How Your FAQ Page Can Further Your Conversation

What is your FAQ page saying about you?

When I see FAQ pages, I read them – or at least scan them. Not only can they be the easiest way to find information, they can also be an interesting look into what web site owners believe about their site and what they offer, and what they think their visitors care about. The standard approach is the easy one – factual answers written in a plain vanilla style. But that wastes an opportunity to engage with readers as human beings rather than as robots.

The standard Q&A format is perfect for having a dialogue with your visitors that delivers the needed information but also gives them a sense of who you are and think like they do, and that you are someone they can work with.

Here are a couple examples to get your wheels spinning:

1. Bandcamp is a free publishing platform for musicians. This site is unique in that, except for the homepage and a blog, almost all of the copy sits on the FAQ page.

Frequently Asked Questions | Bandcamp.

The tone and attitude is casual and irreverent, as it should be considering the audience, which helps create the sense that there’s a comrade on the other side of the screen. There are great nuggets of humor in just about every answer. Here’s one example:

What’s the maximum upload size?
It’s 305 megabytes, or more precisely, 305,088,054 bytes (that’s 297,937.6 kibibytes or 290.95 mebibytes to you, Lieutenant Commander La Forge). Never you mind that though. The important thing is that it’s the exact size of “Inamorata and Narration by Conrad Roberts” from side 4 of Miles Davis’ Live-Evil (assuming we’re talking 16/44.1, which we always are). If you have something to say that’s longer/larger than that, you are a jam band and we cannot be a party to the dissemination of your output (j/k jam bands, we love you too — but please take a quick hacky-sack break at 26:29).

2. Freedom From Hunger, an international development organization working in 16 countries, also takes a conversational approach, but with a tone more fitting the subject.

Frequently Asked Questions | Freedom From Hunger

There’s no humor here, but the answers are far from the curt style many cause-oriented sites have. They are not afraid of long answers (probably correctly guessing that anyone who has reached this page is willing to read) and pack many of them with facts. They use every answer as an opportunity to include elements of their purpose and their priorities. They come across as knowledgeable and confident without loosing their caring spirit.

Why only women? Why don’t you work with men?
We don’t exclude men: we focus on women. After all, no one is working harder to end hunger than a mother with a hungry child. Freedom from Hunger helps her succeed. Women play a key role in the family and nowhere is that more true than in the developing world. Women are the primary caretakers of children under the age of five – and these are the people most vulnerable to the ravages of chronic hunger and malnutrition.

3. WideAwake.org was created to let donors feel like a part of the intimate community organization to which they are giving, with the knowledge that their gifts are used properly and effectively. (More reading: About Us | WideAwake.org – fantastic story-based copy.)

Frequently Asked Questions | WideAwake.org

While I wish WideAwake.org put a little more of themselves in their answers (like the About Us page mentioned above) the polished tone of their answers is often balanced by everyday language and, when needed, they take the time to add depth beyond the first sentence answer.

How do I know that my gift to an Affiliate or Project makes a difference?

WideAwake.org partners with Affiliate organizations that do more with less, so all donations made through WideAwake.org have a significant impact on the lives of those in need.

After you make a donation to an Affiliate or an Affiliate’s Project through WideAwake.org, you will receive an immediate note of thanks. Sometime after your gift or upon the completion of a Project, you will receive an email with a picture or video update from the field showing you the specific impact of your donation. These interactive thank yous are an incredibly unique aspect of the WideAwake.org giving experience, and they are the reason many of our donors feel so intimately connected to the Affiliates they support.

Not every website has an audience as relaxed as Bandcamp or as engaged as Freedom From Hunger and WideAwake.org but you do have an audience of visitors – unique to you. And they will be more likely to respond to you if you find and use the voice that tells your story in a genuine and meaningful way.

One last thing. FAQ pages should not be instruction manuals for your site. If your site needs instructions you might want to rethink your design and architecture. It is much more intuitive to create short “mouse over” instructions or even a unique page if you absolutely have to have instructions.

So, “What is your FAQ page saying about you?” Maybe it’s time to read it again and see if it is living up to and telling the story of the great work you are doing everyday.

Written by: Bruce Kaechele

Email the author: brucek@fathom.net

Post Comment