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FAQ Facts

Written by: Max Kalles

Article Overview: The ubiquitous FAQ page helped forge a unique identity for the internet. However, it may no longer be relevant for your web site.

FAQ Facts

In the early days of the world wide web, it didn’t take long for companies to realize that they needed an internet site as a source of information for customers.

Marketers were excited by the prospect that, with a web site that can be updated almost immediately, gone were the days when a brochure was obsolete before it finished its print run. No more inserted corrections and strategically placed stickers to mask the erroneous information. Web sites could convey even rapid evolution of information.

A very short time later, companies also realized that web surfers were looking for more than an online brochure. While the static information was good, there was no reason for customers to return. The content was informational, not inspirational, and web sites were an overhead item that companies maintained only to say they had a site.

Web designers and developers began looking for ways to make sites “stickier” and one of the first ways they tried was to incorporate a little used print content technique called Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs.

FAQs are a great source of useful information for your web visitors. Coupled with other frequently updated content like “What’s New”, websites began sprouting a personality of their own, distinct from their print cousins.

Unfortunately, like many pioneering vehicles, FAQs have begun to be awkward in the very universe they helped populate. As web users come to expect instant gratification when they look for information, they are no longer willing to search through FAQs looking for something that fits their needs. Even FAQ search functions can be a problem as the content does not have enough variables to fill the customer’s inquiry.

FAQs have their place in high traffic government sites, for procedural information and for technical data, but, for most SMEs, anything that is answered on an FAQ page should be answered in the content of the site.

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Article Tags: frequently asked questions, marketing through questions, ubiquitous faq



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