SEO FAQ Page: How to Create a Helpful and Well-Optimized FAQ Page (2023)

The golden rule of marketing has always been: don't leave your customers in the dark or you'll lose them. This rule also applies very well to SEO: if Google can't find an answer, and fast, it will select and feature your competitor.

One way to ensure this doesn't happen is to have a well designed and optimized FAQ page. Your FAQs are key to providing your customers and search engines with all the answers they might need about your brand.

Why create a FAQ page?

• Lighten the workload of your customer service team. If you get it right, your FAQ page will be the first port of call for your prospects, before they have to contact you directly.
• Shorten the purchase paths of your customers. If your site users can find all the answers without listening to your team, they will buy right away.
• Generate trust signals. Covering your return policies and shipping processes, and being transparent to your website users, will encourage them to trust your brand more. As always, when your website users trust your brand, so will Google.
• Create a more effective sales funnel by incorporating your company's competitive advantages: What makes you better than your competitors?
• Improve the internal linking of your website (useful).
• Capture more search visibility opportunities.

Convinced? Then we move from why to how.

Where to find questions to be answered

I wrote a very detailed article about it.research questionsfor moz. It lists all kinds of tools, including SEO-driven (based on questions people type into Google's search box) and People Also Ask-based (questions that appear in Google's People Also Ask boxes), that collect questions from online discussion forums, as well as tools that monitor questions from Twitter and Reddit.

Plus, your customer support team is your most important resource. You need to know exactly what your customers are asking when they contact your business, and then use all other sources to optimize those questions for organic rankings and grow your list if necessary.

The answers must be CCF (clear, concise and objective).

(I just made up that acronym, but you get my point right.)

A good rule of thumb is to write short answers to each question; two or three paragraphs would be a good answer. If more time passes, the page becomes too long and cluttered.

If you have more to say:

• Write a standalone article explaining the process.
• Add a video

It's almost always a good idea to create a video to answer most of these questions. Videos are good promotional tools to get your brand noticeddiscovered on youtube, as well as through Google video carousels.

And if video marketing sounds too intimidating for you, there are a few tools you can use to create videos on a budget without investing in expensive software (and training) or outside services. I list some of these tools.Here.

Another video creation tool I recently discovered is calledrenderwald. It offers some powerful explainer video templates that are perfect for answering questions.

Other ways to shorten answers are:

• Add instructional GIFs (I have listed some tools to make GIFsHere).
• Create downloadable flowcharts and checklists (there are manyonline toolsto put them together).

Total,Images have proven their worth for a long time.To improve engagement and make things easier to understand and remember, then why not use them on your FAQ page?

FAQ outline - use it!

Google loveswith clear answers(That's why it's a good idea to create a strong FAQ page.) In fact, Google loves responses so much that there's a separate schema type specifically for this content format:FAQPage-Schema.

Definitely use it. For WordPress users:There is a WordPress pluginthis helps tag content with the FAQ outline.

It makes your FAQ page easier for Google to understand and helps your page stand out in searches:

Quick Tip: If you include an internal link in your reply, it will also show up in search results. More links in organic SERPs!

Internal link: use your FAQ as a sitemap

Getting more links from your organic search listing is not the only reason to link from your FAQ page. Your FAQ page is part of the customer journey, where each answer is an important step in the sales funnel. For this reason, adding internal links is key to ensuring that the customer journey continues.

But don't just think about these links from an SEO perspective. Here, creating keyword-optimized link text isn't as important (although it's not a bad idea, if it makes sense). The most important factor to consider here isuser intent.

What is your website user likely to do next when searching for a specific question?

If they have a question about shipping cost, they are probably about to make a purchase, but need to know more about the final price. Here you can brag about your great shipping partners and link directly to the product (or listing) page and cart so they can complete checkout.

If you're asked how long shipping usually takes, you're probably their current customer, so linking to their shipping information page would be more helpful.

Monitoring your FAQ page and user paths will give you more ideas on how to best configure each answer. More on that below.

