TL;DR: Yes to FAQs, and optional for FAQ schema. Good FAQs still answer the questions that stop people buying, give you a natural place to target longer, conversational searches, and create useful internal links. FAQ schema is a different story. Google stopped showing FAQ rich results in its search results from 7 May 2026, so the markup no longer earns you those expandable questions on the results page, and there’s no confirmed search benefit from it now. Write FAQs for your customers first, and treat the schema as optional.
Are FAQs Still Good For SEO?
Yes. An FAQ is a short list of common questions with clear answers about a product, service or topic, and FAQs earn their place on your website before you even think about SEO:
- Fewer doubts and a smoother journey: quick details about delivery, refunds or contract terms can remove the last objection before someone gets in touch or buys.
- Fewer simple enquiries: customers find answers themselves, so your team spends more time on the complicated questions.
- Longer, conversational searches: an FAQ is a natural home for questions written the way people ask them. In our experience, more people now search in full questions, as they would ask a person, rather than typing a couple of keywords.
- Internal links: a short answer can link through to the full service page or blog post.
How Do I Find FAQ Ideas?
Start with what your customers already ask, then use tools to fill the gaps.
Your own team. Ask your marketing, customer service or sales team which questions and worries come up most often before someone buys. You don’t need to survey customers. These FAQs do two jobs: they catch people searching for those answers, and they give your team a page to point customers to.
For one client that works in the sexual health industry, I worked closely with the client to ensure that the FAQs on the site are relevant and address the common questions that they receive from customers. They had some unique ideas that didn’t appear in People Always Ask or other tools, but they knew people wanted to know. Following this upgrade, we’ve seen a huge increase in LLM traffic in particular, since users are often asking for extra information beyond just the keyword.
Jamie Stowe, Senior SEO Account Manager
Keyword tools and People Also Ask. Enter your page’s target keyword into a tool such as Semrush and look at the question-based variations it suggests, then check the “People Also Ask” boxes in Google’s results for the same keyword. The search volume shown for each question gives you a rough idea of its traffic potential, so balance relevance against volume when you choose.
Your existing pages. Look at the main content on the page the FAQs will sit on, and at the headings in blog posts on the same topic. Any section that could be summed up as a simple question and answer is a candidate, and the FAQ gives you a natural place to link through to the full post. A local SEO service page, for example, would probably benefit from an FAQ like “What is local SEO?”
Top Tip: Write each question the way a customer actually said it, not the way your team would label it. Search your enquiry inbox or call notes for the real wording, so it’s “How do I improve my SEO rankings after a big drop?” rather than “improvements for SEO ranking drops”. If neither your team nor your search data can show anyone asking it, it probably doesn’t belong in your FAQs yet.
How Long Should An FAQ Answer Be?
There’s no set length, but shorter is usually better. People want a quick answer, ideally a yes or no where the question allows one. Aim for around two or three sentences, put the direct answer in bold so readers scanning the page find it quickly, and link to a blog post, service page or contact page when the full answer needs more room.
Don’t rule out a question just because you can’t give a definitive answer. If people are searching for it, give them useful guidance, even if the full answer depends on their circumstances. It’s a chance to show your expertise and explain what makes you different.
Here’s the difference in practice.
Bad example
Q: Are FAQs still relevant?
A: Yes.
Good example
Q: Are FAQs still relevant?
A: Yes, FAQs are still relevant for SEO, for a number of reasons:
- More keyword targeting opportunities
- More query coverage
- Additional internal linking
- A better user experience
Read our blog to find out more about why you should still be using FAQs in your content.
The good example answers the question, adds some context and points to a page with more detail. The bad one leaves the reader with more questions, and they’ll probably go to a competitor to find the answers.
What Is FAQ Schema?
FAQ schema is a type of structured data: code that labels the questions and answers on your page in a format search engines and other programs can read. It’s worth separating two things that often get mixed up:
- FAQ schema is the code you add to your page to describe your FAQs.
- FAQ rich results were the expandable questions and answers Google used to show directly under a page in its search results.
The schema is what you control. The rich result was a search feature Google chose whether to show. Google limited FAQ rich results to well-known, authoritative government and health websites in August 2023, which is why most businesses stopped seeing them long before 2026.
