FAQ in your e-shop can drive your sales. How to organize it the best?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are no longer unique in the online world. However, there are still many people who do not pay enough attention to this page on their websites, even though the e-shop could clearly benefit from it. In this blog, we’ll have look on how to give it the best structure to make it as clear for your customers as possible.

What is FAQ and why is it so important?

The FAQ page contains your customers’ frequently asked questions and their answers. The answered questions have several advantages. They reduce the confusion that can occur to your customers when visiting your website. At the same time, they build the trustworthiness of your business by promoting openness and transparency about your policies. This way you build a closer relationship with your customers and that is very important in business. And if you have a good and close relationship with your customers (or at least persistently trying to do so), this will be reflected in your sales! 🙂 The advantage of the FAQ is that it saves time on both sides – customers do not have to contact you because they are most likely to find the answer to this question on this page, and you do not have to spend so much time to replying emails.

Basic features of the FAQ page

As mentioned earlier, the page contains frequently asked questions from your customers. The word “frequently” is particularly important. You do not need to use the FAQ to answer every specific query. Observe the features of your customers’ queries and formulate the right questions based on their logic. Secondly, the addition of “your customers” is important too. Provide answers to the questions your customers really ask. Do not use the site for promoting your business needs. Questions must be provided with answers. These must be brief and address all important and relevant details. Avoid lengthy answers. Customers do not want to read long paragraphs with low informative value. Questions with answers must be arranged in a logical and structured way so that they are clear enough for customers and do not discourage them from seeking answers. Here are some tips on how to organize your FAQ properly…

How to organize FAQ?

Write down frequently asked questions

To get started, write down all the frequently asked questions that may be related to your e-shop. For example:

How long does it take to receive the goods?
What is the delivery cost?
How can you get refund if necessary?
Didn’t find the answer? Contact us…

These are just really basic questions, so that if you don’t have a FAQ yet, you can start with something. For example, in case you are selling clothes, you can specify the materials, or a size chart… If your business is based on values, sustainability for example, mention them. For inspiration, you can also visit running e-shops and see what questions they used.

Divide the questions into categories

Once you have written down the questions, divide them into logical categories. The following categories can be used as inspiration:

Orders
Shipping
Return & Refund
Products
Privacy and security

Indeed, it is also individual, and it depends on the products and services you offer. Categories should be general to intuitively guide the customer to the answer they are looking for. If there are more questions, we recommend giving each category space – either a separate subpage or use a drop-down plugin. What can happen if you don’t use categories? The simple answer is that the customer will either leave your e-shop or email you the question. None of us wants to scroll long and confusing pages. If a customer arrives at a page that contains a lot of questions and answers that aren’t sorted in any way, they won’t spend unnecessary time searching and either decide to leave your website straight away or email you the question. And you’ll have to spend time on it, even though it’s listed out there somewhere.

Important things first

The more difficult task is to sort the questions according to their importance. If you can’t guess which questions people ask most often, try moving from the most general to the less general ones. If the questions have a logical sequence, make sure they are sorted by it.

Provide a search

Providing search widget can indeed help to make FAQ clearer. It allows customers to enter the keyword of their question and see relevant answers that may be related to it. Of course, the search must not replace all the previous points we mentioned. It is only inevitable if you have a large e-shop with many questions to answer. It will simplify the process for your customers!

Final recommendations

Use the language of your customers E-shop owners and customers think and talk differently. As mentioned above, this page serves primarily your customers to answer their questions. Address them in their own language. Leave the technical terms, use slang instead. This will give the page more value and potential to drive sales. Bet on visual Customers coming to your e-shop are ready to visually scan your site. This means that they may not concentrate on everything you have written but will look visual clues instead. Be prepared for that! You can do this, for example, by using icons for categories on the FAQ page, or visually distinguishing questions from answers… In short, your FAQ page should be as intuitive as possible. Usable FAQ is more than just a question As you can see, a good FAQ page is more than just generic questions and their answerds. You need to think the way your customers think when they have questions about your goods and services. There are many ways you can make the FAQ interesting and user-friendly. There are no limits to imagination. The most important thing is that you maintain at least the structure outlined here in this blog and that this page serves primarily your customers and not your business needs. This is the only way to get the customers to find what they are looking for and decide to purchase your goods!

What is FAQ and why is it so important?

Basic features of the FAQ page

How to organize FAQ?

Final recommendations

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About the Author: Karin Kováčová