Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) pages are a common component of business websites (including higher education) and an important consideration when developing your content strategy and web usability plan. But, is it the best option for your organization’s website? The answer depends on the needs of your target audience and how your FAQs page is implemented and maintained. Although potentially valuable, most FAQs pages are mismanaged and thus ineffective. The following are key benefits and common problems to consider when designing (or redesigning) your website, along with some tips and suggestions.
Benefits of a FAQs page:
- Demonstrates good customer service. FAQs pages show that you listen to customer feedback and are interested in responding. Customers feel you’re there to help them. This builds customer trust and loyalty.
- Reduces the number of inquiries by phone and email. How many phone calls and emails does your organization get with repeat questions? How much time is spent answering repeat questions?
- Helps visitors find the information they’re looking for (not just the information you want them to see). Many times people don’t know the right questions to ask or what to enter in a search box. It’s also a page that many users look for when seeking help, along with “help” and “contact us”.
- Improves search engine optimization (SEO). Kyle James, a friend and Inbound Marketing Consultant at HubSpot, asks the pertinent question, “If people can’t find it, does it matter?” In a recent SEO presentation, Kyle explained the importance of choosing relevant web copy keywords. There is often a difference between the words you choose in marketing your business and what your customers are actually looking for. FAQs pages are an opportunity to use your customers’ keywords, ones more likely to appear in search engine results. A FAQs page acts like a sitemap for search engines, helping them to crawl your site more effectively.
Common problems with a FAQs page:
- Acts as a miscellaneous content bucket. As Russ Unger, author of A Project Guide to UX Design, said in a recent exchange on Twitter, people often treat their FAQs page as a place for information they don’t know how to fit elsewhere on their site. This practice negates the aforementioned benefits of FAQs pages.
- Doesn’t answer frequently asked questions. Many FAQs pages don’t actually respond to frequently asked questions; instead, responses relate to questions businesses expect their customers to ask—or worse, simply answer questions they want customers to ask. To create an effective FAQs page, you need to think like a publisher, not a marketer.
- Tries to compensate for poor web design. A FAQs page does not make up for poor navigation, usability or user interface design. It should enhance your website, not hold it together.
- Contains outdated information. FAQs pages need to be regularly updated in order to be relevant and useful. Don’t build it and leave it. As the content on your website changes, so must your FAQs page. If you think this doesn’t apply to you because your web content doesn’t change often, then you have greater problems with your content strategy then maintaining a FAQs page.
Tips & suggestions:
- Develop a log in your organization to track and record FAQs that are asked by phone, email, social media, online forums or walk-in. Remember, your FAQs page should actually contain current frequently asked questions.
- Add a web form or other feedback mechanism for users to report unanswered questions. This helps to gather new FAQs and shows your users that you care about their questions.
- Use as a training tool. FAQs can be a useful for training new employees. I’ve worked in an admissions office before and it would have been extremely helpful to reference a FAQs page when responding to prospective students.
- Know your visitors. FAQs pages are not appropriate for all websites. Savvy Internet users are more likely to use a search box than rely on a FAQs page, but others may not. From my experience in higher education, search boxes are underutilized and are not where most visitors start their “search”. Review your website analytics to understand how visitors navigate your website. Then, make an informed decision about whether a FAQs page is suitable for your organization.
What would you recommend? Do you find FAQs pages useful? Do you have examples of ones that are either well designed or poorly managed?
TimN
August 17th, 2009
So many times I want to send FAQ writers back to the drawing board when they contain questions no one would ask, like ‘How did the School of Liberal Arts come up with its approach to pedagogy?’ That’s hyperbole, but barely. My advice is always to begin with the user in mind. If you can’t do that, go out and talk to some users.
Our Facebook Fans page has shown us there are more FAQs out there than we ever realized. We’ve started incorporating questions that come up regularly on the Fans page into our FAQs where applicable, and I like how social media has provided a real interface into what potential students want to know.
Rick Allen
August 17th, 2009
Tim, I agree. I don’t think that most FAQs pages are based upon user feedback. I did an unofficial poll recently with friends and the far majority do not trust FAQs pages to help them find the information they’re looking for. Instead, they felt FAQs are used as another method to “lead” them to content the company wants to promote. However, in higher education I find many people do rely on FAQs. I think schools can do a better job answering their questions.
I’m also working to gather relevant FAQs from our Facebook page. Social media is a great feedback system.
Thanks for the feedback! :-)
Brian Christiansen
August 24th, 2009
We talk about FAQs in our latest UIE podcast, The Web as a Conversation where Jared Spool and Ginny Redish discuss (among other things) how you can use FAQs as a way of figuring out what parts of your content needs revising. After all, if they’re frequently asked, why not tell them in your initial copy? I’d take your first solution and include… “work this content in to the site content, instead of keeping it aside in a silo.”
Rick Allen
August 24th, 2009
Brian, thank you for the link. I’m a big fan of Jared Spool and Ginny Redish. I really like the analogies used to describe the supporting elements of web content, as well as the discussion on FAQs. Referencing actual FAQs to determine the faults in your web copy is a good system for making improvements, as it’s based on user feedback. However, I’m not sure I agree with Redish’s notion that simply having a FAQs page means your web copy is ineffective. Depending on the users, I think FAQs pages can be a useful site navigation path. If that benefits the users, then it should be considered. My problem with FAQs pages is that they are often poorly implemented, and as you say, used as “silos” for mismanaged information. But that doesn’t mean they can’t serve an effective content strategy. I think it’s a good debate, though.