How to use FAQ Schema Markup

How to Mark Up Your Website With FAQ Schema and Achieve Better SEO

Schema has become increasingly common. According to a report by ACM Queue, nearly one in three websites use it. Schema is a free vocabulary of structured data. It consists of tags that, when added to a website, convey information about the site’s content. 

If you operate a website, you may want to mark it up with FAQ schema. FAQ is one of several types of schema that’s supported by Google. It can help you achieve better search engine optimization (SEO) by allowing Google to understand your website’s content.

What Is FAQ Schema Markup?

FAQ schema is a type of schema markup that’s designed for use with frequently asked questions on websites. Visitors typically won’t see it. Like other types of schema markup, FAQ schema is buried in the source code of pages.

As Google crawls pages, it will look for certain types of schema markup, including FAQ. FAQ schema identifies the questions and answers on a page. Google will easily recognize all of the questions and answers on a page if the page features FAQ schema.

Benefits of Using FAQ Schema Markup

Marking up your website with FAQ schema can help it rank higher on Google. Google doesn’t support all types of schema. In 2019, however, it announced support for FAQ schema. Google now supports FAQ schema created with either JSON-LD or microdata.

FAQ schema can change the appearance of your website’s organic listings on Google. Your website can earn schema-enhanced organic listings known as rich snippets with FAQ schema. By default, organic listings typically only contain a title, description and URL. Rich snippets go beyond this basic format to include additional information or functionality via schema markup.

With FAQ schema, your website may earn rich snippets featuring its respective questions and answers. These rich snippets will still feature a title, description and URL, but they’ll also feature a set of questions and answers. Only pages with FAQ schema are eligible for these rich snippets.

Google Assistant will often retrieve answers from FAQ schema. According to Google, 70 percent of all Assistant commands are expressed in natural language. Users don’t just search for keywords when using Google Assistant. As a voice-controlled personal assistant, Google Assistant supports voice searches. Therefore, most users will express their search queries in natural language, such as questions.

Getting Started With FAQ Schema Markups

Start by identifying all of the pages on your website that you want to mark up with FAQ schema. As long as a page features a set of non-community questions and answers, it can benefit from FAQ schema. Non-community means that you or another administrator at your website created the questions and answers.

If visitors created any of the questions or answers — or if visitors are allowed to submit additional answers — don’t use FAQ schema. Instead, only use FAQ schema on pages that contain non-community multiple questions and answers. For pages with a single question that accepts visitor-submitted answers, use the “QAPage” definition. It’s an alternative type of schema markup that’s also supported by Google.

You can use JSON-LD or microdata when marking up your website with FAQ schema. Schema is simply a vocabulary of structured data. You’ll have to add it using a specific format. JSON-LD and microdata are structured data formats. The former consists of JavaScript, whereas the latter consist of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).

Google supports JSON-LD and microdata for FAQ schema. You can mark up pages with FAQ schema in either of these two formats. FAQ schema uses the “FAQPage” definition, which consists of questions and answers.

How to Mark Up Pages With FAQ Schema

To see an example of FAQ schema, visit developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structured-data/faqpage. Google offers a template for FAQ schema in the JSON-LD format as well as the microdata format. Just copy the markup code in your desired format, after which you can replace the default questions and answers with your page’s own questions and answers.

You can also mark up pages manually. Rather than using a template, you can add the FAQ schema markup code manually to your website’s pages.

Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper doesn’t work with FAQ schema. You can use it to generate “QAPage” schema markup, but you can’t use it to generate “FAQPage” schema markup. Fortunately, generating FAQ schema is a breeze. You can use one of Google’s templates, or you can create the FAQ schema markup code manually.

How to Test Your Website’s FAQ Schema

You should test pages after marking them up with FAQ schema. Google offers a Rich Results Test that will reveal whether schema is properly set up. The Rich Results Test is designed to show what a page will look like on Google with schema.

Schema, of course, allows pages to earn rich snippets. With the Rich Results Test, you can test pages with FAQ schema to ensure Google can read them correctly. Assuming a page is marked up with FAQ schema, you should see the questions and answers after running the test.

While on the Rich Results Test, enter the URL of any page that you’ve marked up with FAQ schema. If the FAQ schema is correct, you’ll see it detected. The Rich Results Test will show “FAQ” as a valid item detected. Clicking the “Preview Results” button will then show an example of a rich snippet. If it’s not correct, FAQ schema won’t show as a valid item, nor will you see a rich snippet for it.

Search Console can reveal whether your website’s FAQ schema is set up correctly. When you add a Google-supported schema markup type to your website, Search Console will show reports for it. You can view reports for FAQ schema in Search Console. And if Google encounters a problem with your website’s FAQ schema, it will send a notification to the email address associated with your Search Console account.

If your website has any pages with questions and answers, you should consider marking them up with FAQ schema. It will improve your website’s SEO. Google supports FAQ schema. It uses FAQ schema to generate rich snippets for traditional searches as well as answers for Google Assistant-powered voice searches.