FAQs on product and service pages can be a powerful SEO tool. But like all effective Search techniques, the black-hatted SEO vultures inevitably come along and ruin them (until Google comes along to punish them).
When FAQs are treated as more than just an opportunity to shove keywords into the bottom of a page, they can be a valuable addition for both SEO and end users.
The best FAQs provide genuinely useful information, addressing queries a potential customer is likely to have about the topic itself, not just about your company.
Here are some tips for getting the most out of yours.
Go beyond standard keyword tools
Keyword volume tools are a great starting point, especially if this is primarily an SEO exercise, but there are other valuable resources too. For genuinely useful FAQ research, combine several sources.
- Google’s People Also Ask results and Related Searches (at the bottom of the search results page)
- Your own site’s search data
- Reddit, Quora and other Forums
- Google Search Console queries
- Keyword research tools
You can also use Google’s autocomplete suggestions by trying combinations such as: “Topic + can”, “topic + should”, “topic + does”, “topic + why” etc.
Ask your sales team
Take your research offline and pay your sales team a visit. They may not be the first resource you’d think to turn to, but they can provide some of the most valuable insights.
Your sales people interact with prospects every day, giving them a close understanding of what potential customers are interested in, the challenges they face, and – most importantly – the questions they regularly ask.
Don’t answer the same question five different ways
FAQ duplication is surprisingly common, and often comes from the SEO vultures I mentioned earlier.
Remember: anything you do for SEO should ideally be helpful for readers too.
When a keyword tool returns several similar questions, all worded differently and with search volume, there can be a temptation to list them all. But this is unnecessary at best, and a bad user experience at worst. Instead, pick the strongest, and if possible, try to weave in some of the other wording naturally.
See what answers rank for your questions
If you want Google to use your answer, you need to see what it’s currently showing for these queries. This will give you an idea of the standard you need to meet or exceed (the latter in particular if you’re a less well-known business than the organisation listed). Rather than imitating their answers, think about what you could add to improve them.
Give a straightforward answer
Put the answer first. Don’t make visitors wade through a paragraph of background waffle before reaching the essential information.
The first sentence should ideally answer the question. Then you can provide qualification, explanation or instructions. This is particularly pertinent on mobile, where a reader may only see the first few lines before deciding whether the answer is relevant.
It’s also really important to use yes/no answers for binary questions. You can go on to explain any exceptions afterwards.
Think ‘topic expansion’, not ‘keyword insertion’
FAQs provide a way to build out the content on your page, but your focus should always be on what key areas the page hasn’t yet covered, rather than using them to manufacture keyword opportunities.
Ask a colleague from another area of the business to read through your content and check it feels natural.
Don’t be afraid of awkward questions
Businesses sometimes shy away from difficult or negative questions, but there are plenty of reasons to tackle these head-on.
People researching a purchase often actively seek balanced information. Avoiding awkward questions does not make the concern disappear. If someone is asking about the disadvantages of the type of product or service you offer, a candid explanation is considerably more persuasive than pretending customers haven’t noticed. It also gives you credibility and can actually increase trust.
Save some queries for other content formats
Keep an eye out for questions that deserve more than one paragraph. Queries with a healthy search volume and plenty of scope for explanation may warrant their own page, blog, or section within the main page. Especially if it’s useful to add examples or images to make your point.
A good FAQ should answer focused questions, not attempt to contain an entire knowledge base.
Use FAQs to support internal linking
FAQs can be an excellent place for contextual internal links. If there’s a blog post or guide that provides further reading on a subject you’ve touched on, get hyperlinking.
Don’t turn every FAQ into a collection of keyword-rich internal links; the link should genuinely help the reader. One highly relevant link is often better than five forced ones.
Don’t add FAQs just because your competitors have them
There’s a tendency for leaders to see something they like on a competitor’s site and forward it to the marketing team with an accompanying message along the lines of “we should be doing this”.
Competitor analysis is useful, but copying them isn’t. Repeating what another site already has is pointless. If you need to cover similar queries, ask yourself what useful information is missing, and go from there.
FAQs shouldn’t be a keyword-stuffed list of questions appended to a service page, but a carefully researched collection of queries that surround the main topic.
These could span anything from questions buyers ask before committing to a purchase, to comparisons, misconceptions and anxieties.
This results in a page that demonstrates a much broader understanding of the subject, while giving potential customers useful information at precisely the right stage in their journey.