33 | Optimize Your Website with Strategic FAQs [TDTH Challenge #3]

Creating an FAQ page is essential for reducing repetitive customer inquiries, building trust, and boosting sales. This episode provides actionable steps for establishing an effective FAQ section on your website, covering vital topics from commonly asked questions to platform-specific guidelines and promotional strategies.

• Creating an FAQ page reduces repetitive inquiries for business owners  
• FAQ pages build customer trust and confidence  
• Recommended categories for FAQs include product details, shipping, processing, and returns  
• Step-by-step guide for setting up FAQ pages on e-commerce platforms  
• Importance of making the FAQ page accessible for customers  
• The long-term benefits of having an organized FAQ system  
• Challenge to listeners to create an FAQ page with top questions  

Get all of the links and podcast in one place, by visiting the show notes.
Follow me on Facebook page, right here.
Do you prefer consuming video content, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Chapters

• 0:02 Creating an Effective FAQ Page
• 13:53 Boosting Sales With FAQ Pages

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome back to another episode of Turn Down the Hustle Challenge series. In this series we are tackling actionable steps every Monday, so I'm just giving you one thing to focus on for the week to move that needle forward in your business without burning yourself out. Today we are continuing our automation journey by focusing on creating an FAQ page for your website.

Speaker 2: 0:27

You're listening to Turn Down the Hustle, the podcast dedicated to transforming how you run your creative online t-shirt business by working smarter, not harder, so you can spend more time with your why, people and passions that matter most in your life. So throw on your favorite graphic tee and turn up the heat press that matter most in your life. So throw on your favorite graphic tee and turn up the heat press, because it's time to turn down the hustle. Here's your host digital marketer, cold brew lover, t-shirt maker, freckled hype girl and owner of Sunkist Virtual Assistant, amy.

Speaker 1: 0:59

Now FAQs, aka frequently asked questions, are one of the most underrated tools for reducing repetitive asked questions are one of the most underrated tools for reducing repetitive customer questions, saving you time, but also building customer trust. If you have ever been stuck answering questions about the same things, like shipping or sizes or customization or how to host a tea party for the hundredth time, this episode is for you. Not only does an FAQ page save you time, but it can also reduce friction for your customers, leading to faster purchases. Who doesn't like that? And remember, all of these challenges and more are pulled directly from my product job organizer. If you're looking to stay ahead of your calendar with detailed strategies like this, then I recommend you search product drop organizer on my website and come join the club. So why create an FAQ page? The first thing it does is it reduces repetitive customer inquiries. No more answering how long is your turnaround time 10 times a day, right? Your FAQ page is there to answer questions on autopilot so you can focus on fulfilling orders and creating designs. Next, it builds trust and credibility. When potential customers are visiting your site, that well-crafted FAQ page shows them that you've literally thought of everything, and maybe it'll give them some reassurance, knowing their questions are answered up front. Next, it reduces cart abandonment. Faqs address some of the hesitations that your buyers may have, and it could be so great that maybe they stop checking out because maybe they're not sure. Like wait, what is the processing time? Think of your FAQs kind of like that silent salesperson but working 24-7 where you can't answer all their questions. You have built a landing page that can answer it for them and, lastly, it will save you time. Who doesn't love that? And, lastly, it will save you time. Who doesn't love that? Automation isn't just in your email or social media. An FAQ page is the perfect way to let your website do the work for you, and we really want to keep customers on our website Moving on. What FAQs should you, as a business owner, answer? The obvious one is what is my turnaround time? But then you might be stuck like I don't know any other questions beyond that. Well, first, what you can do to generate unique FAQs for your business is take note what questions are you constantly answering? What questions are you getting via your inbox? That's a great place to start, but if you don't have any of those notes, I can help you out here. So the first category would be product specific FAQs.

