The anatomy of a fantastic FAQs page

Using FAQs (or frequently asked questions) on your website can be a fantastic way of educating visitors to your offering and handling objections in advance.

Many of the ardent sales greats will say that an objection is merely a request for more information, so make sure you’re in a position to provide those details in a way that converts online!

Of course, this is merely common sense as it is the central point that makes an FAQ work!

When you are choosing sensible questions to include in your repository, ensure to consider the real-life questions you may get asked regularly in your job.

Where possible, also focus on questions that are not just specific to your business (i.e. What are you opening hours?). By placing some emphasis on queries that can offer additional value to customers, you set yourself up as an authority on a given topic (i.e. What should I do if my radiator is cold?, How often should I PAT test my devices? etc.).

Lastly, try and phrase your questions in the first person (using the word I), so that it mirrors what potential customers will type in search engines.

The natural partner to the question above is providing answers in the second-person (using words like you and your). It's what compliments the first-person phrasing of the issue.

Try and break your answers into two parts. Answer the question within the first sentence, and then expand upon your answer in the following sentences/paragraphs.

To build a layer of authenticity and dynamics to the FAQ section of your website, you could look at including the name and thumbnail image of the person who originally asked the question.

Helping site visitors to know that it is real people asking real questions provides an excellent means of connecting on a personal level and helps to bridge the gap towards making contact.

Showing a set of questions related to the current one is a useful way of ensuring your website visitors become armed with all the knowledge they'll need to make an affirmative decision.

Separate to related questions, ensure (where applicable) that you include relevant links to your service pages and other content that will help customers on their purchasing decision journey!

Categorisation is a useful way of helping users to navigate and orientate themselves around your content. The case is no different when it comes to FAQs.

Especially as you start to develop your knowledgebase of answers, making the user experience of finding and searching for solutions simple, is not only in your site visitors' interest but also your own!

Try and categorise questions into logical groups (i.e. questions on pricing, questions on your delivery process, questions on getting started etc.).

Similar to categories, a search box on your FAQs pages will allow users to navigate to the questions that matter most to them quickly.

If you have control over your website code (or a decent web developer you can trust), ensure that your search takes into account the question, the answer and also any other hidden keywords/synonyms that you might find sensible to include. For example, someone searching for pricing may also want to see results related to "estimates", "budgets" and "costs".

Often (and certainly in the earlier stages of your site development), you may not have the answers to all the questions your potential customers may want to ask. You can handle this hurdle in advance by providing a form for users to pose a new question.

We've found that forms like these help to get buy-in from your website visitors as you show you can relate to their needs.

How creative you'd like to get with your FAQ form workflows from here is up to - the sky is the limit! For example, all Sites Done Right websites have a workflow that will by default:

• Send the requested question to you/your business email
• Send an email to the requester/site visitor letting them know you'll be following up shortly
• Create a new draft question in your site (which you can then publish to build a more extensive FAQ database of your own)

Make sure your FAQs have maximum reach to broadest audiences possible by offering social sharing options. After all, if someone has found an answer to a question useful, it would be great for them to share this with colleagues or others in a similar predicament.

There is a range of pre-built tools for adding social sharing to your web pages, or you can use the specific sharing approaches provided by the various networks (i.e. Facebook and Twitter).

So, you should now have a clearer idea of how you can structure your FAQ content on your site in a way that excites and engages web visitors to take action.

Remember, your individual FAQ pages should be gold mines for question-based google searches.

Lastly on a creative tangent - your FAQ page shouldn't be a crutch for lousy design and boring content. It should be an opportunity for educating your customers and providing them with valuable information.

What are your thoughts with our suggestions for FAQ pages that pack a punch? Are there any other elements you would include that we've missed? Why not let us know using the comments section below?