A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page helps your website visitors quickly find answers to all of their questions in one place. Many businesses add this type of page as an afterthought. However, a well-structured and informative FAQ page can benefit your business.
You should include FAQs on your website because if people are reading them, they are most likely considering doing business with you. The way you answer questions can establish trust, overcome their objections, and provide the next steps for them to take action.
FAQ Page Benefits
An informative FAQ section on your website saves you and your customers time. It’s also a great opportunity to utilize more SEO keywords on your website. Some of the greatest benefits of a FAQ page include:
It saves you and your customers time.
Usually, the answers to Frequently Asked Questions can be found elsewhere on your website. But, most of your website visitors are skimming content instead of reading it and don’t have time to scour your website for the answers they need. A FAQ page is somewhere for you to include all the basic questions and answers in one place so they can find them quickly.
Additionally, a FAQ page can answer the most common questions customers contact you about. If you find yourself answering the same question over and over in response to client emails or phone calls, you should add it to your FAQs and save some time.
It builds trust with your potential customers.
Including FAQs on your website is an opportunity to establish your business as an expert source of information. Establishing trust with potential customers is important to convince them to purchase from you. Answering their questions about your business, products, and services with great information is one of the easiest ways to build trust. It also shows that you understand their concerns, objections, etc., and are willing to address them.
It’s important that you fully answer the questions on your FAQ page instead of misdirecting. If your website visitor doesn’t find what they are looking for, they will look elsewhere. They expect to have their questions answered on your FAQ page. Unclear or incomplete answers may cause them to leave your site because your lack of transparency may come across as untrustworthy.
It helps you improve your sales.
A great FAQ page will positively impact your website conversions, but it needs to be more than just a list of questions with miscellaneous information. Your FAQ page should be designed with your customers’ needs in mind — answering their specific questions with accurate information and linking them to product pages for additional information.
An FAQ section on a product page is a good opportunity to overcome your customers’ objections and show off your personality. Including thoughtful and intentional questions can help you overcome their uncertainties. Creative and unique answers that showcase your brand’s personality can build rapport. Both of these things can help you convert website visitors into real customers.
It improves your Search Engine Optimization.
Increasing your visibility online with SEO can lead to more website traffic and, ultimately, more customers. Google is constantly crawling and indexing web pages so that it can serve up the most relevant results to questions your customers are asking. If you have the exact question and a complete answer on your website, Google is more likely to view your site as trustworthy.
Your FAQ page is a great place to include long-tail keywords about your product or service. Long-tail keywords are search queries that are more specific and typically longer, such as a question. Compared to popular keywords, they have a lower search volume. But, they usually have a higher conversion rate because the searcher is closer to a purchasing decision.
Where to Put Your FAQ Page
It’s important that your FAQs are accessible to your website visitors when they need them most, such as when they need customer support or when they are considering a purchase. For this reason, companies opt to include their FAQ page in a few different places:
- In top-level navigation: This makes the most sense for service and support questions. For example, a spa or salon FAQ page would include overall questions about their services, such as hours of operation, code of conduct, location, etc., on a single page found in navigation.
- Integrated into product pages: This makes sense for product-specific questions. Website visitors will naturally navigate to these pages to answer their questions about your products, and long-tail keyword questions will help boost SEO for these individual pages. Continuing with a spa example, they might include all massage FAQs on that service page.
- In the website footer: Including a link to your FAQ here is another way to make sure it’s accessible whenever your visitors need it. For example, an online store may include their shipping or returns policy FAQ in the footer.
- In a knowledge base: A knowledge base offers more specific questions and in-depth answers than a traditional FAQ. For example, answers to questions in a knowledge base would link to full pages or blog posts for answers.
How to Write a FAQ Page
A FAQ page is a small addition to your website that can positively impact your customers’ experience. We recommend adding some product-specific FAQs to your existing pages. If you have many questions relating to a complex product or service, such as a plastic surgery procedure, you may want to create a specific FAQ page just for those questions.
However you choose to set up your FAQs, you can get started with these four steps:
Step One: Collect Questions
There are several places you can go to find questions for your FAQ page. It’s important to make sure the questions you include are being asked by your customers (not what you think they are asking). Start your research with:
- Your customer service and sales teams
- Your customer surveys and inquiry forms
- Related questions from your keyword research
- Site search terms being used on your website
- Popular question sites like Quora or Reddit
Step Two: Clearly Answer Questions
Your answers should be concise and accurate. If your answers are not clear, your customers will contact you with the same questions or, worst-case scenario, leave your site entirely.
When appropriate, you should provide a call-to-action after your answer. Think about the next steps that your customer would take once their question is answered and provide a way to take that step. For example, you may link to a product page or blog post for the customer to learn more about a topic.
Step Three: Organize Your FAQs
No one likes endlessly scrolling through a page to find the question they are looking for. Try including links at the top of the page that jump to the specific question. Or, you can use collapsible windows to keep the categories of your FAQs organized.
It would be best to group your FAQs by related topics to help your visitors find their questions faster. For example, an insurance agent might organize FAQs by policy type or customer intent, such as questions about filing a claim.
Step Four: Monitor and Update
There may be additional questions that your customers have that you forgot to include on the page. Or, you may notice that customers are still asking the questions that you already answer on your FAQ page. If this happens, you should ask yourself:
- Is the FAQ page easy for customers to find?
- Does the FAQ page clearly answer the question?
If you sense your FAQ page is missing the mark, you should continue to improve it to meet your customers’ needs.
FAQ Best Practices
You probably already know many of the common questions that customers ask you. After doing a little more research, you’ll have a list of questions waiting to be answered. As you write your FAQ page, keep the following in mind:
- Answer questions concisely. The point of a FAQ page is to answer questions quickly. If you have more in-depth information available elsewhere on your site, you should first give your customers a brief answer and then direct them to the additional explanation.
- Use the right language. Write your questions from the customer’s perspective and use language and terms they understand. For example, an insurance agent may use the word “payment” instead of “premium.” You should also include relevant SEO keywords in your questions and answers to help Google find your website.
- Organize your questions. Your FAQ page should be easy for your customer to navigate. Organizing your questions into similar groups helps your customers to find answers fast. Utilizing filters or a search function on the page can help your website visitors only see the questions they care about. You may also want to include links to the most popular questions at the top of the page.
- Add questions as they come up. You can ensure that your FAQ page is answering all your customers’ questions by allowing website visitors to submit their questions on the page. You can set up a contact form on your FAQ page, answer each question directly, and then add it to your FAQs for future visitors.
- Use multiple pages if needed. You may choose to include product-related questions on your product pages. Or, you may want to establish different FAQ pages for different customers types if their questions are unique. The way you structure your FAQs will depend on your business.
The most important thing is to remember to put yourself in your customers’ shoes as you write your Frequently Asked Questions (and all your website content). Our Best Websites team does this for you — schedule a call to learn more about a website for your business.