You’ve created an online store, added professional photography to every product page, and splattered your brand all over social media. Do you really need to bother with FAQs on your website?
When customers have questions about your product or service, they’ll just shoot you a Facebook message or drop you an email, right?
Maybe.
But when your customer base grows and you’ve answered the same question at least 100 times this week, you might wish you’d gotten on the FAQ train sooner.
Or worse, without a readily available answer to their question, they may just never come back. Nobody wants to lose a customer before they’ve even gotten a chance to acquire them.
What is an FAQ page?
An FAQ (frequently asked questions) page is a set of questions (with answers) that you think your customers might ask about your product or service.
Often overlooked by business owners, an FAQ page is the perfect tool to help customers make decisions about whether what you’re selling is right for them.
Common questions that your customers might have include, ‘do you ship internationally?’, ‘what’s your return policy?’, and even, ‘what are your values?’.
The format of these pages differ from site to site depending on the type of quantity of questions you can expect. Some (like Sendle) will use a Help Center to ask and answer all the questions they can pose and answer.
Others may simply use a single landing page with a simple breakdown of the top questions they get.
Why is an FAQ page important?
Creating transparency by answering relevant questions can reduce customer anxiety and build trust.
Why wait until a customer reaches out to you with a question? Doing so means risking people not reaching out at all and heading straight towards the open arms of another business that doesn’t leave them pondering.
It’s a great way to show that you’re there for your customers and you care about reassuring them.
Recent research from Salesforce found that eight out of ten customers believe that the experience a company provides is just as important as the products or services they offer.
EIGHTY PERCENT! This shows, definitively, that eCommerce UX (user experience) is a very good investment.
An FAQ page, if well-executed, can enhance the customer experience by taking away the ‘what if?’ element of the sales journey and fast-tracking them toward purchase.
How to develop an FAQ page
So how do you know what questions to include?
Brands in their early days (and pre-launch)
When you are just starting out, you have to look outside of your own non-existent customer base to find great questions.
One way to do this is to pull friends and family together for an old fashioned focus group where they ask all the questions they can come up with as they peruse your site.
Looking at your competitors’ websites to see what questions they have is a great place to start. What questions have they asked that you think work well, and what might they have missed that you can incorporate?
Don’t worry if the answer seems too obvious—it might be clear to you, but it could be the extra peace of mind a shopper needs before handing over their money.
For established brands
When you are already established, you have a rich source of information to pull from—your own incredible customers. A great way to generate FAQ questions is through conversations with real customers.
Often, companies create #askmeanything posts on Instagram where they ask customers what questions they have about their company.
Using Instagram stories in this way to do live Q&As can provide you with the exact questions your specific customers want to know. Not only that, but this sort of engagement can create social proof by showing that you’re an expert in your field.
Image source: The Wine Flex
At the bottom of your FAQ page make it easy for people to ask questions you haven’t already answered.
THE ICONIC have multiple links on their frequently asked questions pages that encourage user engagement, including, ‘Have more questions? Submit a request.’
Photo source: The Iconic
What makes a great FAQ page?
An effective FAQ page will leave no stone unturned, be easy to navigate, and convey your brand’s values.
It should also be easy to find—a permanent spot in the footer and a link in the navigation bar will help tremendously.
Some companies have five short and sweet FAQs and others have over 100 with lengthy answers.
If you choose to create a page that has a significant number of questions, make sure they’re well organized under appropriate headings so that you don’t overwhelm potential shoppers.
An FAQ section on your website is the perfect way to convey the human side of your brand.
Answering questions that are more light-hearted or even silly can show that there’s a real person behind your business.
If your whole brand is quirky and fun, make sure that shines through in your FAQs—it doesn’t have to be boring (and probably shouldn’t be). Cards Against Humanity’s ‘Your Dumb Questions’ page does this particularly well.
Photo source: Cards Against Humanity
Don’t be shy about using images and video if you think that would convey your message in a more informative or entertaining way.
Polaroid provides customers with a really in-depth FAQ page that includes images of cameras, videos of how to recycle their film packs, and even a ‘Chat with Polaroid’ option for any other questions they might have missed.
Photo source: Polaroid
Use your FAQ page to boost your SEO efforts
Aside from upping customer trust and setting yourself up as an expert, an effective FAQ page can complement your SEO strategy and bring more traffic to your site.
Have a look at the questions people are asking about your niche on Google. With a few quick searches, you are sure to find a number of great questions from suggested searches and under the ‘People also ask’ section.
Search engines love websites that provide comprehensive answers to popular queries, so answering these on your FAQ page can draw traffic to your store and increase sales.
You can even go a step further and link to more in-depth blog posts from your FAQs that really prove you know your stuff and care about providing value.
Photo Source: Google
Ready to create your FAQ page?
An FAQ page is often an afterthought for many businesses, but if implemented well it can provide value, reduce purchasing anxiety, and ease the burden on your customer service inbox.
An FAQ page that ticks all of the boxes can be one more way that you can build trust, provide value, and ultimately, boost sales.
