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Your key candidates for a Most Frequently Asked Questions Top Ten

A strongly worded Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section adds to the professionalism of your site and can save you and your customers valuable time. But when creating a FAQ for your business, how do you find out what the top most frequently asked questions by customers really are? By going on a FAQ Finding Mission. Think about FAQ Finding like a mission to search for the truth (in your customers’ eyes). Like a detective covering a case, start with the most obvious, low-hanging fruit within arm’s reach: right inside your company. An effective and comprehensive FAQ begins within–go inside to pinpoint the most pressing questions your users have about you, then move to the outside.

Below is our FAQ FINDING MISSION Guide for finding high-quality frequently asked questions:

First, go within to find urgent issues

The most important first step when beginning your Top Ten list of frequently asked questions is to go asking inside your company. Stay inside and play! If your company has a call center, support center, sales reps, or any other team members who regularly interact with customers, they probably already know what the top most frequently asked questions by customers are. Asking the people who are already answering these questions is the most efficient way to jumpstart your FAQ building. You can also get helpful tips on the best ways to answer these questions in the best way, since these team members are the most likely to have insight into what kinds of answers are truly helpful to your customers.

Next, examine outside sources

After getting started with information from inside the company, a good next step in building the frequently asked questions list is to look outside your company. Now, go outside and play! Find out what users are searching for online in relation to your product. You can take a look at what topics users search for through data tracking products like Google Trends, Semrush, or Ahrefs. You can also check question and answer discussion websites like Quora or Reddit for popular or upvoted (or downvoted) posts related to your product or service.

How do you find FAQs on Google?

You might also find your FAQ listed verbatim on Google, which is one big reason you will want to make sure your FAQ is complete, well-written, and SEO-friendly. You also want your users to find answers to the most common questions quickly, so thinking through the ease-of-use and speed of the design of your FAQ is crucial here.

Keeping up with the Jones’s

Also, consider taking a look at competitors and similar companies to see what questions they’ve answered for users. Make sure you have covered these, and more, if possible (or feasible and relevant). Google incorporates both simple and advanced searches. Use Google’s Advanced Search features to hone in in more detailed information about your company or product/service. (Note that academic articles Advanced Search searching is different from Google Advanced Search. Google searches the entire Web, while Google Scholar only searches academic journal articles.)

Ask in question form on Google

There are some tricks for how to find most asked questions on Google. According to SEO expert Neil Patel, over 14% of searches on Google were in the form of a question in 2020. Framing your search in the form of a question–using the standard Who, What, Where, When, Why method like many journalists and detectives are taught to do–is smart AND user- and SEO-friendly. Another tip, as mentioned above, is to use the Advanced Features on Google (like narrowing results by region, language, or time of update), to hone in and get more targeted search results.

Confirm your FAQ Finding List

When looking into outside sources, you may find many similar answers to what you have already seen when you asked inside the company. This is a good sign that you’re putting together a strong list. However, if you’ve missed anything important, going outside and taking a look at what else is being searched for on the web can help you fill out your list of questions. It can also provide unadorned, honest feedback as to how your company is viewed around the Web. If you are not happy with what you find out there, take heart: an updated FAQ can address and calm down a lot of the concerns you see.

Create a poll or survey to uncover more

Finish out a strong Frequently Asked Questions section by asking your users directly what they want. One of the ways to get information on how your users are feeling about your product is to create a poll or survey that you send them directly after utilizing your product or service. You can use a software package like Typeform or Survey Monkey to create simple, easy surveys to go along with accounts on your website or emails sent to your users directly to gain this information. It is important to carefully consider phrasing questions to get to the right issue.

An experienced, professional technical writer can help you do that. We have gathered together some key identifying questions examples for easy copying and download.

Questions to consider asking

Asking users to rate different aspects of your service and products can give you insight into questions they may have. You can also ask them to rate directly how well they believe their questions have been answered, but be sure to encourage them to fully describe what is wrong or not working. Half-done, incomplete answers are not going to give you the info you really need. Drop-down menus and required input fields, for example, can help guide the user’s answers and make them more complete than open-ended answer boxes.

Finally, providing them with a blank area on the survey, to write out any questions or concerns they may have can give you even more information on what is missing from your FAQ. Incorporating this direct user feedback into your FAQ helps to make it more polished and complete.

Stay alert with Google Alerts

After getting the basic structure of your FAQ built, one of the best tools for refining and maintaining your list is Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a subscription to a notification service that will send you emails every time a search related to your keywords is searched for. These alerts can help you understand what users are searching for related to your product in general, and can be especially helpful in understanding the questions they’re asking.

For example, we have an alert for “frequently asked questions” to give us ideas for cool FAQs, informational FAQs, service FAQs, or anything else out there of interest to FAQtoid nerds, like us.

How to set up Google Alerts

To use Google Alerts for a FAQ, input terms like your product name followed by “why,” “how,” “when,” “where” or whatever other questions you think are relevant. Use natural language as much as possible and consider how users actually phrase their searches. Consider other keywords related to the topic of your product or service and do the same for them. Then, once you have the alert system set up, you’ll receive email notifications about the searches related to these topics, and you may also begin to see trends. If any new questions related to your product crop up over time, you’ll be in a great position to catch them and have a ready response sooner.

Summing it up: FAQ searching, researching, and finding

Creating a strong Frequently Asked Questions section for your company website can lend credibility to your product and make for a much better customer experience. To build the best FAQ you can, always pinpoint the most urgent questions. Once you have a handle on your FAQ list, consider using third-party FAQ software tools to build out your FAQ template and save time.

• GO INSIDE AND PLAY Utilize the resources inside your company by asking sales reps, customer service agents, and call center employees to identify the most common, pressing questions.
• GO OUSIDE AND PLAY Then, continue FAQ building with questions you discover from other sources online such as question and answer websites, Google Trends, and competitor sites. Note any repeat questions or concerns–these are “golden.”
• STAY CURRENT Keep up-to-date with changing trends by creating Google Alerts and internal surveys and polls with your customers directly.

A quality FAQ starts with a search inside and then moves in widening circles to the outside world.

FAQtoid: Why do people use the term “Top Ten” all the time? The term “top ten” is probably derived from the list of ten most popular songs in popular music charts.