How To Write a Good FAQ Page?

Frequently Asked Questions are possible questions, actually, most searched or most asked questions about a product, service, brand, etc. It usually serves as an encyclopedia for customers to go to for quick enquiries instead of having to reach customer support.

FAQ questions are put together from the pool of regular questions customers ask about a brand and written on the said brand’s website. The page where the frequently asked questions are written is called the FAQ page.

Why you need an FAQ page?

Basically, most business owners use the online FAQ page as a medium to provide better customer service for their customers.

There’s hardly any website on the internet that doesn’t have an FAQ page. We see the FAQ on popular websites such as Dropbox, PayPaland Apple as well as other small businesses’ websites.

The question is, are they all doing it right, more importantly, how can you create an effective FAQ page?

Here are some tips that will help you to make your FAQ page serve your business 24/7.

Organize your online FAQ page for easy navigation

Orderliness makes everything much better. Well, artists may disagree but creating an FAQ is not art. Avoid creating faq pages that are all over the place because it will do more damage than good.

Keep in mind that most internet users scan through web pages.

Group frequently asked questions into categories according to their similarities. Use headings and subheadings where necessary and write the questions in bold font so that they can be easily found on the page.

FAQ examples - Uber faq page
FAQ examples – Uber faq page

You can also use smooth scrolling script or LocalScript with a table of contents to better organize your FAQ page navigation. 

Be customer centric

The faq page is created for the customers, don’t forget that. When you write the questions and answers, always write from the perspective of your client.

A food faq page uses customer language, which is laymen terms, not technical jargon you, the expert, use regularly. If you have to use technical terms make it easy for the user to see the definition – think glossary tooltips or Wikipedia links.

Customers are not experts, they want simple answers, don’t complicate it for them.

Stay focused, its FAQ not QIWCA (Questions I Wish Customers Asked)

See? Even the acronym is annoying. Many business owners throw in questions they wish their customers ask, and sadly, it affects the FAQ effectiveness negatively.

When customers go to a website’s FAQ page to search for answers, they want to see answers that are relevant to their questions, not random answers that have nothing to do with what they’re looking for.

When creating the list of questions for your online FAQ, think about these:

  • Is it a common concern among my customers? 
  • Does the answer provide an accurate solution to the concern?
  • Is this question really asked often, or maybe I should remove it in favor of a more important one?

Too long? Cut it

Keep it simple, keep it short.

If an answer is way too long, you need to cut it, it’s as simple as that. In fact, best practice is to keep each answer to 28 words.

It is important to keep this in mind because you will benefit if Google thinks your answer to a frequently asked question is the best.

Why so? Well, the ideal word count for Google voice search answers is 28 words. Therefore, you stand a chance to rank as number one for voice search by keeping your answers precise.

Secondly, if you have too many questions on your FAQ page, there’s a high chance that the questions are not frequently asked, so go ahead and shorten it.

Keep your faq page short
Keep your faq page short

Your FAQs shouldn’t have multiple pages, it will be a bore. It will also create confusion for customers as they might get lost in the multitude of faq pages and forget why they came to your site in the first place.

Use relevant keywords

You may not know this, but SEO, particularly using keywords in the FAQ page is just as important as for any other web page.

Your customers spend a tiny fraction of their online time on your site. Most of the time they use google to find answers, so deal with it and adjust your content.

If your users are searching for widget and your FAQ answer speaks about module or block, the magic won’t happen and your customers will be frustrated.

Investigate which terms your users are actually using and edit your answers. You will make it much easier for customers to find what they’re looking for on your FAQ page. 

Add FAQ search

Your business FAQs may actually require multiple pages because you run a big brand or are providing a lot of services/products. In this case, you can’t choose to cut out questions just for the sake of reducing the frequently asked questions on your FAQ page.

Our FAQ module live search example
Our FAQ module live search example

To solve this, create a search option, so that customers can type in their question keywords and not have to keep scrolling. You will be making it easier for customers to find answers.

Make your FAQ page mobile friendly

A lot of internet users access the web from their smartphones, you need to pay attention to their needs as well.

That means you have to make your website generally mobile friendly. It should load fast and all the pages should be clearly visible on smartphones.

