Answer
Jun 05, 2025 - 04:19 PM
We've run into SO many ecommerce merchants who say they want "ecommerce FAQs" on their products and collections pages....but they're doing it for all the wrong reasons, and that is causing it to actually hurt their site vs help. Here are some common things we see that are really bad for both your conversions and SEO...and then we cover how to do ecommerce FAQs well for both conversions and SEO.
Here's some of the things that are SUPER common that you need to avoid....
Simply Bad Content.
The issue here is, most ecommerce merchants implement their ecommerce FAQs in a way that they'll never know it's hurting them. Others use some kind of oversimplified "product Q&A" platform...that isn't focused on quality content...and it literally shows. See here (painful to see):
This is so painful that we feel bad posting this about the ecommerce merchant so we blocked out their brand name as to not embarrass them. The "good news" for them is that their current FAQ content is so bad for SEO, that if you do any searches for the content contained within them....you won't find it. It's invisible from an SEO standpoint with the way they've published it (and many other ecommerce merchants have done the same). We're communicating with them to fix all this (which we can).....and we'll get to the horrid SEO downfalls of bad ecommerce FAQ content...but let's finish up with the bad reputation of their content....
Think about that....every customer that goes to their pages is seeing proof that this ecommerce merchant is horrible at servicing their customers and don't care enough to improve it. We had a customer import thousands of ecommerce FAQs from their X-Cart Q&A solution.....and over 90% of the FAQs where customers voted on the content had a negative reputation. How horrible for the customer, and how horrible for conversion, and how horrible for SEO. You need to have good content. Now...let's talk more about how horrible bad Ecommerce FAQs are for SEO if you're not doing it right....
Ecommerce FAQs Bad for SEO (They don't have to be)
The second thing we see regularly is merchants putting 5 or so ecommerce FAQs simply because they think it's good for SEO. The problem is, it's not. If it's not good for the customer to experience...and if it's not 100% original content from a REAL customer request for information and a real answer that is actually from a category/product expert....where the content has actually provided value FOR THE WORLD....it's not good for your SEO, it's bad. It's called "information gain", it was patented as "information gain score"...and it not only impacts how your content ranks, it drags down the ranking and reputaion of your site. Please read and pay attention to what is highlighted below as Google warns sites on where to get their content ideas and how if you're not doing it right....you're actually hurting your SEO....
Isn't it crazy that the several emails you get per month (sometimes per day) that are communicating on how you need to write x blogs per month and they will provide the service for you "for SEO"....is actually hurting your SEO? It is....so don't do it. Focus on original customer requests, and original answers to those requests....and you'll do great.
"Dumb" Ecommerce FAQs and FAQ Functionality are Bad for Your Customers
Let's do a survey, how many people love to read through a list of FAQs hoping that their question is within there so they can finally get to it and see the answer? Who also loves the fact that ecommerce FAQ lists are static....and have no idea what is actually "asked frequently"?
The answer is simple....zero people love doing that and experiencing that. Yet....we still introduce this to customers.....
This is a crime....plain and simple. No customer would love to read through that to find out what "What happens if my order is lost in transit?" means.....and you'll hate the thought of reading through the above image to try to find that question to see if it's there...it stinks. Don't give your customers experiences that stink.
If your customer has a question...let them ask. And if you have the answer....just PUT IT IN FRONT OF THEM!!! (through Answerbase of course).
Just service your customers well. And then for the questions that are showing....make sure they're actually popular. Answerbase prioritizes ecommerce "Frequently Asked Questions" based on what is ACTUALLY FREQUENTLY ASKED!!! We know what is asked, we know what is engaged with, we know what is being searched for on search engines.....that is what needs to be used to prioritize the ecommerce FAQs. Make sure they're actually FAQs.
Then...if the customer doesn't like the answer...prompt them to let you know about it....see here:
If they vote yes...awesome, they go on with the sale (Answerbase sees 7.5% of anyone who touches our Ecommerce FAQs convert to a sale)....and if they vote no.....give them an opportunity to let you know why so you can improve the answer for that customer and any customer in the future. See what happens if they select no:
The days of "dumb FAQ" lists "for SEO" are over. When you do ecommerce FAQs right....they drive not only conversions but will become a large percentage of your organic traffic from search and AI.
Conversion Impact
Answerbase sees that 7.5% of customers who touch us convert to a sale, we see 8% of new answers convert to a sale, and we see that 21% of ecommerce FAQs have conversion attribution over time because we can surface them by autosuggesting in the future for visitors on your site....and we can surface the Q&A in search results in the future as that content turns into your content marketing. We see it in AI, in traditional results...and many times both as seen here:
That drives significant organic traffic.
Organic "SEO" Impact of Ecommerce FAQs
We expect, if you know about your products that your selling (not just a high school kid who thought he'd start a 100% dropshipping ecommerce store on Shopify)....we would expect the Ecommerce FAQs to drive somewhere between 10-50% of your ecommerce traffic over time. Think about that when you're answering your customer's questions and identifying and publishing valuable ecommerce FAQs to your site, if you publish content that is actually a "frequently asked question" and then providing a great answer from your team based on their experience, your ecommerce FAQs turn into a new customer acquisition channel for you. We've seen, over time, that ecommerce FAQs can be responsible for 48% of an ecommerce merchants traffic, FAQs driving 42% of an ecommerce customer's organic traffic, 23% of a customer's organic traffic, , 24% of a customer's organic traffic, etc, etc. We encourage you to reach through our ecommerce FAQ case studies and see the different experiences and different charts from Google Search Console of the things that are being experienced by ecommerce merchants.
We've seen customers go from zero to over 600K organic visits per month within the first year of having an account with Answerbase. See example here:
The "run rate" of the traffic on the above customer is 1.4 million new organic visitors over the next 12 months if that activity over the last 28 days just sustains (it continues on a growth trajectory so should be more).
This is the power of ecommerce FAQs on your product and category pages. Again, read the ecommerce FAQ case studies.
Let Answerbase's ecommerce FAQ capabilities become your biggest content driver of new traffic to your site over time, we encourage you to Schedule a Demo and we'll make sure you're taken care of.
