How to write an effective FAQ

Table of content

Today we will devote a few words to a real must-have for every store or other service point present in the online space – the FAQ section. There are at least a few reasons why it is worth creating and a few benefits that we can achieve with it. Without further ado – let’s get to the specifics.

FAQ – what is it?

FAQ is an English acronym for ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.

FAQ is a collection of answers to potentially the most frequently asked questions that readers ask or may ask about your products, services, activities, the form of your operation or other aspects that concern prospective customers.

FAQ sections are not just a trade domain, as they can be found in many other places.

Benefits of having FAQ

FAQs are really common and there are a number of reasons for this. Although properly composing such a section can be quite time-consuming and should certainly be well thought out, there are real benefits that it can bring us. Examples are listed below.

Pro-consumers image

An aspect that is important especially from the point of view of shops and service points.

The presence of FAQ is an assurance that you take the relationship with your customers seriously and are able to provide them with answers to every possible question.

You also should not hide anything: if your Frequently Asked Questions extensively cover topics such as shipping, returns or complaints, it means that you focus on transparency in dealing with your customers.

Relieving the customer service department

Let’s start with the fact that the customer service department should always be present. It is impossible to predict all the issues, complications or adventures that we will have to deal with as a seller or service provider. However, a significant part of the questions addressed to us will be repeated, and what’s more, will concern rather basic issues.

For this reason, instead of having our employees dispel doubts about the same, repetitive nuances over and over, it is better to collect the most frequently given answers in one place. There are two reasons:

  • firstly, customer service will be able to devote more time to people who have actually encountered complications;
  • secondly, it is the fastest method – reading a few clearly explaining sentences will certainly take less time than a phone call or email correspondence.

Increased sales

Although you may not feel an intuitive connection here, let’s refer to our own experiences and answer the following question – how many times have we held off on buying something because we didn’t immediately find information that we would have preferred to have before buying (exchange of goods, possibility of payment in a specific form, etc.)?

Although we know that we can obtain such knowledge by phone or message, we think that we will do it later, maybe tomorrow, and in the end the thought of buying somehow leaves us on its own… Meanwhile, a reliable page with answers would be enough and many such situations could be prevented.

Better ranking of the FAQ page in search engine results

In addition to the above-mentioned benefits, the FAQ section can also have a positive impact on the ranking of your website. All you need to do is weave SEO rules and a few formatting tricks into the FAQ page so that the Google search engine ‘looks’ more favorably at your website and gives it a higher position in searches for specific phrases.

In addition, such a section is also a good starting point – or perhaps, more accurately, an exit page – for expanding the internal linking structure on your website.

We have learned a few significant benefits – it’s time to get to work and create the best possible question section!

How to write an effective FAQ?

If you want to enjoy any of the above advantages (and we want all of them!), then you need to take this task seriously and approach it honestly.

So let’s review the most important issues and principles that you should follow when writing your own FAQ.

Optimize FAQ for SEO

Before we start, let’s mention an issue that was already raised a moment ago – namely, the procedures used in ranking can significantly improve your FAQ section. In this guide, we have already tried to include them, which is why we will refer to the principles of proper SEO use several times.

Choose the right questions

How do you collect questions for your FAQ? There are several ways. First of all, go ahead to thoroughly analyze your inbox and consult your customer service department – after all, who knows better? Compile together a list of the most frequently asked questions from those sources.

This option will not be particularly helpful if you’re not writing an FAQ for a store or are just starting out with it. In such a case, you will have to simulate the path a potential customer takes and think about what questions may pop into their head. It does not hurt to be inspired by existing sites. You can also use similar methods to SEO specialists when selecting keywords.

The suggestions that the search engine itself gives you will also be of great help. For some phrases, it displays a ‘Similar questions’ window, and at the bottom of the search results page you sometimes find ‘Searches similar to…’. Both present related issues that are often raised when your potential customers are looking for an answer to their query about your product or services. These are suggestions based on the voices of hundreds of thousands of people, so it is worth trusting them and raising these issues in your FAQ as well.

However, let’s remember not to stray from the point – especially if you’re are creating an FAQ for an e-commerce website, and not a compendium of knowledge.

Use the right language

From a consumer perspective, the whole charm of the FAQ section is that it condenses the necessary information in a few sentences.

Answers should therefore be clear, lucid, objective, specific and short.

Two, three, four sentences should be more than enough. Stylistically, it is worth sticking to polite but direct phrases. When properly done, customers will feel that the FAQ is a form of direct communication between them and your business organization.

Well thought-out layout

In this case, this means two things:

  1. The questions that are asked most often should be give a priority position on the list and if there are a lot of them, you’re expected to have taken care of a clear layout. The easiest way to do this is to group them thematically: a separate paragraph for the part concerning, for example, complaints and returns, payment methods, etc.
  2. You should format the whole FAQ according to the rules of creating texts: into hierarchical headings and paragraphs.

If there are a few questions, it is also a good idea to precede the section with a table of contents with hyperlinks to individual paragraphs. This will make it clear and your customers happy because they will quickly find the answer they are interested in.

Use the potential of internal linking

Since we have already mentioned hyperlinks, FAQs are a great opportunity to enrich the internal linking of our website. Since answers to questions should be concise, if we have not managed to address all the issues, we should place a link to the page that is dedicated to the given issue under the answer.

Use Google’s FAQ schema

This is an option for people dealing with technical aspects of SEO – however, since it is suggested by the creators of the world’s most popular search engine, it is worth being aware of it.

What benefits will it bring us? As the article from developers.google.com says:

Properly marked pages with frequently asked questions can appear in search results with rich elements and in Google Assistant actions, as a result of which your website can reach the right users.

Although this is an action related to optimizing the website’s code, not strictly creating (writing) an FAQ section, it can significantly improve the results of your website in search results. Instructions on how to correctly mark individual elements in the code can be found on the page regarding frequently asked questions in Google Developers.

FAQ is a very useful creation for both customers and sellers or service providers. It allows customers to quickly obtain an answer to a pressing question, from which sellers and service providers can only gain. Increasing sales, improving PR, or a higher position in the search engine are only some of the benefits of an properly created FAQ.

Although such a section may require some work from you, it is worth taking it, because the effects are measurable and long-lasting.

Summary

  1. FAQ is a section where we will find answers to the most frequently asked questions.
  2. Placing such a section can bring us financial and image benefits.
  3. There are certain rules that are worth sticking to when creating FAQ. They concern the appropriate formatting of text and the arrangement of information.
  4. Such a section also has great potential for improving the results of our website’s positioning – it is worth using it.

Need a professionally prepared FAQ? We’ll be happy to help!

As a team of experienced copywriters, we’ll develop the most frequently asked questions and answers for your company.

Contact us

Olayinka Oni

I am a versatile content writer and copywriter with over 3 years of intense work experience. In addition to writing marketing copies, website contents, articles, blogposts, UI/UX contents, product descriptions, social media contents, and landing pages, I'm also skilled in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), digital marketing, and business development.

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