How to Create an Effective FAQ Page

One essential marketing principle is – don’t leave your customers with unanswered questions, or you’ll lose them to a competitor. The same is true for SEO – unless Google can quickly find an answer, they’ll choose and feature your competition!

To make sure that doesn’t happen, add a comprehensive and well-optimized FAQ page (frequently asked questions) to your website. An FAQ page is one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to provide customers and search engines with all the answers they may need about your business. 

Benefits of an FAQ Page

• Save time (and decrease your customer support team’s workload) by providing automated answers to repeated questions instead of answering them manually each time.
• Improve your site’s visibility on Google and other search engines.
• Shorten your customers’ buying journeys. They’re more likely to buy right away if they can find all the answers without waiting to hear back from your team.
• Build trust. Potential customers will trust your brand more when you’re transparent with them – cover return policies, shipping processes, and answer other relevant questions. If visitors trust your brand, so will Google.
• Improve internal linking on your site.
• Provide a better experience for your users.

Identify Your FAQs

Your customer support team is your most important resource. What questions are customers asking when they contact your company?

You can also use other SEO-driven tools:

• “People Also Ask” is a Google search element that contains related questions to a given query. 
• “Google Suggest” is another search-based tool that auto-completes a user’s query based on how other users complete it. We can safely conclude that all Google Suggest results have a substantial search volume because they are included in the suggest index.
• Use these and other sources to optimize your customer service questions for organic rankings and expand your list (if necessary).

Keep Answers Clear and Concise

Write short answers that are clear and concise to keep the page from being cluttered and too long. You can write a standalone article if you have a lot to explain about the FAQ.

You can also create a video to answer most of the questions. Videos are great because they allow your brand to be discovered on YouTube and Google’s video carousels.

Visuals are a proven way to improve engagement and make things easier to remember and understand, so why not use them on your FAQ page? One way to incorporate visuals is by creating downloadable flowcharts and checklists (here are some online tools to help put those together).

Use Your FAQ Page as a Sitemap with Internal Linking

Your FAQ page is part of the customer journey, and each answer is an important step down the sales funnel. 

But don’t think about these links only from an SEO standpoint. The most critical factor to consider is user intent – not creating keyword-optimized link text.

For example, if they’re asking about shipping costs, they may be close to buying but want to know the final price. You could link straight to the product page and to the cart for them to complete the payment.

If they’re asking how long shipping takes, it might be helpful to link to your shipping info page.

Structure is Vital

There are two kinds of web users – those who browse and those who search. Your FAQ page should assist both types. How can you accomplish this?

• Include clear categories (as subheads) for users to browse through and get an idea of what your site does at a glance. This will help potential customers who are still at the research phase make a buying decision sooner.
• Include search field suggestions to guide the visitors through the site effectively.

Analyze and Monitor to Make Your FAQ Page Work

Your FAQ page addresses many kinds of user intent and helps at different steps in a sales funnel – so it’s crucial to monitor the page closely. 

Here are a few ways to monitor:

1. In-FAQ Search

Use Google Analytics to set up your in-FAQ search. This allows you to monitor your site users’ search patterns.

2. Track User Paths

Which off-site channels or pages are bringing people to your FAQ page? Where do they usually go from there? These paths are vital in understanding the function of the FAQ page in your sales funnel.

3. Monitor Customer Feedback

Collecting user feedback on every answer in your FAQ will also help you create more useful answers. 

Bottom Line

• Your FAQ page is a significant step in the buying journey and a valuable organic search resource to bring and convert traffic.
• Utilize your customer support team to find questions to answer on your FAQ page.
• Keep your answers clear and concise. Consider using videos to make the information more engaging.
• To accommodate different user intents, include internal links from your FAQ page.
• Structure your FAQ page in an organized and meaningful way.
• Monitor how visitors use your FAQ page, so you make changes to improve it.

At Impact Group Marketing, our website team is passionate about website design and development! Contact us today if your current website needs a refresh or you’re a new business looking to make an impact online – we’d love to help you out!