Build an FAQ page from the questions people actually ask
Most FAQ pages are written from imagination: questions the business wishes people asked, answered with sales copy. The useful ones are built from the inbox. Collect the questions you get every week, group them the way customers think, and answer each in a few plain sentences. Anticode can lay them out as an FAQ section on a page or as an FAQ page of its own, and the work that matters most is still yours: choosing the questions.
Collect real questions first
Spend a week or two noting every question that reaches you, word for word, before you write anything. Good sources:
- Your email inbox and contact-form submissions. If your site runs on Anticode, the submissions are listed in the dashboard.
- Phone calls and walk-ins: keep a notepad by the till or the phone.
- Messages on social media and review sites, including complaints that started as a misunderstanding.
- Questions asked just before someone books or buys, which reveal what nearly stopped them.
- Your staff, who answer the same three questions all day.
Keep the customer's wording. People search in their own words, and they recognise their own question faster than your paraphrase of it. "Can I bring my dog?" beats "Pet policy".
Choosing which questions make the page
| The question | What to do |
|---|---|
| Asked often, short answer | Keep: this is what an FAQ is for |
| Asked often, long answer | Give it a proper section or page, and link to it from a short FAQ answer |
| Answered already, prominently, elsewhere on the site | Fix the page it's on first; if people still ask, keep it here too |
| Nobody has ever asked it | Drop it, however much you'd like to say the answer |
| Really a complaint | Fix the cause; answer honestly if it can't be fixed |
Fifteen good questions beat forty padded ones. If you have more than about twenty, group them.
Grouping and writing the answers
Group by the stage the customer is at, not by your departments. A holiday cottage might use: Before you book, Getting here, During your stay, Cancellations. A software product: Getting started, Billing, Your data, Troubleshooting.
- Answer in the first sentence. "Yes, dogs are welcome in two of our three cottages." Then add the detail.
- Be specific. Times, amounts, distances, names. "Check-in is from 16:00" not "in the afternoon".
- Link onward when the full answer lives elsewhere, such as a refund policy or a booking page.
- Say no plainly when the answer is no, and offer the nearest alternative.
- Date anything that changes seasonally, such as opening hours.
The guide on writing an FAQ page has more examples, and the FAQ section design page covers the layout side.
A section or a page?
Anticode offers both. Used as an FAQ page builder, it can add an FAQ section as a must-have on a landing page, or build FAQ as a separate page in a multi-page site with its own address in the navigation.
- FAQ section
- Five to eight questions placed near the point of decision, often just above the contact form or the booking calendar. Best for one-page sites and for the questions that block a purchase.
- FAQ page
- The full set, grouped, with its own address you can send people. Best when you have more than a handful of questions or several audiences.
- Both
- A short section on the home page with the top questions and a link to the full page.
To add one to an existing site, ask in a sentence: "add an FAQ page with these questions", and paste your list with answers. The design gate's checks for stock AI phrases and placeholder text apply to FAQ answers like any other copy, so model-drafted filler doesn't slip through unnoticed. Edit answers later in the visual editor by clicking the text.
FAQs and search
An FAQ page can help people find you when its questions match what they type, and a clear, direct answer is the kind AI assistants quote. Don't expect special search-result treatment, though: Google limited FAQ rich results to well-known, authoritative government and health websites in 2023, and its documentation updates log records that they stopped appearing in Google Search from 7 May 2026, so the value is in the answers themselves.
Limits
- No search box within the FAQ, since published pages run no scripts. Grouping and clear headings do that job.
- No "was this helpful?" voting or per-answer feedback.
- No automatic questions from your inbox. You choose and write them; the model can tidy your drafts.
- English only. Questions in other languages need writing by hand.
Questions people ask
How many questions should an FAQ page have?
As many as people genuinely ask often. For most small businesses that's ten to twenty-five, grouped under three to five headings.
Should the FAQ repeat information from other pages?
Briefly, yes, if people keep asking. Answer in one sentence and link to the page with the full detail.
How often should I update it?
Whenever the same new question arrives three times. A quarterly review against your inbox catches the rest.