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10.15.07
4 Quick Ways To Improve Your HELP & FAQ Pages
 By
Stoney deGeyter
Depending on the nature of your site, Help and FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) can span a few or many pages.
Building up these sections of your site can greatly enhance your visitor's experience with your website. These pages are often sought out by shoppers who are looking for just a bit more information to help them feel confident about their purchase.
Building comprehensive Help and FAQ pages gives your visitors confidence that you're there to provide them the information and help they need to be comfortable purchasing from you. Solidly built pages can often reduce visitor confusion, lessen support call frequency, and create higher conversion rates as more shoppers are satisfied and confident that you can meet their needs.
Help pages
Help pages should not be limited to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) but should provide links to user guides, contact details, product support, customer support downloads, and anything else that will guide your visitors to the answers they seek.
Avoid marketing
Help and FAQ pages should not contain any marketing hype or sales material. These pages are there simply to guide your visitors to the answers they seek. Stick to the basics.
Info search
If your site has a search function and robust Help and FAQ sections, it can be helpful to allow visitors to search these sections exclusively. If the information being sought cannot be found in the Help or FAQ sections, the search should produce more results from the rest of the site.
Printable text
Help sections should be printable, or have printer-friendly versions. Visitors often print up the answers to their questions to show other decision makers. Having easy-to print pages benefits you and your visitors.
The most important aspect of your Help and FAQ pages is that they are robust enough to answer as many potential questions that can be determined in advance. You'll also want to update these frequently as new questions get asked and answered.
Comments
About the Author:
Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing (www.PolePositionMarketing.com), a search engine optimization / marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance (www.eMarketingPerformance.com) marketing blog.
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