With regular updates to Google’s algorithm, it can be hard to stay up-to-date with best practices to ensure your website is fully optimised. As an award-winning digital marketing agency we actively research best practices to deliver best results for clients, therefore we provide you with accurate guidance. One question we get asked often is, are FAQS and FAQ schema good for SEO?
FAQs are still good for SEO for a range of reasons including improving user experience, increasing organic traffic and helping with keyword rankings. However, FAQ schema is no longer as effective for rich results appearances unless you are an extremely authoritative website. That being said, it can still help Google to better understand and crawl your pages so it is worth implementing.
Keep reading to find out more about whether FAQs improve SEO as well as what FAQ schema is and how to apply it to your website.
Do FAQs Improve SEO?
In short, yes, implementing FAQS across your key pages can improve SEO and your online presence. This is because they can help you to appear in search results for popular queries and encourage users to click through to your website. Not only does this help Google gain a better understanding of your pages when crawling them, it also shows you are delivering quality content to your users, which ultimately can improve your rankings.
Take a read below of what our technical expert Paul had to say about how FAQs have proven successful in their SEO campaigns.
“FAQs can have many benefits from an SEO and marketing perspective, including keyword targeting, improving user experience, and helping drive conversions. FAQs should be implemented underneath the majority of product categories for ecommerce sites, or at the bottom of service pages.” – Paul Pennington, SEO Account Director at Wildcat Digital
Benefits of Using FAQs:
Utilising FAQ schema across your website can provide a range of benefits. Learn more about these benefits below.
Improved User Experience
At the very least, having informative FAQS can improve the user experience of your website. Answering common, related questions means you are ensuring the users get everything they require from your page. This can help them to make an informed decision about your service or product. Not only this, by answering common questions, users are less likely to click off your page to go elsewhere.
Established Expert Reputation
Utilising FAQs on your key pages can also help you to establish an expert reputation in your industry. Showing your users and Google that you are delivering informative, up-to-date content and that a user doesn’t need to go to other websites makes you a reliable and trustworthy source. Building this reputation can encourage users to refer back to you at a later date, whether that be for a repeat purchase or referring a service to a friend.
Opportunity for Internal Linking
Often overlooked but still important is the opportunity for internal linking within FAQs. Whether it is related products, services, resources or blogs. Anywhere you can naturally internal link will help Google to crawl your website and rank the pages appropriately.
Increased Organic Traffic
Adding optimised FAQs to your website can ultimately lead to increased organic traffic. They are a great way of pulling in users to your website before they even know they need your product or service. Increasing your organic traffic and showing Google that users are landing on your website through FAQS can also help you improve your domain authority over time. Again, continuously working towards pushing you to the top in search results.
Encourage Conversions
In some ways, having FAQ pages can help users to convert with your product or service. By answering all relevant questions they may have they are going to feel confident in contacting you or making a purchase.
What is FAQ Schema?
Now that you understand the benefits of having FAQs on your website it is important that you learn about FAQ schema. FAQ schema is a form of structured data that is used to help your FAQ to appear in a rich result and be discovered by users. Typically when done properly FAQ schema would result in a FAQ snippet which displays your list of FAQS underneath a title and meta description of your page.
To learn more structured data and whether it is a ranking factor read our useful blog: Is Structured Data a Google Ranking Factor?
Is FAQ Schema Still Relevant in SEO?
In 2023, Google removed FAQ schema for everyday sites because they found it was being overused. FAQ snippets can now only be achieved by authoritative, well-known sites such as Government websites. With that being said, it does not mean that there is no benefit to utilising FAQ schema on your FAQs moving forward. Ultimately, implementing FAQ schema can still help Google to better understand your pages when crawling them which can help when ranking them.
For more information around this topic as well as where to find FAQ ideas, read our informative blog: Are FAQs Still Relevant in SEO?
How to Add FAQ Schema
There are multiple different ways to add FAQ Schema to your website but before you do so, you need to generate your schema and validate it.
How To Create FAQ Schema
There is a lot of different guidance for creating FAQ schema online but we have made it easier for you by showing you some of the simplest methods below.
Use Schema Markup Generator
A very simple way of generating FAQ Schema is to utilise Schema Markup Generator. You simply input your FAQ and answer and the code is generated for you. An example can be seen in the screenshot below.
Use AI
Another option for generating your FAQ schema it to utilise AI with the following prompt:
“Please create a FAQPage schema for the following questions and answers. Add a <script> tag but don’t use HTML and body tags.
What is FAQ Schema?
FAQ schema is a form of structured data that is used to help your FAQ to appear in a rich result and be discovered by users.”
After inputting this code into Chat GPT an FAQ schema code, similar to the one Schema Markup Generator created, will be generated for you.
How to Validate Your FAQ Schema
Now that you have your FAQ schema code it is good practice to validate it on Schema.org. As you can see in the screenshot below, by simply copying the code into the validator it will identify any errors or warnings that may cause issues when you apply the schema to your website.
How to Apply FAQ Schema to Your Website
After validating your FAQ schema code, one of the easiest ways to add it to your website is through Google Tag Manager. Follow these steps to do so.
- Create a new tag in Google Tag Manager
- Select Custom HTML as the tag type
- Copy your validated FAQ Schema code into the empty box
- Create a new trigger
- Select Page View as the trigger type
- Select triggers on Some Pages
- Then set the following conditions for the trigger:
Keep in mind you will need to replace /seo/ with the correct relative url of the page your FAQs are on. At this point you can save this tag and your schema has been applied.
Keep Updated With Important Changes to SEO Practices with Wildcat Digital
We pride ourselves on keeping up-to-date with SEO best practices to help businesses punch above their weight online. Our informative blog is a great resource expanding your knowledge on strategies and industry changes. If you want to take this one step further, and discuss options around us delivering a bespoke SEO campaign for your website, don’t hesitate to contact us today.
Molly Sturgeon
Senior SEO Account Manager
