How to Add FAQ Schema to Cannabis Pages

What FAQ Schema Actually Gets You Now

Let's clear this up front, because half the advice online skips it. In 2023 Google restricted FAQ rich results, the expandable questions under a search listing, to well-known government and health sites. A dispensary is neither. Adding FAQPage markup will not make your snippet taller.

So why bother? Two reasons. The markup gives crawlers an unambiguous map of which text is a question and which is its answer, instead of leaving them to guess from your HTML. And AI search tools lean hard on cleanly structured content when they assemble answers about local shops. Ten minutes of work, cheap insurance.

Write the Visible Questions First

Schema describes content; it does not replace it. Before touching code, put a real FAQ section on the page — questions your budtenders and support inbox actually hear. "Do you take debit?" "Can I order ahead for pickup?" "What do I need to bring?" Skip the filler questions nobody asks. Google's guidelines require every marked-up question and answer to be visible on the page, and marking up hidden text is the fastest way to turn helpful markup into a liability.

Add the JSON-LD Block

Use JSON-LD, not microdata. It is the format Google recommends, it sits in one script tag in the head instead of being threaded through your templates, and you can edit it without breaking layout.

One entry maps like this. Say your delivery page answers "Do you deliver to Aurora?" with "Yes — seven days a week, with a $40 minimum order." In the FAQPage block, that becomes a single Question object: the name property holds the question text, and acceptedAnswer holds an Answer object whose text property carries the answer, word for word. Three visible questions means three Question objects in the mainEntity array. Nothing more clever than that.

Validate Before You Publish

Two free tools, both by name. Google's Rich Results Test shows whether the markup parses and what Google recognizes on the page. The Schema Markup Validator at validator.schema.org checks pure syntax against the schema.org vocabulary, which catches problems the first tool glosses over. A single trailing comma silently kills the entire block, so test every page, not just the first one you built.

Keep the Markup in Sync

The failure mode I see most is drift. Someone updates delivery hours in the visible answer and never touches the JSON-LD, and six months later the markup contradicts the page. Make it a rule: any edit to the FAQ section includes the matching edit to the script block. If your CMS generates the markup from the same fields that render the page, even better: drift becomes impossible.

Frequently asked questions

Will FAQ schema get my dispensary rich results?

No. Since 2023, Google has shown FAQ rich results only for authoritative government and health sites. The markup still helps search engines and AI tools parse your questions and answers, which is why it remains worth the small effort.

Should I use JSON-LD or microdata for FAQ markup?

JSON-LD. It is the format Google recommends, it lives in one script tag instead of being woven through your HTML, and it is far easier to update when an answer changes.

How many questions should I mark up on one page?

Exactly the questions that appear on the page — no more. Three to eight real customer questions beat twenty filler ones, and every marked-up answer must be visible on the page or the markup misrepresents the content.