How do I add an FAQ section that search engines actually use?

Find the real questions

The most common failure is inventing questions to fill a section. Sources for real ones:

• Your support inbox and chat logs. The best source by a distance.
• Sales calls — the objections that come up every time.
• Search Console queries that land on the page but do not match its main subject.
• "People also ask" boxes for your target query.
• Asking an assistant your topic and noting the follow-up questions it raises.

A question nobody asks helps nobody, and dilutes the section around it.

Write the answers for extraction

• One or two sentences of direct answer, then detail if needed.
• Answer the question asked, not an adjacent easier one.
• Include the specifics — numbers, names, limits.
• Do not answer with a link. "See our pricing page" is not an answer.
• Make each answer independent of the others.

The markup

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "FAQPage",
  "mainEntity": [{
    "@type": "Question",
    "name": "How long does delivery take?",
    "acceptedAnswer": {
      "@type": "Answer",
      "text": "Two to three working days to UK addresses, five to seven to the EU. Orders placed before 2pm ship the same day."
    }
  }]
}
</script>

Accordions done properly

An accordion is good for scanning a long FAQ, and fine for search as long as the content is in the HTML rather than fetched on click. Two things to get right:

• Use <details> and <summary>, or a button with aria-expanded controlling a region. Do not use a bare <div> with a click handler — keyboard users cannot reach it.
• Content should be present in the DOM when the page loads. Loading it on click hides it from every crawler.

Where to put it

• On the relevant page, not a separate FAQ page. Questions about delivery belong on the product page.
• A central FAQ page is fine as well, for people who go looking.
• Three to eight questions per page is usually right. Thirty questions on one page means most of them belong somewhere else.