The hallmark of a website that truly cares about their visitors and customers is the presence of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages containing crisp, concise, and useful answers to a large variety of questions people are likely to have about the business, and its product and services. The FAQ pages are also very useful in addressing a large number of common questions people ask on the search engines. There is little doubt that content in the FAQ section can act to drive targeted organic traffic to your website, especially in a scenario where voice search is increasingly becoming popular. According to Forbes, voice search will account for half of all online searches by the year 2020. This is not perhaps so unsurprising given that people are always looking for faster and easier ways of getting answers to their questions and underlines the reason why FAQ pages are so appreciated.

Why Is the FAQ Page Important?

Some of the most obvious reasons for websites to have FAQ pages are to help attract organic traffic and build trust and credibility of your business, and a more informed customer who can maximize his satisfaction without the sales and marketing team spending unnecessary time to resolve issues and concerns. However, what most business owners do not know is that search engines also love websites that have well-constructed FAQ pages because it sends out a positive signal about the website’s integrity and concern for the customer. This, in turn, improves the SEO and results in better page rankings. Some tips on structuring the FAQ section of your website for the best impact:

List out the Most Important Questions Customer Ask

The most fundamental step in creating a useful FAQ page is to identify and list down the most common questions that your customers ask or are likely to ask. Unless you know these concerns, you will not be able to educate and inform your target audience regarding all aspects of your business as well as the products and services you sell. Building the list of questions takes a fair amount of planning, a lot of research, some soul searching and strategizing. The best people to get information on the questions customers ask are the frontline salespersons or those operating the helpdesk or support center. Also, collecting feedback from customers and visitors is a good way of finding out what the pain points are and how they can be addressed with more specific and accurate information. There are also several keyword research tools that you can use to identify popular keywords that your target audience uses. If you are not up to the task of conducting this research, all you have to do is to find the right SEO Company for your business and let them do it for you.

While Google itself is a fountainhead of popular questions surrounding your business niche, other forums like Quora, Reddit, etc. can throw up the questions that are trending at the moment because of a high level of interest among the target audience. Other very good sources of important questions are the FAQ pages of your main competitors and product reviews that throw up important issues that you may not have discovered.

Implement Structured Data

By adding structured data to your FAQ section, you can become more visually attractive in the results page, boost your CTRs, and get a competitive edge in your sector. Support for FAQ structured data in Google search has been recently added in both Google and Google Assistant so that when you implement structure data, the Q&A show up directly on Google Search and Google Assistant. You should not confuse structured data with Q&A Page markup, which is a system by which users can respond to questions in forums like Quora. Google’s Search Console now incorporates a new enhancement report to display errors, warnings, and other alerts related to the FAQ section of your website.

Think Graphically

It can be a big mistake to restrict FAQs to just text because many times, a photo or a graphic image or chart, etc. can do a better job in explaining concepts, make for a more fluid teaching process, or simply to grab more visitor attention. Appealing images, well-designed and interesting illustrations, graphics, or even videos can not only make your FAQ page more interesting but also make it easier for visitors to get clarity on their principal concerns. Visual elements can help to boost the comprehension of readers by breaking up masses of text that put off most people. Sometimes screenshots are the best way of explaining the process of doing something.

Construct an Outstanding Navigation System

Regardless of how informative and interesting the content of your FAQ section is, users will not be able to access the desired information if they cannot find it easily. Without a brilliant navigation structure, you will not be able to improve customer satisfaction or even SEO for your website. If the FAQ section is long involving categories and sub-categories, it may help to have a dedicated search facility so that users can find the answers they are looking for more quickly. As part of best practices for making available the FAQ content more easily, you should create categories that have self-explanatory names. If necessary, also create sub-categories so that people can access all pertinent information at the same place. Typically, you can make the pages more manageable by only listing the questions in one place and provide links to the answers on different pages. This method is also useful for improving your SEO as the traffic is directed to multiple pages with commensurate spikes in page views that act as a signal for Google to demonstrate the value of your content and drive up your page ranking.

Conclusion

It is clear that when used strategically, the FAQ pages can deliver value to both the business and its customers in multiple ways. While customers can get information on multiple issues that may have been holding back their purchase decision, and informative FAQ page also eases the load of the marketing and support teams. Search engines also receive very strong SEO signals for boosting the page rankings.