Asked and Answered

Your aesthetic website may have excellent infographics, explanatory videos, and in-depth articles, and your content may even answer every possible question a potential patient is likely to ask, so why would you need FAQ (frequently asked questions) pages or sections?

Simply stated, Google loves FAQ pages—and so does your audience.

Here’s why:

1. Enhanced user experience

Technology has improved access to information so much that people expect near-instant answers to basic questions. They don’t want to watch an entire video or browse through several pages just to find something simple like how much downtime a procedure involves.

2. Voice-search friendliness

With the rise of voice search technology, internet users are trending toward more natural language searches. Rather than searching for “Botox downtime,” people are more likely to use a query like, “Is there any downtime after Botox?”

3. Featured snippet potential

Properly structured FAQs are SEO gold, not just because questions make great key phrases. Google also displays select snippets from FAQ pages for relevant search terms. If your FAQ has quality answers and the required markup, it could earn you a featured snippet spot.

4. Efficiency

There is a reason these are called frequently asked questions. Without a convenient reference, your office staff will likely spend a lot of time answering the same question repeatedly via phone or email.

The Best Sources for FAQ Ideas

Like other content marketing tactics, FAQs need to be high quality and relevant or they will do more harm than good. The first step is deciding where you will add FAQs so that you can identify the most appropriate questions and answers. Often, FAQ sections are added to service landing pages, such as Botox or body sculpting. Additionally, many websites include a page of FAQs in the “About Us” section, addressing general topics about the practice.

Now that you have an idea of what topics to cover, it is time to move on to choosing questions. This is ideally a combination of brainstorming with your team and research.

• First-hand experience – What do your patients ask most frequently? Discuss this with other clinicians in your practice and put together a list of genuine frequently asked questions.
• Keyword research – What are people asking Google? Find good keywords that are relevant to your topic and consider what the searcher is trying to find out. Format it as a question and provide an answer.
• Google search – One particularly helpful keyword research tool is Google’s search engine itself. Query a keyword or topic, and then check the “people also ask” section of the results for related questions.
• Forums – When a general search doesn’t turn up satisfactory results, many people head to online Q&A platforms such as Quora or Reddit. These sites can be a great inspiration for FAQs, blog posts, and other content.

Tips for writing great FAQs

• Write questions from the patient’s point of view. For example, “Will my face be swollen after getting dermal fillers?”
• Keep your answers short, direct, and informative. This is most beneficial to your readers. It is also what Google wants when choosing featured snippets.
• Include a link. Because your answers need to be short and sweet, offer a resource for people who want more details.
• Summarize the most important information. Although FAQs are meant to be short, they should be complete.

Three FAQ Mistakes to Avoid

Ideally, FAQs improve the user experience. Unfortunately, some do the exact opposite. Whatever you do, avoid these common mistakes:

• Links only – You’ve probably encountered them: lists of linked questions. You must click the link for each answer and load a new page and then must go back to the previous page to select a new question. This dampens the user experience.
• Lengthy answers – This is at the opposite end of the spectrum from link lists and is just as annoying for the reader. Today’s internet users are accustomed to visual content, well-formatted text, captioned images, and other components that make standard pages easy to understand at a glance.
• Randomly ordered questions – Again, you want to make it easy for people (and search engines) to find answers. A simple list of FAQs should be composed of relevant, related questions posted in a logical order. If you have a lot of questions or sub-topics within the page, organize them into categories.