People often consider the power of SEO when thinking of blogs, videos, and other commonly viewed content. Many have also spruced up their “About Us” pages. However, have you considered SEO optimization in regards to your FAQ page? You may wonder why this page would be so important. Well, think for a moment, how many times have you typed into Google the word “how?” How many somethings are in this thing? How can I do this with that device? How do I contact such and such? And “how” only one of the question formats used. Now consider this question: how many other people also ask those questions? SEO is about setting yourself as an authority in your niche, and that includes answering questions. Especially frequently asked questions. Therefore, we at MyCity Social, your SEO consultant in Tampa, FL, have created this post to help you understand the optimization of FAQ pages to drive potential prospects to your website. Read on to learn more.
SEO Consultant Explains the Benefits of Optimizing FAQ Pages
As you likely know, a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page is a list of popular questions followed by a quick answer for each topic. Having a FAQ page provides a few benefits that any business would appreciate.
- Keeps visitors on your site
- As your website will have all the answers, your visitors will have no reason to go to other sites. This has many benefits, including a higher SEO rating. As potential clients linger, Google understands that you are providing a good service to your visitors. Because of this, your FAQ page will acquire a higher ranking.
- Also, there is a chance your visitor will see something on your site that is appealing. Furthermore, the longer your potential client lingers, the more likely he/she will decide to purchase something from your website.
- Prevents the interruption of the buyer’s journey
- Sometimes, the potential customer will have questions. If he/she decides to call customer service, some of the excitement may be lost while waiting for someone to answer. Or, some excitement may be lost if, even after calling, the question was not answered. With a FAQ page, your potential customer can find quick answers to questions without losing any momentum.
- Turn your page into a knowledge base
- As stated before, you will want to become an authority in your topic. Furthermore, you want to answer any questions that relate to your product. To do this, you must make finding the answers on your site an easy task.
- The other benefit to this is if you answer enough questions clearly, your potential customer may return to your website for more answers. As you become a trusted source of information, your product becomes a trusted resource as well.
- Your FAQ page can be found on Google
- This is possibly the most important role of this page. If someone asks any question that your page answers, your answer and a link to your site may appear in Google’s search results. If your answers are clear and SEO optimized, your answer may appear on the front page. This means you can attract clients by solving an immediate need.
- Also, if your potential client was asking different questions about a specific type of product and finds that your site often appears with an answer, this is how you get that trusted authority status mentioned earlier.
How to Optimize Your FAQ Page for Search
After seeing the vision and reading the benefits, you’d want to ask your Tampa SEO agency how to accomplish this feat. Fortunately, we have collected 5 steps you can perform to optimize your FAQ page.
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- Form an SEO-driven Strategy
- When optimizing your FAQ page for SEO, you will need to form a strategy the same way you would with any other SEO page. You need to know how your consumers word their questions, what questions they ask most often, which question words they use. Fortunately, there are ways to obtain this information:
- Text Optimizers – When you use a text optimizer, it returns related topics behind different search queries. Basically, it will tell you, based on the topic you’d chosen, what people searched, what the search query said (returning a list of phrases), and how many people searched the listed phrases.
- Google Suggests – When you type a phrase into Google, it returns a list of topics, phrases, or questions based on what others have searched. If you want a longer list, you can use Ahrefs. Ahrefs extracts Google Suggests results.
- Google’s People Also Ask – When you search any question, Google will also supply you with a list of questions people also ask. As this is very insightful, you’d probably want to know how to farm this information. A service you can use is called “Internet Marketing Ninjas.”
- Your competitors – As you want this information, it is likely that your competitors also wanted it. Therefore, they may have already collected a few questions you may want to consider for your site. If you drop in and study what they’ve done, you may be able to do a little less footwork.
- When optimizing your FAQ page for SEO, you will need to form a strategy the same way you would with any other SEO page. You need to know how your consumers word their questions, what questions they ask most often, which question words they use. Fortunately, there are ways to obtain this information:
- Organize your questions
- After using the tools above to acquire lists of questions, you may have more than you can possibly use. After all, if your FAQ page has too many questions, no one would be able to use it. In that case, it is time to organize your questions and find out which ones are the most useful. You should identify:
- Main Subtopics – Knowing the similarities between different questions can be useful when crafting your page. For example, have a list of price questions or DIY questions.
- Closely Related Questions – If you find multiple questions that are basically the same, you don’t want to clutter your FAQ page by answering the same question. Therefore, sort your list so that those similar questions are close together.
- After using the tools above to acquire lists of questions, you may have more than you can possibly use. After all, if your FAQ page has too many questions, no one would be able to use it. In that case, it is time to organize your questions and find out which ones are the most useful. You should identify:
- Form an SEO-driven Strategy
- Questions with Similar Content Personas – With certain questions comes a likelihood that the searcher fits a certain demographic, attitude, or goal. This could be a good way to group questions.
- Similar Intent – Whether the questions seem to show an intent to buy a product or to understand your brand, sorting these types of questions will help people of similar intents to quickly find similar answers.
- Use FAQPage Schema
- FAQPage Schema is a type of markup – or computer language component – used to get your content shown on Google search results. Fortunately, if you use WordPress, there is a plugin you can use called IMN FAQ Block. With this, your web page will create a block optimized for FAQPage Schema.
- Include internal links in your answers
- As your answers are meant to help researchers solve their problems, if they find their answers within the Google search, they may not feel the need to visit your page. What is more, your answers don’t always have links for people to click, meaning trying to find and visit your website would be a chore. To alleviate this issue, add a link inside your answer. This will give searchers easy access to your site.
- Create a Clickable Table of Contents
- Now that your webpage is sorted, searchable, and linked, you’ll want to make your FAQ page easy to navigate. One way to do this is to create a table of contents. Just like with an ebook, your table of contents will provide a list of subjects covered in your text. When your visitor clicks on the links in the table, the page will jump to where the subject is covered.
- To do this, you will need to create an anchor link for each question.
- Now, you may wonder, “Why not create a table with a drop-down?” We understand that question. After all, many FAQ pages are structured this way. With a drop-down, there is no need to take extra space with a table of contents or use a bunch of links. However, the reason we suggest this is that you can create a table that follows your visitor on the screen.
- That may not have been clear. Imagine that, no matter where you are on the page, you can access the table of contents by clicking the upper-left corner of the screen. Or, what if it is a floating popup. This way, your visitor doesn’t need to scroll away from the content currently on the screen.
- Now that your webpage is sorted, searchable, and linked, you’ll want to make your FAQ page easy to navigate. One way to do this is to create a table of contents. Just like with an ebook, your table of contents will provide a list of subjects covered in your text. When your visitor clicks on the links in the table, the page will jump to where the subject is covered.
Contact Us for a Tampa SEO Agency
Now that you know how to optimize your FAQ page for search, you might also wonder what other SEO information you could use. After all, Google constantly updates its SEO measurements. Therefore, over time, you will want to update your SEO strategy. However, as you constantly monitor other parts of your business, how will you keep track of new changes in marketing and SEO? Fortunately, we have the answer. MyCity Social is a Florida-based SEO consultant team driven to help businesses in Miami, Tampa, or anywhere in the Florida area. So, if you want to learn more about SEO or to get the help of a Tampa SEO agency, contact us today!
