Why you need an FAQ page, and how to ace it

FAQ is a pretty common term, but for those not in the know, it stands for ‘frequently asked questions’. So, to be very obvious about it, your FAQ page answers these FAQs, in the hope that it minimises constant enquiries about the same thing. And as usual with our posts, our suggestion is that if you don’t have an FAQ page, you should. Read on to find out more.

Firstly, how do you find out what should be on your FAQ page? There are some simple ways, and some more complex ones. Easy way – what questions do you get asked by your customers on a regular basis? Through social media, email, phoning, online chat, however you talk to your customers, find out what all the regular questions are. By pre-answering these you should save the time of members of your team (and time = money).

You can also look at what people are searching for on your website, or where they leave your site. Common searches are similar to the questions people ask you in other formats. And by studying where people leave your website, you may be able to pre-answer the questions they haven’t been able to find the answer for. If they leave your website on the online shop they may want to know more about the products, postage and packaging, delivery, or returns. Or if they leave on your payment page they may be unsure about the security of your payment system or you might not have information about refunds.

Once you’ve got your questions together, you need to write the answers. And make sure you test the answers to ensure they’ve covered the questions and don’t just create more questions. Keep the language simple and the answer simple, perhaps even get a copywriter to re-write/edit your text to ensure it’s done properly. And if you can use an image or infographic to explain something better then do, there’s no rule to say the questions have to be answered with text. Make sure you also include links back to pages of your website if they’re relevant. For example, if there’s a question about the shipping process, you could include a link back to the online shop to push people along the purchasing funnel if you’ve answered the question that stopped them from making the purchase in the first place.

And finally, make sure the FAQ page is easy to find. Because if people can’t find it then all of your hard work won’t stop those queries flowing through to you through other channels. Label it clearly – some websites have it listed as “Help” or “FAQs”. You can carry out some A/B testing to ensure you get it right for your website users. And then put it somewhere clear, the top row of navigation works, static navigation that appears on every page, or in the footer. Again, A/B testing helps to resolve this.

So hopefully we’ve now convinced you to get an FAQ page on your website. If you need help getting it live and making sure it’s good for SEO and has all the links it needs, then get in touch: hello@webfwd.co.uk