Web Copywriting
What to Put on an FAQ Page — and When Not to Have One
Most FAQ pages are a dumping ground for anything nobody could place elsewhere. A good one is the opposite: a deliberate list of the things that stop people buying.
The FAQ page is where content goes when nobody could decide where else to put it. That is why so many of them contain questions no customer has ever asked — "What makes you different?", "Why choose us?" — sitting beside genuinely useful answers about delivery times. The format invites padding, because a page of questions never looks finished.
The Test for Whether a Question Belongs
Someone has to have actually asked it. Not a question you wish they would ask, not one that lets you restate a benefit — one that arrived in an email, on a call, or in a chat window, more than once.
The moment you allow invented questions, the page stops being useful and starts being marketing in question form. Readers detect that instantly, and once they have hit two invented questions they stop reading the real ones.
A quick audit: go through your FAQ page and mark every question you can trace to a real customer. If fewer than half survive, the page is not an FAQ — it is a second sales page with question marks in it.
Most Good Answers Belong Somewhere Else
This is the part that gets missed. If a question is asked by nearly everyone who buys, the answer should be on the page where they are deciding — not filed two clicks away where only the diligent will find it.
A recurring worry about price belongs on the pricing page. A recurring worry about how long something takes belongs on the service page, near the point where you ask for the enquiry. Moving these off the FAQ page and into the flow usually lifts conversion more than rewriting either page.
What is left for the FAQ page is the genuine tail: questions asked by a minority, which would clutter a service page but which matter enormously to the people who have them.
Write the Answer First, in Two Sentences
- Answer, then explain. The first two sentences should be usable on their own. Detail follows for anyone who wants it.
- Answer the actual question. "Do you offer refunds?" answered with "we are committed to customer satisfaction" is a no, written by someone hoping you will not notice.
- Use their words in the question. Write the question as a customer would ask it, not as your industry would phrase it.
- Say the uncomfortable thing. An honest "no, we do not do that" builds more trust than an evasion, and it filters out enquiries you did not want.
- Link onward where it helps. An answer that needs a full page behind it should summarise and link, not try to be that page.
Grouping, Once You Pass About Twelve
Below roughly a dozen questions, a single list is easier to scan than any grouping. Above that, group by the stage the reader is at — before buying, during, after — rather than by internal department, which is how most FAQ pages end up sorted and is meaningless to a visitor.
Accordions are fine and slightly overrated. They make a long page scannable, and they hide the answers, which means a reader skimming for reassurance finds none. If the page has six questions, just show the answers.
An FAQ page that has not been touched in two years is worse than no FAQ page. It answers questions about a service you have changed, at prices you no longer charge, and every stale answer costs you credibility on the fresh ones beside it.
When Not to Have One at All
If you have four questions, put them on the relevant pages and skip the FAQ page. A near-empty one signals a business nobody asks much about, which is not the impression you want.
And if the honest reason for building one is that the service pages are unclear, an FAQ page is a workaround for a problem it will not fix. Readers should not have to go to a separate page to understand what you sell.
Where questions cluster around one subject, that is usually a signal too — see what to publish when you cannot publish prices, and what to put on a contact page for the questions that belong there instead. Our website copywriting service treats these pages as part of the path, not as leftovers.