Hands up who likes FAQs?

I don’t. I find myself scrolling through the list, willing my question to come up. It rarely does. Instead I find random questions and wonder how many people actually asked that?! Frustrating.

Some companies might say it’s one of their most popular pages; I’m more inclined to think people end up clicking on the FAQs page because they haven’t found their answer anywhere else. It’s probably the last page people go to before they search for a contact number — a last resort.

Does everyone know what FAQ stands for? You could be excluding users who don’t have English as their first language.

Are they really asked frequently?

So, is it actually a question that’s been asked frequently? I’ve been in meetings where people round the table actually come up with what the FAQs should be.

This makes me want to scream.

Why would you guess what people are going to ask… but not put that information clearly in the actual body of the content?

What then tends to happen is duplication; you create the content about the Madeup Council tip moving to a new site. You include all the major points people need to know about the tip moving and how they can use it. You then decide you want an FAQs page and get to work thinking up all the questions the public might have:

• are the opening times staying the same?
• can I still use the tip even though it’s no longer in my town?
• do I still have to pay to tip certain rubbish?
• will this tip have the same rules as the old one?
• are you likely to move the tip again?

These are all fab questions (apart from the last one — don’t think anyone would ask that). But they’re so fab, they should inform your well-written content and be answered clearly on the main page, not shunted off to an FAQs page. Quite often, the FAQs repeat information that’s already in the content. So you’re actually making people read the same information — twice!

Ok, so they really are frequently asked

If they really are frequently asked questions why aren’t they answered in the main content? Why separate them out? People are more likely to see the information under the correct page title (that they probably googled) with the correct heading (Google loves this).

It really feels like FAQs are one of those ‘this is what we’ve always done’ options. If Madeup Council thinks the information is ‘too buried’ in the main page then this is an issue for their content designers to improve the page, making the most important information easier to find. Think about your users and what they have to go through. Make all those answers accessible to everyone. And meet your users’ needs.

A well-laid out page will help users find information more easily through search engines than a page of FAQs where the questions might not match Google’s.

The best use of FAQs

I think the best FAQs is to use them as the basis of your content design; what are people coming to this page to find out? What are the main tasks they’re looking for?

Then turn them from questions into front-loaded titles, for example: ‘Find the tip opening times’ instead of ‘Will the opening times be the same at the new tip?’.

People will find the information quicker because they’ll ask Google or their search engine the question and it will take them straight to your well-worded title and give them the answer.

And yes, I do realise I’ve asked 16 questions in this post…