What Should Actually Be on My Website's FAQ Page?
What should actually be on my website's FAQ page?
The questions customers really ask you, answered the way you would answer them on the phone.
That sounds obvious. Most FAQ pages are not that. Most FAQ pages are a list of questions nobody asked, written by somebody who wanted a place to put marketing copy. "Why choose us?" is not a frequently asked question. Nobody has ever said that out loud to a business owner.
The page has gotten a lot more important in the last couple of years, and it is worth understanding why.
Why does the question and answer format matter more than it used to?
Because a machine answering a question wants a question and an answer.
Think about what an AI is doing when somebody asks it about your industry. It is looking for material it can lift cleanly and repeat with confidence. A paragraph of flowing prose has to be interpreted, summarized, and possibly gotten wrong. A clearly labeled question with a direct answer underneath can be used almost as-is.
We saw this play out on our own site. We added a question, "Who is Aggieland Website Design best for?", and answered it in plain language with the actual kinds of customers we work with. Weeks later an AI answer about our company came back with that list, barely rearranged.
It did not paraphrase our homepage. It used the answer we had written.
I want to be careful here, because that is one website and one result, and nobody can promise what any engine will do with yours. But the mechanism is not mysterious. We wrote something in the format a machine finds easiest to use, and it got used.
What questions belong on it?
Start with the ones you are tired of answering.
Genuinely. Keep a note by the phone for two weeks and write down every question a customer or a prospect asks you. That list is your FAQ page, and it will be better than anything you would have invented.
Then make sure these are covered, because they are the ones people are actually searching:
What it costs. Even a range, even "starts at." Dodging the question does not make somebody stop wondering, it makes them go find a competitor who answered it.
Who you are best for. Named types of customers, not adjectives.
Who you are not for. The one most businesses skip and the one that does the most work.
How long it takes. Real timelines, including the parts that depend on the customer.
What happens after the sale. Support, warranty, maintenance, whatever applies to you. This is where a lot of buying decisions actually get made and almost nobody writes it down.
What does not belong on an FAQ page?
Anything you invented to have something to say.
Cut questions that only exist to set up a sales line. Cut anything where the honest answer is "it depends" and you leave it there, because that is not an answer and a machine cannot use it. And do not write the question in your own marketing language. Write it the way a customer would type it, because that is the phrasing that has to match.
One more thing. Answer in the first sentence. Not after three sentences of buildup. If somebody skims only the first line under each question, they should still get the answer, and so should anything else reading the page.
Frequently asked questions
How many questions should be on the page?
Eight to fifteen for most small businesses. Enough to be genuinely useful, not so many that it turns into a manual nobody reads.
Should the FAQ live on one page or spread across the site?
Both. A dedicated page, plus the two or three most relevant questions repeated on the page where they matter. A pricing question belongs on the pricing page as well as the FAQ.
Does the wording need to match how people search exactly?
Close is fine. Natural phrasing beats keyword stuffing, and people ask AI tools in full sentences now, so writing the question like a real question is the point.
Do I need special code for this?
There is structured data specifically for FAQ content that makes the questions and answers machine-readable, and it is worth having. The words come first though. Good markup around a weak answer just delivers the weak answer more efficiently.
Can I use AI to write my FAQ page?
You can, and it will produce the generic version, which is the one that does not help you. Use it to organize your own answers if you like. The answers have to be yours.
Will you help us build one?
It is part of what we do on a build or a rework, and it is also the sort of thing our Tell Your Business Story service is built for, starting at $495. Call 979-217-1544 or email [email protected].
Tom Bruch has built websites since 1998 and is the owner of Aggieland Website Design.