Speaker 1: 3:50

So what materials are your t-shirts made from? Do you focus solely on one brand? Can you give them a background on what goes into the shirts? Where do you source your shirts from? Not necessarily the company, but maybe the country, because that really matters to some of your customers. Are your t-shirts pre-shrunk or true to size? That is 100% something I look for on our website. Now that I'm in the t-shirt industry, I truly understand like cotton and pre-shrunk cotton and things like that. So I am absolutely looking for that information before I order so I know how to order. Like my size. Also, do you offer plus size options? Is that an option? And then also, do you offer kids tees? What printing method do you use?

Speaker 1: 4:39

Some customers do get into the nitty gritty. They're like oh, is that a screen print shirt or is that no-transcript? They may also ask can I request custom designs? Do you take custom orders? That is a great thing to answer in your FAQs and then you can redirect them to maybe a Google form to take a custom order, all without ever having to engage with the customer.

Speaker 1: 5:13

The next category of FAQs would be order and processing FAQs. The obvious one what is your turnaround time? But also you can answer do you take rush orders? Is there an additional fee? How can they expect to track the order? This has happened multiple times and I don't know why I've never addressed this one in an FAQ. But what happens if I enter the wrong shipping address? And along those lines I would put what happens if the customer makes a mistake on the order? How are you going to handle it? Or what happens if you make a mistake on the order? How do you want your customer to handle it? Those are good things to answer ahead of time. And if you're driving right now or your pen's running out of ink trying to keep a list of all this stuff, don't worry, I'll put all of these questions in the show notes. So all you have to do is just copy and paste these FAQs into a blog which I'll tell you how to do at the end of this episode and just start answering them.

Speaker 1: 6:11

The next category would be shipping FAQs. Do you offer international shipping? Some of you do, some of you don't, and make sure this is configured in your website too, if you do want to allow for international orders. How much does shipping cost? How do you configure your shipping? Is it by weight? Is it flat rate? Do you offer free shipping at a certain point? Also, how long does shipping take, which that would be a good plug for Typically these are the average, I guess, days that it takes different with these different methods, but I cannot guarantee shipping by a certain date and things like that. Next, do you offer free shipping for book orders over a certain amount?

Speaker 1: 6:54

The next category return and exchanges. So what is your return policy? Do you accept exchanges if the size doesn't fit? How are you going to answer that one? If you do offer returns, how can they initiate a return? Can I return custom or personalized items? How are you going to handle that? And I'm just going to pause and put a plug in right here If you figure out all of these items ahead of time, or the answers to these questions, it's going to make your running your business a lot more clear and you're going to have more structure.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Versus, do I let this person return a custom item? Okay, yeah, I'll let them return it. And then the next person wants to return a custom item. You're like, oh, I really don't want to do that. Well, you made an exception on the first customer. So maybe you should make an exception again. Right, If you have your FAQs, you're certain to define your business, set your morals, your left and rights. It's a lot easier for you to make decisions and remove the emotion. Okay, next section of FAQs care instructions.

Speaker 1: 7:56

How should I wash my t-shirts to maintain the design? If your customers are taking care of their shirts and you had a good quality press, I've had shirts where the design outlost, the shirt when you get all those little fuzzies on it and it's just starting to, you know, erode as a shirt Like. I've had shirts for like six, seven years, but the design is just fine. Can they iron the designs? Is that what you would recommend? Spoiler alert no Heats used to adhere and heats used to remove. Do not iron the design. Are your shirts safe to bleach? That's a good thing to address as well.

Speaker 1: 8:34

And then, like a miscellaneous category would be, how can they contact you? You can link to your contact page. Do you have a storefront or are you online only? Are you seen at vendor events? That would be a good plug to do as well. Do you offer gift cards? Great link to just link to a gift card purchase on that one. Do you run any seasonal or promotional sales. That one, unless you like. You have a staple huge sale for the year. You could throw that in there, but I probably wouldn't give them a full list of my promotional calendar for the year in an FAQ.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Now that we have all the questions we're going to answer, it's time to get building based on the platform you may have. So I'm going to walk you through Shopify, Square and Wix and how to set them up. Starting off first with Shopify, you're going to go to your Shopify admin dashboard and then find where it says online store and I want you to select pages. Then select add page and name it FAQ or frequently asked questions, and then you can add all of your questions and answers there. You can use headers, too, to make the text like stand out more like h2 and h3 to separate each question so it's easier to read. Make sure you save it and then publish your page.

