FAQs are a fantastic tool for gaining a better Google ranking, taking the pressure off the business owner having to repeatedly answer client questions and help educate the market about what your product or service can do and why yours is better.
Why is an FAQ important?
FAQs are an essential selling tool because these questions are the very same ones the target market is asking in their own head. If the business owner can’t answer these for the customer, the customer will go elsewhere to a company that can. It’s psychologically proven that if we have unanswered questions about a product (e.g. how much is it, is there a money-back guarantee etc), we cannot process through the mental steps required to feel confident in purchasing the product.
Here’s a few tips on how to write a powerful FAQ quickly.
1. Write out the top 20 or 30 questions you often get asked by people considering buying from you. Start with the basics, no matter how prosaic they may seem. For example, if I was writing copy for a florist, I would write down the most mundane questions.
- Can I order online?
- Do you offer free delivery?
- Can I add chocolates or gifts to my order?
- What is the minimum purchase?
I’d then follow that up with the more detailed questions:
- What if the flowers I order are not fresh?
- Do you offer a money-back guarantee?
- How long does it take to get my flowers delivered?
- Do you belong to an accredited floristry organisation?
2. Answer the questions. Simply write out the answers in the most elegant, persuasive and concise way you can. This now becomes your FAQ. Easy.
Here’s a few more reasons why writing an FAQ in this way makes sense.
1. It provides you with the raw material for the rest of your copy. I always start out with the FAQ because it helps me understand my client’s product better, and it also becomes the foundation for all the other copy on the website or brochure. With a bit of tweaking, cutting and pasting and re-writing, I can use what I’ve already written for other pages. This is a very time-efficient and productive way of writing copy.
2. They’re easy to read. Everyone loves Q and A because they help us get answers to questions we need answered. Not everyone needs every question answered, but by having a clearly laid out, well-written FAQ means readers can scan quickly through the text and find what they need.
How To ‘Re-Purpose’ Your Content And Get Maximum Bang For Your Buck:
Writing copy can be time-consuming, but once you’ve done it or had it done for you by a copywriter, it’s worthwhile thinking about how you can use what you’ve got more than once. Here’s a few tips on how you can re-work big chunks of copy (like FAQs) so that you get maximum usage out of the copy you’ve written.
1. Slice and dice. I’m a big believer in slicing and dicing your content so you can repurpose your content for numerous platforms. One or two FAQ questions can easily become an article or blog. Five or six can become an eBook, and 20+ can become a book.
2. Send it to bloggers and ezine sites. One of the quickest ways to get people to read your content and get traffic to your site is to submit your articles or blogs to industry blogging sites, ezine sites like www.ezine.com or to LinkedIn. Make sure you add a ‘bio box’ at the end of the article that includes your website address, contact details and a bit about you so that if people like what you’ve written, they can find you.
3. Use the material as the basis of an online newsletter. You’ve already written your article, so why not make it an online newsletter. If you’ve written up your FAQ properly, you can compile a few questions into one and make that the basis of the newsletter. If you’re going to do a newsletter, though, make it consistent and send it out on a regular basis.
4. Create Fact Sheets. FAQs lend themselves nicely to Fact Sheets. Pick a topic that you get a lot of questions about, and then pick the top 5, answer them and voila, you’ve just created a Fact Sheet. Some infopreneurs I know create ‘series’ of Fact Sheets, get them printed up and laminated and sell them as part of their suite of information products.
5. Post your articles on Facebook or Twitter. You’ve already written the material, you may as well broadcast it to your followers and friends. Simply load the article up into your blog, copy/paste the URL of the blog, write a post/tweet to introduce the article and share it with the world.