Rebuild the FAQ page from the questions your phone, inbox and counter actually receive, answer each the way staff do, delete the ones nobody asks, and review it twice a year.

Written before the first customer

Most FAQ pages are written in the week before a site launches, by the owner and the designer, from guesses about what customers will want to know.

Then the business opens, and the real questions start arriving by phone, by email, through Facebook and across the counter. They are rarely the ones on the page.

The page stays as it was. Years later it still answers questions nobody asked, while staff answer the same five practical ones every day.

Signs the page is out of date

The fourth is the one that costs the most. Every missing answer becomes a phone call or a message, and some visitors who cannot find it simply book somewhere that answered it.

Collect the real questions

For two weeks, everyone who answers the phone, the inbox or the counter writes down each question, in the customer's own words, on one shared sheet.

The archive helps too. Search last year's sent email and the Facebook page's messages for question marks; a quiet month is a good time to read through them.

Keep the customer's wording. People ask whether they can bring the dog, not about the pet policy, and they search the same way.

Cut, sort and group

Tally the questions. Anything asked more than a couple of times stays; anything nobody asked goes, however carefully it was written.

Group what is left under a few plain headings, such as booking, prices, on the day and getting here, with the most common question first in each group.

An answer that needs several paragraphs has outgrown the page. Give it a page of its own and link to it.

The number of questions matters less than their quality. Twelve real ones, well answered, are worth more than forty written to fill the page.

Answer first, then explain

Start with the answer itself: yes, no, a number or a time. The explanation comes after, in a sentence or two.

Include the condition that makes the answer true: yes, small dogs can ride along, wearing a lifejacket, on boards rented by an adult.

Avoid sending people to contact you for details when an answer exists. When the true answer varies, name what it varies with: the wind, the age of the child, the day of the week.

Questions people will not phone about

Some questions never reach the phone, because people feel awkward asking them: weight limits, whether you need to be a strong swimmer, whether a beginner will look foolish.

Those visitors read the FAQ page and, if the answer is missing, quietly decide the activity is not for them.

Ask staff which questions customers ask quietly at the counter, once they have already arrived. Those belong on the page, answered kindly and plainly.

Who should write the answers

The person who answers the phone should draft the answers, because they know how each question is really asked and which reply settles it.

The owner then checks each one against current prices and policy. Between them, the page ends up accurate and in the voice customers already hear.

A worked example

A paddleboard rental shop a block from a beach had an FAQ page written the spring it opened. It explained what stand-up paddleboarding was, whether it was good exercise and why to rent from this shop.

It also said boards were for sale, two seasons after the shop stopped selling them.

This month the owner read through last summer's email and Facebook messages. The same questions came up again and again: dogs, wind, children, wetsuits, parking and whether weekends needed booking.

Staff added two more that never arrived by phone but came up at the counter every weekend: weight limits, and whether a weak swimmer could still go out.

The page was rebuilt around those questions, grouped under booking, on the water and getting here, each answered the way the staff answer it on the beach.

The wind policy, the answer most likely to spoil a day, also went onto the booking page itself: staff decide by nine in the morning, and a cancelled rental is refunded or moved.

Put answers where questions arise

An FAQ page is a fallback. The best place for an answer is the page where the question occurs to someone.

Cancellation and weather rules belong on the booking page, parking on the contact page, age rules beside the prices. Link the FAQ from the booking confirmation as well.

Give the page itself a plain name, such as Questions or Before you visit, and put it in the main menu or the footer of every page.

When the question is phrased as people ask it and answered in the first sentence, search engines can match it to the searches people actually type.

Wrong answers cost more than missing ones

An outdated answer does more harm than no answer. Customers quote the page back at the counter, and an old price or a changed rule becomes an argument.

Make the FAQ page part of every change: a new price, new hours, a new policy. Whoever makes the change updates the answer the same day.

Twice a year, on the calendar

Beyond those changes, review the whole page twice a year, before the busy season and after it.

Compare the page with the questions logged since the last review. Add what came up, delete what stopped coming up, and check every figure.

Put both dates in the calendar with a name beside them. A review without an owner does not happen.

The counter-case

A business with few repeat questions, or one whose customers mostly phone, may need only a short before-you-visit section rather than a full page.

Some questions do not belong on a public page at all, such as custom quotes or negotiated rates, and are better answered in person.

But wherever the same question arrives every week, it should be on the site, in the customer's words, answered plainly.

The rebuild

  1. Log every question for two weeks.
  2. Search last year's messages for more.
  3. Delete questions nobody has asked.
  4. Answer first, then explain briefly.
  5. Group the rest under plain headings.
  6. Move key answers onto the pages where questions arise.
  7. Book two reviews a year, with a name.

Step one is the whole method in miniature. The page went wrong because it was written from guesses, and two weeks of real questions replaces the guesses with evidence.

The question that comes up on every call deserves more than an entry here, as covered in a page for the question every caller asks.

Frequently asked questions

Why do FAQ pages go out of date?

They are written before launch from guesses about what customers will ask, and nobody checks them against the questions that actually arrive afterwards.

Where do I find the real questions?

Log every question that reaches the phone, inbox and counter for two weeks, and search last year's emails and messages for question marks.

Which questions should I remove?

Any that nobody has actually asked, marketing dressed up as questions, and anything that has outgrown a short answer and needs a page of its own.

What makes a good FAQ answer?

Answer first, with yes, no, a number or a time, then explain in a sentence or two, including the condition that makes the answer true.

Is the FAQ page enough on its own?

No. Key answers also belong where the question arises, such as cancellation rules on the booking page and parking on the contact page.

How often should the FAQ page be reviewed?

Twice a year, before and after the busy season, plus the same day whenever a price, rule or opening hour changes.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

FAQ page untouched since launch?

Send us the page and a list of questions your staff hear. We will rebuild it around them.

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