Why Your E-Commerce Store Needs an FAQ Page

Let’s get the FAQs straight.

A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page is an important asset on any company’s website, and too often one that businesses overlook. Their loss, your gain. Having an FAQ page can help you increase conversions, build trust with your customers, improve your SEO and save you time. Here’s a closer look at why you should have a FAQ page, and how to make a great one.

The benefits of having a Frequently Asked Questions page

Increase conversion rates

Your goal as an e-commerce site is to make sure that you do as much as you can to encourage people to become paying customers. A big part of that is getting rid of barriers your customers face. Especially if you’re a small brand, lots of people don’t buy from someone they’re unfamiliar with if they don’t fully trust them. Your FAQ page is a great place to help build that trust, answer each and every question a skeptic might have, and convince someone that you’re legit.

Make less work for yourself

Yes, there will always be that guy who has an out-of-left-field question and needs special attention to answer it. But for the most part, lots of people have the same general questions about your products and policies. Having an FAQ page is a great way to optimise your customer support: it lets you direct most people to the answers they’re looking for, without having to spend staff time on it.

Show you know your stuff

An FAQ page plays the very important role of building your brand credibility. You can use it to directly address common concerns, proving that you’ve done the thinking and your customer doesn’t have to.

Be a content marketing guru

Content marketing means using text, images, website pages, social media and all other content you produce to drive traffic to your site and increase trust with potential customers. Coming up with a content marketing strategy usually includes some form of frequently-produced content like blogs and social media posts that keep you on the map in your industry, as well as helping you get found on search engines more often. Your FAQ page can also work toward these goals: having more content with the right keywords improves your SEO and helps prove your industry leadership and credibility.

What goes into a good Frequently Asked Questions page?

An FAQ page is basically a page where you can write out lots of important content about your products; just channel your inner Jeopardy winner and phrase it as a question.

Well, some questions for starters

Your Frequently Asked Questions page is a great place to directly answer questions real life customers and testers have asked you. You can start by coming up with a list of questions your customers have already asked that are applicable to other people, found in comments sections, emails or conversations with customers.

Information about how to use your products

Not every company needs this. If you sell spoons, chances are your customers know how to use spoons. But if you sell something new that you’ve made yourself, something that’s at the forefront of your field and still unfamiliar to most people who haven’t tried it yet, or something that takes special instructions, your FAQ page is a great place to give short summaries of how to properly use whatever it is you sell. This is also a perfect section to link to any explanation videos you might have.

Help your customers figure out which of your products is right for them

It’s important to think from the perspective of your customer at all times when writing your FAQ page, but especially important when you’re helping them compare different products. Emphasise what circumstances you’d use product A for vs. product B. Similarly, an FAQ page can be a great place to go over sizing and fit information.

Emphasise your unique sales proposition

Your FAQ page is not necessarily the place to push hard sales, but it is definitely an opportunity to emphasise what makes you stand out. You can phrase questions that someone would have when they are deciding whether to go with you or one of your competitors, and speak directly to what makes your company better. For example, Pampa rugs uses their FAQ to show how their rugs are sourced in a way that is socially sustainable, as compared to a sweatshop factory.

Shipping, payment and returns policies

Especially for online stores, a clear shipping and returns policy is absolutely necessary - and one of the most commonly asked questions across the board. Same goes for payments and refunds.

Legal stuff

If what you sell has restrictions on it, such as age restrictions or resale/copyright limitations, here’s a good place to remind your customers. Same goes for warranties and guarantees you might offer.

You should also of course put any legal warnings, warranty info or requirements in a specific Terms and Conditions page but this is an important place to write out any legalese in plain language, and link to the more specific rules.

Personality

Here’s a chance to show your customers who you are as a business. Remember, everything you write can be considered part of your branding, so your FAQ pages should be set in a similar tone to the rest of your website copy.

Links and Contact info

A great FAQ page will use fact that they’re talking about their products to link directly back to them. Be a bit strategic - this isn’t your product landing page after all. But where it feels like a good fit, link back to your products, to your About page, and especially give easy-to-find information about contacting your company. If someone doesn’t find the answer they’re looking for on your website, you’d much rather they reached out directly and asked than gave up and lost the sale.

Alternative FAQs - some shortcuts and add-ons to know

Don’t FAQ it up all by yourself

Believe it or not, you’re not the first person in your industry to have an FAQ page. Almost guaranteed. And that’s great! It means if you simply google “FAQ [your product/industry]” you’ll likely find a starting point of questions you can answer. Plus hey, remember what we said about FAQ pages boosting your SEO? If you find a competitor’s FAQ page, you want to get on in there, too.

UGCing your FAQ

Acronyms! User-generated content strategies often try to meet many of the same goals as FAQ pages. However, instead of you being the one to supply the answers, you’re leaving it up to your customer. You can create question and answer forums, or question forums regarding specific products through UGC services like Okendo and Yotpo. Find out how to do it here.

Add a search bar on your site

You want your FAQ page to be easy to navigate to through your menu, but you also want your site viewers to be able to search directly for their questions and land on your FAQ page too. Don’t forget to install a search bar, either by configuring one into your theme directly or by getting an app that comes with analytics.

When you have a search bar, you’ll also be able to do some important keyword research that shows you what your potential customers are looking for, giving you insight as to what answers you might not have included on your FAQ page yet.

Got questions about questions?

Elkfox is a Shopify expert, working with companies across tons of industries to make beautiful, functional websites and apps for e-commerce businesses. We can help you develop your brand, content and any custom pages - including an FAQ. Learn more.