FAQ Page - To Use Or Not to Use?
Adetola Julius
CRO Specialist | UX Researcher | Creating a delightful customer experience that helps e-commerce brands generate more revenue from existing traffic while turning first-time buyers into loyal brand advocates
Many Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages are sales copy dressed in the garb of FAQ!
Simple!
If you are an e-commerce website, your goal should be to eliminate FAQ completely. It is not necessary on your website. Let me show you why!
Businesses create FAQs because they feel it helps them address possible objections to their offer. But that's a big mistake! The place to address objections is in your sales copy, not with an FAQ page.
Working with a start up of late, I spent days digging through a pile of carefully selected possible objections to a very unique product. The questions in the FAQ were indeed valid objections gleaned from hours of research on Amazon.
But 4/5 of those questions could easily have been woven into the sales copy. It may mean having a long form sales copy. But that's by far better than expecting potential buyers to dig through a heap of FAQs.
If, for instance, users of the product are very particular about the ingredients used in making it, a dedicated page called "Ingredients" should be created to address those concerns. If there are questions about your pricing, you should create a "Pricing" page. If your product has features that potential buyers need to be aware of, create a "Features" page.
Intercom.com is a great example of a company that has completely dispensed with an FAQ page. Let's take a look at their website.
First, they are very clear about who their product is for.
No FAQ page. In place of it, they have dedicated pages for the following:
- Pricing
- Use Cases
- Features
- Segments
This is what businesses should be doing.
After visitors hit a landing or product page, they don't run to your FAQ page. Doubt it? Go look up your Google Analytics. You'll be shocked!
Your Product page is where visitors are closest to the sale. That's where you should be addressing those objections, not on the FAQ page.
Stop sending potential buyers to the FAQs in hope that they will make a return journey to the product page to continue their path to sales. You are adding one more step to their path. And that's one of the surest ways to lose a sale.
Contrary to popular opinion, you don't need an FAQ page to rank well in search engines. You should be using good content for that. The FAQ page is usually a lazy way to avoid doing the hard work of writing solid content. It's understandable if you are a start up.
However, if you want to win in the search engine game, your best bet is solid content. Start putting the hard work to do away with your FAQ page now.
Comment if you have a contrary opinion.
CRO Specialist | UX Researcher | Creating a delightful customer experience that helps e-commerce brands generate more revenue from existing traffic while turning first-time buyers into loyal brand advocates
4 年Perfect, Tayo! There is no substitute for clarity - Clarity about your offer, removing as many friction points as possible, and a host of other factors often neglected today. Many thanks????
Well Engineering Manager | Project Manager| OPFA Fellow
4 年Customers have very limited attention span. Unless you are a category king or your product's uniqueness is unparalleled, you owe it to your cashflow the duty of stripping all shade of ambiguity off your product offering by crafting dedicated page(s) to address all/any potential issues / concerns. I agree the FAQ page is an unnecessary appendage.