-tail keywords and clearly address user intent. Use concise wording and short sentences.
However, it won’t matter how good your FAQ page is if your website doesn’t have the qualities that ensure visitors of an excellent experience. These qualities include mobile-responsiveness, fast download speed, optimized content, navigability, and high-level security.
If “Uh oh” pops into your head or if you’re unsure, contact us, and let’s schedule a quick call to map out a plan for your website.
