The internet is a question-answering machine.
It gives us access to virtually limitless knowledge (and a whole lot of stuff that we never knew we wanted to know).
Ever since Google started to rise in popularity, the quality of detailed answers available for most questions has increased.
For those considering doing content marketing, this represents a huge opportunity.
And perhaps the best opportunity lies in your FAQ section on your website. Visiting the FAQs section of a website is part of most prospective customers buying journey.
No matter how correctly optimized and well-designed your website may be, people usually will not buy from you until some of their essential questions are answered.
What is the Purpose of an FAQ Page?
The Frequently Asked Questions page is ironically one of the most standard, yet overlooked, pages on most websites. It is often put together when a website is first created and then forgotten.
The FAQ page’s true purpose is to build trust and increase the desire for your products and services. It is like a virtual salesperson or customer support person who answers questions people have when they are close to buying.
For site visitors, the FAQ page is essentially a one-stop-shop for quick answers to common questions.
But for businesses, particularly those looking to boost SEO results, other areas on their website are given far more attention than the FAQ page. We will spend years creating detailed answers in a blog post but ignore the FAQ section.
It’s important to acknowledge that your FAQ page is a significant opportunity to improve SEO and find new opportunities to connect with consumers.
What Should Be Included in a FAQ Page?
When you start putting together your FAQ page, it’s good to start with a little research. Here are three great places to begin to put together your FAQ answers.
1) Review Your Customers’ Most Common Questions
Start with the obvious: What repetitive questions do your customers always ask you in person or over the phone? Review your emails and social media to see which questions keep popping up. Answer the same question on your FAQs page. The better you can preemptively answer these questions, the more comfortable you make it for your customers to buy with confidence.
2) Review your Competitors’ FAQ Pages
If you’re a new business or don’t have a lot of customer queries yet, you can review the similar companies in your industry or niche. By visiting competitor websites for ideas, you will get a feel for what is most important to answer. Ideally, you want to try to answer the frequently asked question better than they have on their website.
3) Review Google and Quora
Google’s Autosuggest might be one of the best hacks for new businesses to find what their potential customer is searching for. You can begin by typing a question about your business into the search bar. Immediately you will see Google begin to autocomplete your sentences with suggestions.
The suggested questions in Google Autosuggest can be a great starting point to figure out what questions to put on your FAQ page.
Another excellent resource for finding FAQ questions is to browse Quora. After all, Quora is a site built with the sole purpose of answering people’s questions. Just go to Quora and type in a topic that is relevant to your industry. You’ll immediately get a list of the most recent questions related to that topic and some decent answers you can use as a starting point.
What Are the Essential Questions to Answer in your FAQ Page?
Once you have done your research, you can start making a list of essential FAQs. At a minimum, here are the most important types of questions you should answer for your questions:
- Logistical answers about delivery, return and exchange policy
- Clear explanations of the differences between your products and services
- How the process works if someone buys from you
- The next steps after purchase and what they can expect
- Information customers would need to choose the right product for them
- Common industry myths or misconceptions that people can have
- Little known or important facts about your products and services
- Links to related content in a blog post for more detailed answers
How to Structure Your FAQ Page
It’s tempting to try to be unique in your approach to your FAQ page.
However, there are some best practices when it comes to structuring your FAQ page.
- Use the words “FAQ” or “Frequently Asked Questions” as the page title
- Structure the FAQs page in a question-and-answer fact sheet format
- Write all questions and answers from the point of view of your potential customer
- Start answers to any yes/no questions with an actual “yes” or a “no”
- Keep answers short, and link to another page for more information
- Fully answer the question on your FAQs page, don’t just link to another page
- Show some personality in your answers, and match them to your brand voice
- Avoid industry jargon. Write just like you speak with your customers
Answering Questions Builds Trust
When people are thinking of buying, their buying temperature goes up slowly. They begin as cold, and as they see that your product or service can solve a problem the way their temperature goes from warm to hot.
One of the ways people move closer to a buying decision is by asking questions.
In any industry, the company that answers their customers buying questions the best usually gets the business. This is because answering the frequently-asked questions builds trust.
In this way, your Frequently Asked Questions page acts as a virtual consultant and helps clarify the typical questions a person has. This process helps new customers build trust with your brand and see you as an authority.
Google Loves Answers to Questions
There is a big reason that websites like Reddit and Quora rank so well in almost every search result. A search engine is essentially a big question-answering machine.
Google has built it’s brand by delivering the best answers possible to the public, and it will reward pages that do the job for them. Those that do it the best (and have good structured data) have a chance to gain a featured snippet.
Remember that people are searching online to resolve a specific need they have, but not necessarily a particular business.
If you are the business that provides content answering their questions well, you will slowly rise closer to the top of the search results.
Using Keywords on Your FAQ Page
Because the content of a good FAQ page covers so many topics, you can also work to incorporate a large number of organic keywords.
One of the best SEO strategies that can help your website stand out is to increase the number of keywords you have on your FAQ page.
Looking at your FAQ page, you may find new SEO opportunities that can put you a step above your competitors in reaching consumers.
If you structure your FAQ page around Google’s ‘People Also Ask’ section, this can be a great signal to Google that your site is working ranking well. It will help them match you better with your target audience.
FAQ pages do not typically gain many backlinks like a landing page or blog post. However, you can use the page as an excellent source for building internal links.
Be Smart and Helpful
In conclusion, think of your FAQs page as your online support team. Your Frequently Asked Questions page helps your business as much as it helps your customers.
Use the double purpose of your FAQ page to your advantage. Start with the focus of helping potential customers and website visitors to get questions answered, and your site will rank well as a result of hitting the right keywords.
An effective FAQ page is at the core of great content marketing: it answers questions and build trust, and make it easier for customers to choose your business.