Is FAQ Schema Still Relevant?
Much less than it was, and for different reasons.
According to Google’s Search Central changelog, FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Google Search from 7 May 2026. Google added a deprecation notice on 8 May 2026 and removed its FAQ rich result documentation on 15 June 2026, because the feature is “no longer shown in Google Search results”. The changelog doesn’t carve out an exception for the government and health sites that kept them after 2023, and FAQ no longer appears in Google’s list of supported structured data features. In practice, no site should expect FAQ rich results from Google now.
So what’s left for the markup to do?
- It still describes your content. Google says structured data gives it explicit clues about the meaning of a page. FAQPage is still a valid schema.org type, so the markup isn’t wrong; it just no longer unlocks a Google search feature.
- It isn’t needed for Google’s AI features. Google’s guidance on AI Overviews and AI Mode says there’s no special schema.org structured data you need to add to appear in them. Some other AI tools may use structured data when they read a page, but there’s no confirmed evidence that FAQ schema specifically gets you cited.
- Leaving existing markup in place is fine. When Google first restricted FAQ rich results in 2023, it said there was no need to proactively remove the markup, as structured data that isn’t being used doesn’t cause problems for Search. Nothing in the 2026 changelog says otherwise.
Structured data is also not a direct ranking factor, so don’t expect FAQ schema to move your rankings on its own.
“When a client asks about FAQ schema, I wouldn’t suggest removing it or putting it on the back burner. I think FAQs are a really useful way to answer common questions and make content more helpful for users. We can usually add the relevant schema fairly quickly as part of our work, so it’s worth doing where it makes sense. The main thing is making sure the FAQs are genuinely useful and not letting smaller tasks like this distract from bigger opportunities to improve SEO performance.”
Eviee Taylor, SEO Senior Executive
For most businesses, we’d put the time into the FAQ content first. If adding the markup is quick for your site, it’s unlikely to cause problems as long as it matches what’s on the page, but don’t add it expecting a Google FAQ rich result.
How Do I Add FAQ Schema To My Site?
If you decide to add it, it comes down to four steps.
- Create the code. The free Schema Markup Generator lets you choose the FAQ Page type, paste in your questions and answers, and copy the finished code. You can also give an AI tool your questions and answers with a prompt such as: “Write FAQPage schema in JSON-LD for the following questions and answers. Use the wording exactly as I’ve written it and don’t add anything else.”
- Check it matches the page. Every question and answer in the code should match the wording visitors can read on the page. Google’s guidelines say not to mark up content that isn’t visible to readers, and AI tools in particular can tidy up or add wording you didn’t write.
- Validate it. Use the Schema Markup Validator, which checks schema.org markup and flags errors or warnings. Google’s Rich Results Test isn’t the right tool here any more, because it checks markup against the rich results Google supports, and FAQ is no longer one of them. If the validator flags errors you’re not sure how to fix, an AI tool can often explain them, but validate the corrected code again before using it.
- Add it to the page. One of the easiest methods is Google Tag Manager. Google documents this route itself: you add the structured data in a Custom HTML tag, and the tag should fire only on the page where those FAQs appear. Our guide on how to add schema to your website covers the full setup, including other options such as SEO plugins.
Once it’s live, keep an eye on it, because a page redesign or an edited FAQ can quietly leave the markup out of step with the page. Our guide on how to test and monitor structured data covers what to check.
How Wildcat Handles FAQs And FAQ Schema
When we write or review FAQs for a client, we start with the questions, not the markup. Our SEO content writing process begins with keyword research and mapping, so the questions we suggest are tied to what people search for on each page. It also helps if you share the questions your sales and customer service teams hear most often, because keyword tools can miss them and they sit closest to a buying decision. Everything is checked internally and sent to you for approval before it goes live, so the answers reflect how your business actually works.
Where schema makes sense, our technical SEO team can add the structured data. Since the May 2026 change, FAQ schema won’t bring back FAQ rich results, so the value is in the questions and answers themselves, and we’ll tell you if we don’t think the markup is worth the effort for your site.
If you’d like a second opinion on your FAQs or the schema already on your site, book a free 30-minute consultation with our growth team and tell us what you have in place.
Amy Varley
SEO Executive
