Are you guilty of creating an FAQ page and then forgetting about it? If so, you’re not alone. The ‘frequently asked questions’ page is seen as a necessity for many sales websites but is often hurriedly put together and then not given much further thought.
Well that needs to change.
Customers will often click straight through to your FAQs to get an idea of who you are and what you do, so it should provide a complete picture of your services and policies and compel visitors to connect with you or make a purchase. See it as an opportunity to inform them of what you do without needing a pushy sales pitch.
However, the FAQ or Q&A page can be a powerful tool not just for converting visitors to customers, but for supporting your SEO strategy as well. If you write your FAQs well, they can be a force for driving people to your site in the first place.
Here I’ll take you through some ways that, with a little TLC, your FAQ page can really start to earn its space on your site.
How to write a great FAQ page
You shouldn’t have to think too hard about which questions to include; just think of the kinds of questions that your customers often ask, whether it’s via social media, email or some other channel. To gather a comprehensive list you’ll need to engage the help of different people in your business. Make sure you cover questions you receive from:
- Social media
- Website contact form
- Phone
- Face-to-face sales
If you’ve only just started your business and haven’t built up a picture of the questions customers have, don’t worry. I’ll come to that later.
Make a list of your common customer questions and group them into logical categories. If two questions have similar answers, consider merging them into one to make your FAQ page cleaner.
Address sales objections
You should also think about the kinds of things that might put potential customers off buying, and address them here. Think of all the what-ifs and objections that people might come up with.
- What if I change my mind?
- What if it doesn’t arrive?
- Why does your competitor sell a similar product cheaper?
(On a separate note: make sure you have policies and guarantees in place that will allay these worries.)
Do, however, avoid making things too negative and putting ideas into customers’ heads that they hadn’t even thought of. Your FAQ page shouldn’t become the outline of a worst-case scenario. Stick to the most common objections and make sure your answers are positive and reassuring.
You can easily make customer objections a chance to showcase the very best things about your business.
Don’t worry about repeating yourself
Each visitor to your site will take a unique journey, so there’s no problem with repeating information in your FAQs which is contained elsewhere on your site. The customer may not have visited that page yet, but if they have, your FAQs can reinforce all the positive messages you want to convey.
Don’t overshare
While you want to be honest, you need to draw a line when it comes to making information public. There are some things that should just be dealt with privately on a case-by-case basis.
Keep it on-brand
Remember to keep your FAQ page consistent with your company tone of voice so first-time visitors can get a feel for what your company is all about. It may be one of the first pages they view upon hitting your site, so every little detail matters.
Show your industry authority
Your FAQs don’t all have to be directly related to your business; you can use this page to show off your industry know-how by adding questions about your industry. So, for example, I might include the question ‘What is the difference between a copywriter and a content writer?’ or ‘Which pages should I include on my website?’.
Fake it till you make it
If you’re just setting up shop and don’t technically have any frequently asked questions yet, you can still have an FAQ page on your site. It’s not rocket science to pull together some questions that customers might have in relation to your product or services, and it can make your company seem more established.
If you are in this scenario, pay close attention to the sections below on inserting keywords into your FAQs and keeping the page updated.
Make your last question a call to action
It’s a great idea to finish off with something like ‘How do I find out more about…?’ or ‘Where can I sign up for…?’. This encourages your customers to either go ahead with their purchase or contact you if they need more information.
You could also let them know how to connect with you on social media or sign up to your newsletter – make it as easy as possible for them to stay in touch.
Incorporating SEO into your FAQs
Ok, on to the bit about how your FAQ page can help your search rankings.
It all comes down to keywords, and long-tail keywords in particular.
Do keep in mind that the general consensus among SEOs is that keyword targeting works best when just one keyword or keyword group is targeted per page. With this in mind, don’t try to cram ALL of your keywords into your FAQs, but do scatter a few carefully selected ones that can be used in answers to multiple questions. Those that relate to your core products or services would be a good place to start.
Your FAQ page can also be a really good way to insert long-tail keywords (keyword phrases of three or more words which have less competition but target a more specific audience).
For example, say I wanted to target the long-tail keyword ‘article writing for SEO’ via the Stuff With Words FAQ (not a huge stretch of the imagination), I could add the question ‘Do you offer article writing for SEO?’. In the answer I would explain that yes, we do offer article writing for SEO as well as other types of content writing that can help with SEO. I could link to a post or page which explains more about this particular service.
