In a nutshell, Google works to answer questions that users ask. In fact, a large number of users simply type in a specific question to Google. For example, I’ve searched “What temperature should I cook tilapia to?” Our job as site owners and marketers, is to provide the answers to those questions. A great way to do that, is with a Frequently Asked Questions page.
The great thing about an FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions, is that each Question and Answer allows us another opportunity to use the keywords that users might be searching for to find our products or services. Often, users will include the keywords, or a close variation, in the question they are asking to Google. This can even allow you to use the keyword they are searching for, and also tie in some of the slight variations that might be searched for.
One step that can make and FAQ even more beneficial to users and search engines, is to bold the keywords. Not only will this help tell Google what the keywords are for the site, but it will also help the user to quickly and easily find the answer to their question. Ideally, it’s a great idea to include a call to action of some sort with the answer. Even if that is a link to your contact page, it allows the user to quickly and easily get the answer to their question, and then get to the contact page to complete the conversion for the site.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of a business changing and evolving over time. This means your FAQ shouldn’t be static. As new questions come up about your offering, those questions should be added to the FAQ. If you start hearing a question a few times from clients that you haven’t heard before, those should be added to the FAQ. If there are new products or services, common questions to those should be added in as well.
If there are specific questions that nearly every client asks, it could be beneficial to include those questions on the home page. This can be extremely helpful in situations where one of those questions might be one of your key selling points. For a business that does repair services, a common question likely would be “What are your turn round times?” If that business has a better turn around time than their competitors, this provides a great way to showcase that in another way on the home page.
Our job as site owners and marketers is to provide our users with the answers to the questions they ask. Whether they are asking about turn around times or what temperature to cook tilapia to, our sites need to be prepared for as many questions as possible. A Frequently Asked Questions page is a great way to do that.