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It would still be a good idea to include FAQ pages on your site even if they didn’t come with tons of SEO benefits, and they do. They can enhance your site’s user experience by providing answers to the things your visitors wonder about the most. As an added bonus, it can reduce the amount of customer service requests you receive, since the most common questions are already answered on your site. If you find that you’re answering the same questions all the time, just do it on your FAQ page. Best of all, FAQ pages offer a lot of benefits to improve your SEO strategy.
Long-tail SEO is getting even more important as search engines evolve. Search results are tied into voice assistants like Siri and Alexa where people are much more likely to use full questions in their queries. If someone asks their smart device a question, they may even ask it in the exact same way you wrote the question on your FAQ page. When you get a perfect match like that, it increases the likelihood that your page will rank high in search results.
Search engines are also getting much better at determining intent even when people type out searches as phrases and sentence fragments. If someone searches, “change oil in car,” Google may be able to infer that the user is really trying to ask it a question. For example: “how do I change the oil in my car?” Search engine results are meant to connect people with the most useful information available– Google loves answering questions. If the search engine realizes that your site is great at answering questions in a given field, it will start sending all the right people your way.
When you’re committed to a content marketing plan, you’ll likely have days when you’re running out of ideas. If you can’t come up with something to talk about, think about the most common questions people would have about your company or the field in which you work. Once you have a few to work with, get to work writing the answers. As long as your FAQ page is relevant to your industry, it should naturally end up loaded with the keywords you’re targeting.
Like with other great content, a solid FAQ page will also provide you with ammunition for your social media strategy. Make a post about a common question on social media, and link to the answer on your site. Social media helps with SEO in its own way, the good content will grow your social following, and providing answers will increase awareness of your expertise. Once people realize your site is full of useful information, they’ll be much more likely to share it.
Social media isn’t the only place people are likely to share a great FAQ page. Other websites in your field may link to your page as a trusted resource for their own audience, giving you a backlink in the process. Even if someone doesn’t link to your FAQ page at first, they might use some of the information and mention you as the source. If you’re watching for places you’re mentioned online, you can get backlinks easily from anyone who references you. Inbound links from relevant sites in your field serve as a strong signal that you’re a trustworthy authority– your search engine rank should respond accordingly.
It depends. If you’re in an industry where you get a lot of questions over and over, it definitely makes sense. Once you fill your FAQ page with relevant information, it becomes a valuable asset on multiple fronts. If people don’t ask you a lot of questions, maybe it wouldn’t make as much sense to add an FAQ page. For what it’s worth, the Buddy Gardner site doesn’t have a dedicated Frequently Asked Questions page (yet)– just blog posts like this one.
Either way, the FAQ format is a valuable source of ideas for new content. Providing valuable answers for your target audience is arguably the best SEO strategy no matter exactly how you format it. If you have any questions (whether they’re frequently asked or not) about how an FAQ page can help your site rank higher, let’s talk.
