The questions your staff answer by phone every day are the content your website is missing. Tally them for a week, then answer each one plainly on the page where the question naturally comes up.

The same five questions

Stand beside the front desk of almost any small business for a morning and you will hear the same questions asked again and again.

Whether you open on Sundays. Whether you come out to their part of town. Roughly what it costs. Where to park. Whether you handle their particular problem.

Whoever answers the phone can recite the answers without thinking. They have given them hundreds of times.

Then open the website. Often, none of those answers is on it.

Why the answers never reach the site

Websites are usually written by the owner, or by a designer working from the owner's notes, and the owner is rarely the person answering the phone.

So the site describes what the business wants to say: its history, its values, its range of services. The phone hears what customers need to know, which is narrower and more practical.

The two lists overlap less than anyone expects. The person who knows the second one best is often the most junior person in the building, and nobody asks them.

Keeping a tally for a week

Put a sheet of paper by the phone for one ordinary week, and ask whoever answers it to note every question, in the caller's own words.

Include questions that arrive by email, through the contact form and at the counter. Most will fall into a handful of familiar groups.

The fifth is the one most websites miss. A services page that says repairs and maintenance cannot tell a caller whether you work on their particular furnace, so they have to phone to find out.

Write the answer in the caller's words

The tally does a second job: it records the words customers use, which are rarely the words the business uses.

A caller asks whether you fix a dripping faucet. The site says plumbing maintenance services. Only one of those phrases is what people type into a search engine.

Put the answer first, in a plain sentence, and the detail after. Somebody asking about Sunday hours wants Sunday hours, not a paragraph about your commitment to convenience.

Where the honest answer is that it depends, say what it depends on. That is still an answer, and far better than silence.

Put each answer where the question comes up

The obvious home for all of this is an FAQ page. It is rarely the best one.

Parking belongs on the contact page, next to the address. Service area belongs on each service page. What to bring belongs on the booking page, where people are about to book.

Answers placed where the question arises get read. Answers gathered on a separate page get read by the few visitors who think to look there.

An FAQ page is still useful for the leftovers, and as a single place staff can point people to.

A worked example

A two-vet animal clinic in a growing suburb asked its front desk to keep a tally during a busy week in spring.

Five questions dominated. Whether the clinic saw rabbits and birds. What to do after hours. Roughly what a spay cost. Where to park. What to bring to a first visit.

The website answered none of them. Its services page listed wellness exams, dentistry and surgery, which told a rabbit owner nothing.

The clinic added a short section naming the species it treats, and an after-hours note on every page pointing to the nearest emergency animal hospital.

Starting prices for common procedures were published with what changes them, parking moved onto the contact page, and a new page explained the first visit.

Within a few weeks the front desk was sending callers the link to the first-visit page, which was the clearest sign the wording was right.

What it does to the phone

Some calls stop, because the answer is now where people look first. A visitor who can read the Sunday hours has no reason to ring and ask.

The calls that still come tend to start further along. The caller already knows you serve their area and roughly what it costs, so the conversation begins with their actual job.

Some people will always phone, and that is fine. The point is not to stop calls but to stop spending the day on questions a page could answer.

Search engines read the same questions

People type their questions into Google much as they would ask them on the phone, often as full sentences.

A page that answers a common question plainly, under a heading that asks it, is the kind of page Google can match to those searches, and sometimes quote above the results.

Since last month, Google has also shown answers from FAQ pages directly under some listings, for pages carrying the right markup. That is a bonus. The answers are worth writing for your customers regardless.

The counter-case

Some questions should not be answered on a website.

A price for bespoke work cannot honestly be given without seeing the job, and a figure that turns out wrong does more harm than a range with its reasons.

Medical, legal or financial questions about somebody's own situation need a conversation, and the page should say so rather than guess.

Some businesses also want certain calls, because the conversation is where the sale happens. But even then, the routine questions belong on the site.

List them for a week, and answer the ones a page can answer well.

This week

  1. Put a sheet by the phone.
  2. Note every question in the caller's words.
  3. Include email and counter questions too.
  4. Group them at the end of the week.
  5. Answer each one on the page where it arises.
  6. Lead with the answer, then the detail.
  7. Repeat the tally each spring and fall.

Step two is the one that pays twice: once in clearer answers, and again because the caller's own words are what other customers type into search engines.

The same habit of writing from the customer's side is covered in an about page that never mentions the customer.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I find content ideas for my website?

At the front desk. The questions staff answer by phone every day are the content most sites are missing, and a week of tallying them gives you the list.

How long should I keep the tally?

One ordinary week is usually enough to see the pattern. Repeat it twice a year, since questions change with the seasons and with what you offer.

Should all the answers go on an FAQ page?

Not first. Put each answer where the question arises: parking on the contact page, service area on the service pages. Use an FAQ page for what is left over.

How should each answer be written?

Answer first, in the customer's own words, then the detail. Where the honest answer is that it depends, say what it depends on.

Will answering questions online change my calls?

Some routine calls stop, because the answer is where people look first. The calls that remain tend to start further along, since the caller already knows the basics.

Are there questions I should not answer online?

Prices for bespoke work you have not seen, and advice about somebody's own medical, legal or financial situation. Those need a conversation, and the page can say so.

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.

Same questions on the phone every day?

Keep the tally for a week, then send it to us. We will match each answer to the page it belongs on.

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