This same rule applies for the FAQs. Customers using their phones should be able to see everything on the FAQ page clearly.

Lead your customers to the FAQ page

Most internet users don’t go searching for frequently asked questions on a website, it’s your duty to direct them to your FAQ page.

There are many ways to do this, you can use main site navigation, pop-ups, embed FAQ modules into specific pages, use chatbots, landing pages, etc.

A key rule is to put the Frequently Asked Questions button in a place where it can be easily found on the website.

Some words on FAQ page design

You certainly have to pay attention to how your faq page looks.

For example, an FAQ page with multiple bright colors will be bad for the eyes and customers won’t get to read the answers on the page.

You don't want your faq page to look like this
You don’t want your faq page to look like this

Another bad design would be to use tiny or stylish fonts as you would have your customers straining their eyes to read it.

Frankly, they won’t. They will leave your website instead.

Use fewer colors. White, black, blue and grey are the common colors most website owners use.

The ultimate rule is to keep the FAQ page simple, clear and bold so that anyone can easily read questions and answers.

FAQ examples

Here we’ve gathered some examples of good (and not so good) use of frequently asked questions pages that can be found on the web today.

American Airlines FAQ

American Airlines faq pages use accordions, which is a typical solution for faq. They also use many related links to make sure their customers can always read more on the topic if the answer is not detailed enough.

Back to top button at the bottom is quite helpful

FAQ Examples - American Airlines FAQ
FAQ Examples – American Airlines FAQ

They also use the knowledge base, which is a good choice when you have lots of topics to cover.

Open American Airlines faq

Coachella FAQ

Coachella faq page is a great example of making your faq follow the philosophy and feel of other site pages.

After all, there’s no need to stay serious and formal all the time. Adding a touch of humor can greatly improve the experience, too

FAQ examples - Coachella
FAQ examples – Coachella

Open Coachella FAQ

Games Workshop FAQ

Games Workshop faq is a good example of using quick navigation.

They use a table of contents on top of the faq page which allows users to jump to the question quickly.

FAQ examples - Games Workshop FAQ
FAQ examples – Games Workshop FAQ

This is helpful, however, having some sort of back to top link would make user life even easier.

There’s no search functionality too, but the user always can use the browser search.

Open Games Workshop faq

Squarespace FAQ

A good example of a minimalistic approach in FAQ design. There’re no accordions, no multiple pages, no animations – just questions and answers.

FAQ examples - Squarespace
FAQ examples – Squarespace

Some quick filters would be helpful, though.

Open Squarespace FAQ

AWS S3 FAQ

S3 is one of Amazon’s online products suite. It allows you to store your assets on Amazon servers and scale as you go.

AWS S3 FAQ is an amazing example of structuring your answers the right way.

FAQ Examples - AWS S3 faq
FAQ Examples – AWS S3 faq

They certainly have to address many questions on their page, because let’s face it, online cloud storage with API and all the bells and whistles is quite a complex product.

But they still manage to make it easy to read and navigate. They use accordion and table of contents in the sidebar, which scrolls as you scroll the page and the current section is highlighted.

Typography is also clean and makes the FAQ page easy to read.

Open AWS S3 FAQ

DirectTV Now FAQ

Here’s an alternative example for you. DirectTV Now faq page is very bold and uses big typography and bright colors, but still works well.

FAQ Examples - DirectTV Now FAQ
FAQ Examples – DirectTV Now FAQ

One of the reasons is it’s simple, not overwhelming. While it shows only the top questions, users have an option to load more questions.

Open DirectTV Now FAQ

Conclusion

Despite the benefits of having an FAQ page, not every website that needs one.

You definitely need to create a FAQ page if you run a service, product, app website or e-commerce.

On the other hand, if you run a blog, you probably don’t need to create frequently asked questions section. If an About Us can do justice then that’s enough, no need for an extra questions page.

If you’re looking for an easy way to add a FAQ page to your WordPress website,  provide a pro faq module bundled with our main product, Minerva KB – WordPress Knowledge Base with Analytics.

It has categories, quick search/filter, beautiful modern design and a ton of options. And as your business grows you can easily move on to a knowledge base, which offers even more flexibility.

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