If your a Shopify merchant looking to integrate product questions and answers into your product page, Answerbase provides a robust solution to accomplish that goal and can scale as you scale your business. This article communicates the steps that you should take for a successful integration.
Before we get to the integration, we encourage you to watch an update on what Google is doing with ecommerce-related search...and a quick overview of the Answerbase paltform and how we increase conversion rates while simultaneously creating the necessary "People-First Helpful Content" that Google wants.
Helpful product Q&A content is important for both conversions and SEO, and if you want any other information or need help in integration we encouarge you to Schedule a Demo and we'll make sure you're taken care of.
The first step is to get the app installed, so please see the instruction below to get that set up or you can request an install from our team if you prefer (most we work to manage the install for free as long as there is no special considerations). If you'd like to manage the install and set up yourself, see the below instruction.
1) If not done already, Install the Answerbase Product Q&A Shopify App
It's likely you've already done this which got you here....but if not, you need to install the Answerbase Q&A app first. Find the Answerbase Product Q&A Shopify App and click the "Add App" button in order to manage the install.
2) Complete All of the Necessary Integration Steps (Most are Less than 5 Minutes)
Answerbase makes onboarding to your site as easy as we can with just some relatively quick items to take care of and documentation (including videos) to make that as clear as possible. Our team will also assist you to ensure you're integration is 100% so you visitors can engage and you can start to see measurable value.
To help you get onboarded and so you have an understanding of what will be involved, we have organized a list of the things you'll want to make sure are taken into account so we can ensure we get you the maximum value from your Q&A engagement and content. We recommend that you accomplish each of the following items, most take less than 5 minutes to do. For each item you'll find a link for more detailed documentation, most of which contain a video that walks you through, so please follow these steps and we'll work to make sure you get set up quickly and effectively.
Integration Into Product & Collections Pages: The most common integration is using our widget and Shopify helps make this easy, where it may be as easy as just clicking to "Activate" our app if you're using a common Shopify template....or if you're template is not yet supported you're simply needing to identify the CSS selector (either class or id) of the HTML "div" that you'd like our widget to be shown underneath. Once you save that in your Answerbase Shopify Settings....it'll place/position the widget consistent with what you've identified. We strongly recommend integrating into both your Product and Collection Pages as well, to engage our visitors if they've scrolled through your available products within a category and still haven't found what they're looking for so you don't lose them and they have an option to ask you if you have a specific product that may fit their specific needs. Category Q&A helps you convert those customers and also builds you up as an authority on that overall topic for SEO purposes. To help, review our Documentation on How to Integrate Q&A into your Shopify Collection and Product Pages.
Auto-Suggesting Answers from Existing Content (Less than 5 minutes to configure): It's important for conversion that if you have product information that may already answer their questions, we can auto-suggest that when they start asking. We see on average 7.5% of engagements of Q&A convert to a sale (we have customers who see that when the Q&A engagement confirms that the product as a match, they see a conversion 75% of the time in those situations), so given the average ecommerce conversion rate is 2-3% this should be a lift on your conversion rate.........and it allows you to see that conversion without any additional work from your team. To help set this up, review our documentation on how to auto-suggest answers from product details and specifications.
Connect Your Google Search Console Account (Less than 5 minutes to configure): Answerbase can feed you with questions being asked regularly on Google about your products and product categories, and even suggest optimizations for your content so we can ensure that your content is aligned with how people would actually search for it on Google and other search engines. See documentation on How to Connect Your Google Search Console Account.
Ensure Your Q&A Content Lives on Your Domain (Less than 5 minutes to configure): Google has made it clear that they don't care how long content is, and sometimes shorter content will be better than longer-form content, they just want to fulfill the search intent of their users. This enables your Q&A content to help fulfill that demand with great short answers that you communicate with your customers every day and we want to make sure those Q&A landing pages are on your domain. If you'd like to enable it so that is the case for your Shopify site, within your Administration Dashboard go to "Customization > Domain Name" and you'll see an option to enable your Shopify Proxy. If you'd like more detailed instruction please see our documentation on How to enable your Shopify Proxy so your Q&A knowledge base is under your own subdirectory on your Shopify site.
