The Importance of an FAQ page

Frequently asked questions or FAQ for short has become mandatory to include on websites.  FAQ pages give out answers to pertinent questions in a public forum.  FAQ document has to be updated on a regular basis so as to provide correct answers every time a question is posed at you. The questions and answers should be lucidly composed to make it relevant to the topic or subject of the website and presented in an interesting way. This exercise makes your niche brand equity and business profile endearing to your customer, as you connect with them easily.

Although, “Frequently asked questions” may appear to be general in a macro sense trying to answer a broad set of topics, but it would be suitable to create separate information pages about the important elements such as making payments, shipping, insurance, warranty, terms, and conditions. The information that you are furnishing on these pages must necessarily be current and reflect the issues customers are facing with relevant responses that address your customers’ requests.

The Need For An E-Commerce Website To Have An FAQ Page

In the current E-Commerce scenario, it has become a necessary feature to have an FAQ page in order to answer customer queries which are considered to be the basic purpose to have an FAQ page. However, there is more to it than meets the eye; though simple in concept, It is a powerful tool to quickly add benefits to the business in the following manner:

1 Time Saver

The first point of reference for customers to explore is a well-written FAQ page. In addition, if the pages are appropriately categorized according to the subject, it will help the customers to find answers to the questions that they need. The customers would otherwise be contacting you on an individual basis by consuming your precious time if the FAQ pages are not created up to the mark. In the event, if a customer does contact you (this would happen rarely) with an FAQ that may not be listed, then you can simply refer them to the page or specifically give reply to the information quickly in an E-Mail.

2 Building Customer Relationships

Establishment of trust has always been one of the greatest building blocks to any relationship.  Similarly, your business gains trust and credibility if the customers observe your efforts to be transparent about addressing their problems. This initiative changes the customer perception about your brand, improving into a niche benchmark brand and also inspires confidence.  This leads to loyal customers and their positive shopping experiences that make them return to your site over and over again.

3 Recognizing You As An Expert

An FAQ page is one of the perfect platforms to establish you as an expert.  You could demonstrate your expertise on this platform.  This eventually increases the likelihood of a casual visitor converting into a potential customer, as they would probably plan to do business from an established business enterprise which they consider professional and trustworthy.

4 Improving Site Navigation                 

Making further improvement technically, FAQ pages can be used as an integral part of site navigation. Each question can be hyperlinked to the relevant product, service, terms & condition page within your site to redirect your customer to relevant content, appropriate answers and solutions.

5 Improving Search Engine Listings/Rankings                              

FAQs are not only meant for your visitors; they can also facilitate increasing your rankings within search engine results. This page will include a lot of relevant contents and keywords with accurate information which search engines use to establish the ranking of your website placing it on the top.

6 Turning Negatives Into Positives

There are times when customers would pose negative questions. Use this as a good prospect to turn their perceptions and explain the full picture of why your company is special. Specify the values of what you are doing and educate them about the features and benefits of your products or services to enable them to make the right decisions.

7 Highlighting Key information

A little research would have revealed that every visitor to your site would have found it in a different way. They may have had a question to their search engine and unintentionally stumbled onto your FAQ page. Once they start reading the answer, they must have felt inquisitive to probe more and more about your business. It is therefore significant that you take the opportunity to mention key information like your USP, contact details, etc.

8 Evaluating your Site

By checking your visitors’ data regularly would yield some interesting and a treasure trove of information. This exercise may help to see your visitors’ where about, how long they stayed on your FAQ page, what fascinated them and where they went thereafter. By analyzing this information, you can adjust your FAQ page to make it more relevant to your customers and their queries accordingly.

Creating an Effective FAQ page                                    

A well thought-out, categorized and functional FAQ page is supreme.  This is enough to promote the content on the rest of your website. These simple suggestions, if correctly applied, you will be able to create an FAQ page filled with relevant and useful content:

Questions

Use questions asked by actual customers and not imaginary questions that you think they should be throwing at you. Browse through the E-Mails of customers and use them as a basis for your FAQ page. If you are a new entrant to the business, then hold an open question time and use the most common and pertinent questions. This will give a start to the FAQ page.

Answers

The answer should be in simple language without the use of technical terms, jargon and over complicated details. Some customers will find this type of language hard to comprehend and may end up confused; certainly, you do not want this to happen.  Therefore be straightforward and concise in your response.

You may grammatically use the active voice when writing instead of passive voice. Remember to check your spellings and grammar. Read, re-read and review your responses before heading for publishing in order to ensure they make sense.  The best method to proofread is to have someone else read and check it for you. Break lengthy responses into shorter paragraphs or you could even use bulleted lists to focus specifically.

Layout

The layout must be easier to navigate therefor the use of the table of contents will make things easier. So organize your FAQ page with similar topics grouped together.  You may even make the questions bold or use a slightly larger font to write the answers in normal text with white space between each question and answer so that it is easy for your customers to understand and differentiate properly.

Images

Adding images will enhance visual appeal to your page and also help to explain your response properly. So, if possible, use images to provide an example of what you wish to say.

Other Options

Make certain that your FAQ page has relevance for your customers to rate the worth of your responses and may also suggest other important questions for you to answer.

Also, make sure to direct people to your FAQ page throughout your site. If they would like further information, guide them to look in the FAQs as their answer, they are looking for, may be available.

In case, you have a series of FAQs then include a search box to assist your customers to find what they are actually looking for in your website.

One thing must be understood here is, whatever your customers need to know about your product or service or even about your company, an FAQ page shows them that you value their time and their concerns and are taking steps to respond in a helpful way. Moreover, this page could decide whether or not you have a loyal and satisfied customer or one that jumps to go to one of your competitors.

This situation could arise only if these customers are not getting an appropriate response. Remember, for a great FAQ page; keep it real, simple and well-oiled with current information of your business.