Speaker 1: 9:54

If you want your FAQ page to stick out to your customers versus like them having to search for it, you can add your FAQ page to your main navigation by going to online store navigation and add the page to your menu. This can either be your header menu or your footer menu. The footer menu is a good place as well. If you are a Square user, you're going to log into your Square Online dashboard, navigate to website, then pages, click add page. Then you're going to choose the blank page template. Of course. Name your page FAQ and then you'll find the text editor to format your questions and all of your answers. Finally, of course, save your changes and make sure it's visible on your navigation menu. Make sure it's visible on your navigation menu.

Speaker 1: 10:45

Okay, next, Wix Open up your Wix editor, click add and then page and name it FAQ. Use the Wix feature to drag and drop editor to add a text box for your questions and answers. And if you want a more polished look, think about using one of Wix's pre-made FAQ sections under Add and then Apps. That's a good option there. Save and then publish that page and then, like the others, make sure you link the FAQ page to your site's navigation menu For Google Sites if you've taken my Google Sites course before and you're running a free website right now and enjoying that my Google Sites course before and you're running a free website right now and enjoying that, open your Google Sites dashboard, create a new page under pages and you can name it FAQ.

Speaker 1: 11:28

Just like I taught you in the course, I also like to create Google Docs and embed them, so you can create a FAQ Google Doc and embed that into your Google Site. All right, so we've answered the questions. We've built the FAQ page, so we love it, right? And now all of our customers have all of their questions answered and they're never going to ask you a question again, right, Probably not. Well, that would be nice, but then we wouldn't have a business as part of it engaging with our customers. But those softball questions hopefully we're not spending time answering, but we have to make sure our customers know where to find these questions.

Speaker 1: 11:57

That FAQ page isn't helpful if no one knows it exists. So here are a few ways that your audience can find it. I want you to include a link in your auto-reply messages to this FAQ page, so you might need to go back to tweak that meta auto-response or that email auto-response that we talked about in episode 31 and 32 to link that FAQ page that you now have. Also, I want you to add a call to action on your social media. You can let them know by creating a reel or a story saying I've answered all of your top burning questions on my website, so kind of like a header or a hook to get them to click that and that is a good one that you can schedule, like probably once a month, to remind them about your FAQs. Also, in your email footer, like on your email marketing, you can include a link to your FAQ page and all of your emails. We talked about this, but make sure it's visible on your homepage, whether you want it in your top navigation or maybe in the footer. The footer might be the better place for it. If you put it in your Facebook group, you can also pin a post with a link to your FAQs for easy access. However, in next week's episode we're going to be talking about FAQs as rules and I'm going to walk you through how to do that so you can hang off on the Facebook group page.

Speaker 1: 13:18

For now, I highly recommend you build these FAQs. I know it's going to take time, but it will really save you time in the long run. It will help you because you could save hours potentially each week answering repetitive questions and you can just focus on the tasks that are actually generating revenue in your business. If you do skip this challenge and decide not to create an FAQ page, you're probably going to spend more time responding to repeat questions. You're going to risk frustrating customers who can't find answers quickly and potentially lose sales from customers bouncing off your website.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Faqs are more than just a convenience. They are time-saving, trust-building and a sales driving machine for your t-shirt business. And the best part is, once they're done, they work for you 24-7 and you don't even have to pay anyone. So here's your Turn Down the Hustle challenge for this week Create an FAQ page for your website. It does not need to be perfect, Just start by answering. Create an FAQ page for your website. It does not need to be perfect, Just start by answering, let's say, the top five questions your customers always ask, either from data you've collected or pick five from my list. If you want more structure in your business, like this challenge, I've already mapped out tons of other ideas like this in the product job organizer. I'd love to take the guesswork out of planning your t-shirt business. Head to wwwsunkissvacom. Forward slash pdo to join the club. Let's automate smart and sell smarter.