Frequently asked questions are an essential part of ecommerce businesses. Bringing benefits with them, they can be overwhelming to think about and create. Here, I talk about deciding on your FAQs, writing the answers and of course, the benefits.
Benefits of Ecommerce Frequently Asked Questions
Save Time
By creating an efficient response, you will spend less time responding to customer enquiries – some people will have read the answer to their question on your FAQ page.
Build Trust
The first point of contact your potential customers have with you, might be your FAQ answer, and they can help you build trust with them. Your answer will set their expectations, and answer their question.
Create a Journey
If your answer includes an action, hyperlink the reader to the relevant page to start their journey. This could increase your sales depending on the question e.g. linking them to a reviews page talking about the fitting of a product or alternatively, provide good customer service if you take them to a returns page.
By creating positive website journeys, people will stop on your website or marketplace for a longer period of time and hopefully, purchase something.
Boost SEO Impacts
Your answers will include relevant keywords and information about your products, this could have a positive impact on your SEO impacts along with the rest of your website and marketplace pages.
How To Create Effective FAQs
Research Your Questions & Make a List
Find out which questions are asked by talking to your support and social media teams and put them into a list. If there are some asked multiple times, mark them so you easily identify your FAQs.
If you're a new ecommerce business or a marketplace seller, don't worry! Think of your experiences as a customer and the information you'd like to know; research your competitors for ideas too. FAQ pages are a working document so you can build upon it once you get asked questions.
Organise Your Questions
I see a lot of FAQs initially ordered by topics e.g. product, delivery and returns and again via importance or frequently asked – but they need to have a logical flow when somebody is reading them. If somebody is asking if you offer a specific product or service, talk about that before you talk about add ons for those products.
Create Your Content
This is the easy bit – you know your business! But, here are a few pointers to bear in mind when writing your answers.
- Ask questions from your customers' point of view and answer as your business (this will make your page look conversational and relatable to your customer).
- Keep your answers simple, this applies to the language you use and the length of your answer.
- At the end of your page, include a way to contact you. Your questions might not answer every question somebody has, and you want to be welcoming!
Use Your FAQ
Once you have created your FAQ page, put it on your website and marketplaces. Once you've done the hard work, you want people to read them. I recommend putting it in your site footer and order notification emails at minimum.
Maintain Your FAQ
Last, but not least, maintain your FAQ page. Perhaps put somebody in charge of adding and removing information to the page so you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that it's complete. Afterall, it is a working document.
Conclusion
There you have it; I hope this article helps you on the path to writing your FAQ page. First stop, deciding on your questions and answering them as simply as you can. I'm sure you'll create a great page and benefit from it very soon.
