Can you have links in FAQPage schema?

Key takeaways:

• Hyperlinks within FAQPage schema is possible – so use them wisely to get click-through traffic to internal pages direct from the SERP.
• Use a plugin such as Ultimate Blocks if you have a Wordpress website using Gutenberg.
• When composing JSON-LD manually, use a single quotation mark (‘) to wrap the URL as double quotation marks will not work (even thought they’re standard in HTML).

FAQ rich results can make your webpage stand out from the competition. From a marketing perspective, FAQ rich results are great for addressing customer pain points even before they land on your website.

This is what FAQPage rich results look like on a desktop SERP:

Using JSON-LD structured data, you can markup a webpage to achieve this same result. Before you get started, there are a few things you should know.

In the above example, the accordion answer box has clickable links that can take the user to a different internal page straight from the SERP.

And yes, you can insert links into FAQ schema. This means that you can be very strategic. For example, you can rank an informational webpage and use the triggered rich results to take searchers directly to a product detail or product category page.

When done well, you can funnel people towards other highly-relevant pages that may be more difficult to rank on the SERPs for.

How to get hyperlinks into FAQPage schema.

Use a plugin (Wordpress).

If your website is using Wordpress and Gutenberg then you’re in luck because there are a host of free plugins that will autogenerate valid FAQPage structured data based on your content block.

The biggest advantage of using a plugin is that everything is taken care of.

You don’t have to make the JSON-LD script based on your content and you don’t don’t have to add in the hyperlink manually into the JSON-LD code.

It saves you time and headache and it works. For Squarespace websites, I’ve published a guide on how to do this here.

Ultimate Blocks (free)

The block you’ll need to use called Content Toggle.

Step 1: Download the latest version of the plugin here.

Step 2: Click the “+” icon to add a new content block. Then select “Content Toggle” from your list of blocks. Doing this will generate 1x question and answer fields.

Step 3: Click the “+” icon again to add a second question and answer box.

Step 4: Write your question and corresponding answer in each of the blocks.

Step 5: Highlight the text you wish to use as your link and click on the hyperlink icon in the block editor.

Step 6: Pick the internal page you wish to link to.

Step 7: Make sure you enable the “Enable FAQ Schema” toggle in the block settings. If you don’t see this setting, you will need to enable settings.

And that’s it. The Content Toggle block will take care of the structured data implementation that will make your page eligible for the rich result on the SERP.

The manual method.

For those of you who don’t run a Wordpress website or don’t want to rely on a plugin, this is how you can inject a clickable hyperlink in the answer section within your FAQPage rich result.

In order to do this, you will need to know some basic HTML (i.e., how to wrap text around <a> tags).

Step 1: Compose at least two questions and answers on the page.

Step 2: Use this FAQPage JSON-LD Schema Generator by Saijo George.

Step 3: Copy your question and paste it into the question field on the tool and then do the same for the corresponding answer.

Step 4: In the answer field box, wrap the text you wish to use as the anchor text for the link with <a> tags.

For example, I wish to use the words “Click here to find out” as the anchor text to link to this URL on my website: https://www.danielkcheung.com.au/learn/link-building/.

This is what it’ll look the second paragraph will look like:

<a href='https://www.danielkcheung.com.au/learn/link-building/'>Click here to find out</a> how to earn the right type of links that will help you with your SEO.

You must use single quotation marks (‘) to wrap the URL. Double quotation marks (“) will not make the hyperlink work in the rich result.

Step 5: Click “Add another FAQ” and copy and paste your second question and answer and repeat the process if you wish to include links in the answer.

Step 6: Click “Copy FAQ Schema”. Now you’ll need to insert the JSON-LD script onto your webpage.

Things you should know.

1. Implementing FAQ schema should be one of the last things you do.

This is because only pages on the first page of Google SERPs are eligible for them. So if your page isn’t ranking one page 1, work on building out your site’s topical authority and domain authority instead. You can always come back and add FAQPage markup later.

2. FAQPage rich results do not work on the homepage.

FAQ rich results will only be displayed on internal pages.

3. Google FAQ rich results limited to two per page.

In June 2021, Google made a change to how the number of FAQs that would show per SERP. Previously, 4 questions were displayed. Now a maximum of 2 questions are displayed.

See this super in-depth article by Melbourne-based SEO consultant Brodie Clark.