Create Optimized Blog FAQs On The Fly

I love readers’ questions. And sometimes, the same questions keep coming up that I decide on posting a blanket answer on this blog to cover them.

I do this as a way to create content for this blog, help my readers find the answers they’re looking for, and save me time from not having to answer the same questions over and over again.

Problem is, many people never find the blog post that answers their question, particularly if it’s old and sitting deep in the archives. And many people don’t take the time to search for it, because it’s work and it’s simply easier to contact my staff for the answer.

I thought about creating a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page. But I wanted a brain-dead easy solution to be able to do this in a snap (much like posting to this blog), and offer more to my readers.

But also, I wanted one that would optimize my page for the search engines (where specific keywords are included in the titles and questions), and be easy enough for me to simply answer questions as I go along.

Finally, I found one…

Knowledge Constructs has just released a WordPress plugin called FAQ-Tastic. This plugin allows you to easily insert a tag in your post or page, and create FAQs in a snap from within the admin panel.

But it offers a lot more.

You can group questions together (much like blog categories), and you can even choose between single- or paged-question formats.

The difference is, the single-question format will list all your questions and answers on a single page. The paged format allows you to link to answers covered in their own individual posts or pages.

The latter is an effective solution if your answers are often found in older posts.

You can easily answer questions by linking to previous blog posts, which also increases traffic to these pages and encourages deeper, internal linking.

Or you can create a blog post to specifically answer a frequently asked question.

(You can even create a blog template page to fit a specific style you want your FAQs to have, if different from the rest of the blog.)

No need to search endlessly for an answer. No need to peer through a ton of links in the archives. And no need to email the author for the answer to a common question.

But that’s not all. FAQ-Tastic also offers two other features I really like.

First, each answer is accompanied by an anonymous rating system. The beauty of this feature is that it allows you to see if your readers find your answers helpful — and the feedback can help you improve your answers.

And the second feature is a form you can add at the bottom where people can ask you their questions if they’re not found in the FAQ. They can also leave their email address to be instantly notified when the answer is posted.

The single-page format is the one I’ve chosen for this blog. Essentially, all questions are found at the top, in a summary. And each one is linked to the answer further down the page. Click on the question to jump to the answer.

I’m going to use this for a while to see how it goes. Let me know if you like this system by commenting to this post here, or even take some time to ask a question, if you can’t find it on this blog.

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