It should go without saying that your answers, as well as the questions themselves, are just crying out for some keywords. Whatever you do, don’t simply write a list of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers. You’re missing out on opportunities for SEO and for promoting your products or services.
Don’t go the opposite way and make your answers excessively long, though. There will be enough information on this page as it is, so keep them concise but useful.
Get your wording right
Another thing that can make a big difference is the way you write the questions. Think about how customers would type or speak them into a search engine, and be as specific as possible.
So, instead of writing ‘How much do you charge?’, write ‘How much do you charge for proofreading services?’.
Change ‘How long does it take?’ to ‘How long does it take to write a new blog post?’.
And turn ‘Do you offer a discount?’ into ‘Do you offer a discount for monthly content writing services?’.
Just some random examples there, of course.
Link to blog posts
If you have a blog post relevant to a particular question, include a link to it. This not only encourages greater engagement with your site but also helps tell search engines what that post is about. Make sure the link text explains the post topic rather than using a generic ‘click here’ or ‘read more’.
Optimise any visuals
It’s a good idea to use images and videos in your FAQ where there is a good fit. This could be a video showing how to use a product or a chart explaining some figures. Having visuals helps break up all that text, but don’t forget to add alt tags and titles that contain your keywords, too.
Making your FAQ page easy to navigate
Over time, you might find your FAQ list growing out of control and becoming harder and harder to navigate through.
There are a few ways you can address this problem and ensure visitors can still easily find the information they’re after.
Firstly, make sure your questions are logically ordered, with the most common ones at the top. You could add a list of categories at the top of the page which, when clicked on, takes the customer directly to that section.
To avoid having more text than necessary, break answers down into bullet points if possible – these are easier to scan and take in than a long paragraph of text.
An in-page search button will also make it easier for people to find the answers they need. This can then provide you with valuable data regarding the most common searches. If you find that a lot of people are searching for delivery information, for example, perhaps you need to make that more prominent on your main site. This makes the user experience smoother and should mean fewer potential customers are put off by lack of information.
If any answers are particularly long, consider covering them in a separate post and then linking to it directly from your FAQ page. You could go as far as to make your FAQ just a series of links to other posts on your site – each of which will also be contributing to your content marketing.
Managing your FAQs
Remember that your FAQs should be constantly evolving.
As your company develops and your products and services change, so will the questions that people have about them.
Regularly add new questions as they arise so that your FAQ page stays up-to-date for your customers, and always look out for opportunities to link to new blog posts you’ve created.
Equally, some of your FAQs may no longer be relevant after a while, so make sure they are removed. If you have a clear-out of your old content and end up deleting some blogs, don’t forget to also delete any links to them on your FAQs (and throughout your site).
Also remember that your target keywords will change from time to time, and when they do you should review your FAQs and update them as necessary to incorporate your current list of target keywords.
After all this effort, make sure your customer service team have a copy of your FAQs and can easily access the links to each question. This can save them a ton of work since they no longer have to write out long answers to common questions; they can either copy and paste relevant answers or direct customers to the answer on your website.
Checking your analytics
After your FAQ page has been live for a few weeks, check to see how much traffic the page is getting and how long people spend on it. The longer the better, as this means they are getting the information they need.
If it’s getting hardly any traffic, perhaps you haven’t made it clear enough to customers that it even exists. Review your site from a customer’s perspective and provide a link to your FAQs wherever you anticipate objections in the sales funnel.
Also look at what action people take after viewing your FAQ page. Do they go ahead and make a purchase, move to another part of your site, or just leave? If the page isn’t encouraging them to make a purchase or stick around, what do you need to change?
How can we help?
Your FAQ page is one of the things we can’t write from scratch for you, but what we CAN do is review your existing page (or one you have just thrown together).
This could end up being one of the most-viewed pages of your site, so you want to make sure there are no typos or poorly written sentences which will give the impression of an unprofessional company that doesn’t care about quality.
If you use our editing services for your FAQs we will:
- Check your spelling, grammar and punctuation
- Make sure your brand’s personality and tone of voice is conveyed
- Insert the keywords you provide in a natural but effective way
- Provide recommendations for questions we think you should add
All this for just $25 per 1,000 words (or $40 if you want us to re-write the page completely). Find out more about our editing services here or contact us directly.
