How To Include The FAQ Schema On Your Site

You’ve probably seen search results in Google with frequently asked questions below them that expand “accordion-style” with answers from that particular site. This is beyond just the ordinary FAQs that we see on websites – these FAQs belong specifically to you, and it’s quite obvious when a visitor sees it in the search results. But how can your site get the same look and importance in the search results?

FAQs in Search Results Raise your Visibility

If you gauge the importance or trustworthiness of a website by the amount of real estate it takes up in the SERPs, then having a FAQ drop-down below your result must surely be one of the most coveted search result accessories. The FAQs utilize a HUGE amount of space in the SERPS, and even more so when you expand one of the questions.

Just like review schema and structured information displayed below your site, FAQs are part of the schema specification that Google uses to populate its results. Here’s how you can create this schema for yourself, and raise the chances that Google will give you special treatment in the SERPS.

Using the Yoast FAQ Block

For a long time, I’ve tried to find alternatives to Yoast (just because I can). But they keep adding such useful features! Take their set of custom blocks for example – in this case, FAQs. It’s not even part of their paid subscription. These blocks are available for everyone, and since you probably already use Yoast on your site for the basic SEO checklist, why go through all the trouble of adding yet another plugin? We can use the in-built Yoast FAQ block instead.

If you have Yoast installed on WordPress, you can access the FAQ block just like you would any other:

Once inserted, you can then start adding questions and answers using the structure of the block as a guide. You can add as many as you want, and even include images if necessary:

I’ve noticed that the FAQs which show below a search result in Google are always concise, and to the point. So try and make sure that your questions and answers are short one-liners. No long paragraphs or explanations. Even though those too can show up as FAQs, I’ve found that these appear detached from the site as regular FAQs, not site-specific ones.

So keep these short and sweet. And around 5 or 6 of them to start with.

Verifying the FAQs

Once you’ve saved your changes, you can test your site using Google’s rich results testing tool. Plug in your URL and it’ll analyze your site for schema markup. If you’ve done everything correctly, you’ll find the FAQ schema as shown here:

If you scroll down, you’ll see the exact questions and answers that the tool has picked up from the Yoast block:

This structured data is in the form of JSON on the page. It means that there are two versions of the FAQs on your page – what you write, and the code generated by the plugin. But don’t worry. One is linked to the other, and will automatically change when you modify your FAQs. Also, you don’t have to be concerned about duplicate content or anything like that. JSON script is a well-recognized way of generating structured data.

Here’s what the FAQs will look like to your visitor:

One thing I feel could be improved, is if they use headings for the questions instead of <strong> tags. That way, the headings could be part of a table of contents or something that allows the user to easily navigate the content. But even this is pretty good. It’s neat, and you can always use CSS to style it the way you like!