FAQs are a fixture on many websites, and it’s easy to see why they appeal to the people who create them. For a sales or customer service team, they’re a tidy way to pre-empt the questions that come up repeatedly and correct the misunderstandings that slow down a sale. They can also be seen as a quick fix if your SEO (search engine optimisation) or AEO (answer engine optimisation) tools show gaps in your converage.

But step into your customer’s shoes for a moment.

A page of FAQs is, in effect, an admission that your main web pages aren’t answering the questions your customers actually have — or aren’t answering them clearly enough. Rather than addressing those gaps where they matter most, you’re asking customers to leave the main flow of your site and rummage through a collection of unrelated snippets in the hope of finding what they need.

That’s a friction point you’ve created yourself, at precisely the moment when you should be guiding them smoothly towards a decision.

And it’s also a real problem if search engines and AIs are more interested in your FAQs than your main page content. Why? Because if they rely on fragmented snippets of content to form their own picture of what you offer, then they aren’t using the coherent, authoritative pages that you wrote precisely to own the conversation and to guide the customer journey.

The better approach is straightforward: if a question really is frequently asked, the answer belongs in your main content. Weave that information into the page where it’s relevant, so it becomes part of the journey, informing, reassuring and persuading your customer without breaking their flow.

FAQs aren’t a content strategy. In most cases, they’re a sign that the real content needs attention.

Making your content work harder

If your website has accumulated FAQs, catch-all pages or content that feels disconnected from your customers’ decision-making journey, it’s often a sign that the underlying messaging and structure need attention – not just a rewrite.

Over 25 years, I’ve helped technology, software and engineering companies get to the heart of what their customers need to hear, and build that into content that guides rather than redirects.

If you’d like a fresh perspective on how your website is working – or not working – for your customers, please get in touch.