What is FAQ?
FAQ, short for frequently asked questions, is a list of commonly asked questions and answers about a specific topic. FAQ is most often read as separate letters, but is also pronounced as “fak” in rare instances.
FAQs are often found on websites, individual articles, email campaigns, presentations, and printed marketing materials, among other mediums. Frequently, FAQs are formatted as help files or hypertext documents. They can be highly stylized with graphic design elements, collapsible menus, and HTML headings, or they can be organized with simple bullet points. The most successful FAQs are easy to navigate, strike a balance between detailed and concise, and are readily accessible.
Some sites may have FAQ topics that are very complex and require organization by sub-topic, like how Amazon’s Help section is divided into multiple categories. Other instances, like FAQs for email campaigns or printed materials, can be much more basic but should still be organized in a way that anticipates user behavior.
FAQ pages are effective tools for minimizing repetitive customer inquiries a business might receive, meaning customer service representatives can focus their attention on more specific, personalized cases. When deciding what questions to include in an FAQ, it’s important to look at any real data from site searches or customer interactions and consider what information is most likely to remain constant over time ideally, FAQ pages should not need to be updated very frequently.