If you need inspiration for proper linking in the FAQ, take a look hereShopify, which does a good job of matching different user intents via internal linking:

structure is everything

There are Internet users who search and there are those who browse.

Your FAQ page should address both.

That means:

• There should be search box suggestions to effectively guide the user through the website.
• There should be clear categories (like subheadings) that site visitors can navigate through and get a good idea of ​​what your site does at a glance. This helps people who are still in the research phase to make a buying decision faster.

PayPal compliedboth in a very nice way:

To determine the best structure for the FAQ page, try thistext optimizer, which uses semantic analysis to ask related questions. It makes it easy to catch some common keywords and question patterns:

Once you have your FAQ content structure in place, create anchor links so users can quickly jump to the section where they want to search further. To see this page navigation in action, go toAdobe FAQ Page:

Here is a short tutorialhow to configure this type of navigation.

To make your FAQ page work: integrate, analyze, monitor

A well-designed FAQ page addresses multiple types of user intent and helps with different steps in a sales funnel. This makes monitoring the site closely a very important task.

Here are some ways to achieve this:

1. Monitor search in FAQs

If your website runs on WordPress, there are a variety of FAQ plugins (includingThis one here), which are equipped with an extended search function. The feature informs about:

• The most popular searches, which show which product features or website sections are causing the most confusion (this may indicate some usability issues).
• Empty searches showing what questions the user asked that didn't generate answers in your FAQ (these should go directly to your content team).

If you decide to go for a custom solution without a plugin, make sure that is the case.Use Google Analyticsto set up your In-FAQ search, which allows you to monitor the search patterns of your website users.

2. Track User Traces Through Your FAQ Page

What pages (or off-site channels) usually take people to your FAQ page, and where do they typically go from there? These paths are important in understanding the role of the FAQ page in your sales funnel.

To track how effective a page is at sending conversions, I tend to useTranslated, which allows you to create an unlimited (if I haven't reached the limit yet) number of sales funnels to monitor and compare different user paths through your website:

3. Monitor people also ask ratings

Chances are you're monitoring that page's traffic and rankings anyway, but here's something to add: "People Ask Too" positions.

Since this page is focused on answering customer questions, Google ranks it as "People ask too."they are quite significantif you are doing a good job or not.SE Classificationit's the only tool I know of that can help you with that. Tracks most Google search items and reports your progress:

If you do things right, your PPA positions will probably grow.

4. Monitor customer feedback

Finally, collecting user feedback on each answer in your FAQ will help you create more useful answers. Again, most pre-built FAQ solutions come with this option, but there are standalone plugins as well (likeThis one here).

Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions

There are some common questions about creating an FAQ page floating around the web (as well asMoz Community Forums). Let's quickly address them here:

Is an FAQ section still useful?

Yes, definitely, but only if you're serious about it.

Should I use "collapsible" responses to save space?

I have no problem with this setup (many brands go this route), but SEOs believe that content hidden behind tabs or clicks has less value than content immediately visible.

Can I reuse the selected answers on other pages where these questions and answers make sense? Is that duplicate content?

It's not a "problematic" duplicate content issue (meaning Google won't penalize you), but the best way to avoid duplicate content is to write new (original) answers for each page.

Should it be one page or is it better to build a multi-page knowledge base?

Depending on how much you have to say, either is good.

mouthful

• Their FAQ page is an important step in the buying process and a good resource for organic search that can drive traffic and conversion.
• To find answers to your FAQ page, check out our nicheQuestion Investigation Guide.
• Createconcise, factual answers that offer immediate help or guidelines. Videos and animated GIFs make the FAQ section more and more useful.
• Link from your FAQ page to accommodate different user intentions and help your site users continue their journey through the site.
• Structure your FAQ page in a meaningful way to give site users some clues as to what is covered.
• Closely monitor your website user journeys through your FAQ page to improve and expand.

Do you have any other tips for optimizing your FAQs? Let me know in the comment section.