Add Q&A Sitemap to Google Search Console (Less than 5 minutes to configure): Once your Q&A knowledge base is on your own domain, you'll want to add the Q&A sitemap into Google Search Console so that Google recognizes it as part of your property and we can ensure that Google is up to date about all the new Q&A content as it gets posted. See our documentation on Adding Your Q&A Sitemap in Google Search Console.
Adding Conversion Tracking Code: Answerbase's goal is to provide you with measurable value, and especially focused on ensuring that you're getting measurable monetary value from using Answerbase on your site. We actually track conversion down to each individual Q&A pair and engagement, in order to help ensure we're able to surface the content that is actually driving conversion. We would like to be able to track and report this back to you in monthly snapshot reports that you'll see under "Reports > Snapshot" where we will provide you with a monthly update on what happened the previous month and what value we were involved with creating. In order for us to provide you with these reports, we need you to insert our conversion tracking code. Please read our documentation on How to Insert Your Conversion Tracking Code on Shopify.
Double Check Your Integration Under "Reports > Snapshot": Answerbase works to lead you on anything you may need to do in order to ensure we can do our job to drive the most value to you. If you visit "Reports > Snapshot" in your administration dashboard it will list out "required" and "recommended" actions which will highlight if any of the above items are not done. This is to help ensure that any pending items are clear so we can do our job for you to create value.
3) Populate and Distribute Valuable Ecommerce Q&A on Your Site
Once you complete the above steps you should be setup and everything becomes reactive from there as we (1) notify you when customers have new questions and (2) will notify you when we have recommendations on other content creation opportunities we see for you to optimize your site. We do recommend that you consider populating a foundation of helpful Q&A content around your site...and Answerbase makes this easy on you. Answerbase's distribution of helpful Q&A around your site that is relevant to each page along with our AI-Enhanced recommendations enables your team to manage this as efficiently as possible.
Do you have existing product Q&A content to import?: Many ecommerce merchants have existing Q&A content that they've collected over time from a service that had a simple Q&A function but it didn't allow them to leverage the value of that content through CRO and SEO. See our guide to importing your existing product Q&A content into Answerbase.
Customers want to be introduced to helpful content that is useful to their purchasing journey within the page that they're visiting, and that experience with getting that information quickly and efficiently not only is valuable to customer conversion rates (we see a 7.5% conversion rate for anyone who touches Answerbase on the pages).....but it's also how Google is judging your page for rankings. Make sure your customers are taken care of through great/helpful information that is relevant for them (which is made a lot easier through Answerbase)...and then conversions and SEO value will follow.
4) Take Care of Your Customers to Enhance Conversion & SEO
In order for Answerbase to do it's job, we need you to do your job in taking care of your customers. We'll make sure that is done as efficiently as we can, but you need to make sure you're utilizing our platform to help your visitors and drive new visitors to your site.
Tips for Answering Questions: We encourage you to read our Guide on Tips for Answering Customer Questions in order to help ensure that you're getting off on the best foot to create value.
Expectations with SEO Performance: We've not seen any other type of content rewarded by Google more than how Q&A has performed, we encourage you to read our guide on How do I create content that is going to be great for my SEO? so you understand what to expect and the timing of what we've seen play out.
Once you've accomplished the above and have healthy practices with helping your customers, you've set the foundation for customer engagement and search traffic growth. We encourage you to Contact Us if you're needing any other assistance.
5) Again, Reach Out for Help if Needed
If you have any questions or need any help, please schedule a call at the below link and we'll work to make sure you're taken care of so your integration is 100% and we can partner with you in order to help your store thrive.
Schedule an Onboarding Call with Answerbase
