Thanks for choosing Answerbase for your business. This guide goes over a few foundational elements to consider as you get started with configuring your Answerbase account and customizing your solution. Understand Why "People-First Helpful Content" is Critical for AI, Google, SEO, and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) It's important to understand how AI and Google's latest changes make "people-first helpful content" Read more
The SEO world has been shaken up quite a bit when it comes to Ecommerce searches....with the Helpful Content Updates, Google's Helpful Content System, and then incorporating that into their Core Ranking Systems. This was released in parallel as Google started surfacing these "Popular Products" tables (and AI of course)....and this creates an environment that ecommerce stores need to understand what has happened, why Read more
We've spoken to many ecommerce merchants who have seen a notable hit on their traffic through the Google Helpful Content Updates and Google's Core Ranking System Updates, as Google integrated the helpful content system into Google's core ranking system. As a result, multiple systems in Google's core ranking systems would now assess the helpfulness of content....and "People-first content" is more important than ever. Read more
If you're paying for a service, you should get revenue back and that profit from that revenue should be more than you're paying. This seems like common sense...but for some reason the SEO world has gotten away with avoiding any kind of ROI measurement that actually involves real money. Their "value" has been measured in "impressions" and "clicks".....but that doesn't cut it anymore. If you're SEO services are worth a Read more
Answerbase ensures that you can support product Q&A on your ecommerce site, to lift both conversions and organic traffic. This article covers how to integrate into your product and category pages, but we recommend that you review and complete our full list (most are just 5 minutes to do) of Steps to set up your ecommerce site with Answerbase Product Page Q&A . When you're working to install the Answerbase Q&a Read more
When you're installing the Answerbase full featured widget, it supports a number of parameters that you can identify in the script which will have an impact on what/how the widget displays. Below is a list of the parameters that are supported to manage the configuration of the widget on your pages. Ecommerce Product Q&A Integrations - Product Parameters The parameters listed below will give you different options Read more
We've seen the demand and performance of Ecommerce FAQs explode over the last couple years, and enjoy being able to communicate about what we've seen across our customer base. We've seen this lift throughout Google's updates....but the incorporation of the "Helpful Content System" into Googles Core Ranking Systems was special....and you can see it very clearly in this case. See how this customer goes from about 2-3% Read more
We love the customers who started with us a long time ago AND they've been committed to taking care of their customers. In these cases.....we've seen their traffic explode over the years. Sometimes the explosion with Google's updates has been quite dramatic....like during the August update for this customer where you can see what happened on July 18th as Google started rolling out their "August Core Update". IMPORTAN Read more
Answerbase's goal is to ensure that you get a very healthy return on your investment for the platform, and in order to do that it's best to track the results and how much revenue your Answerbase engagement is assisting in. To track this we need you to place our conversion tracking code into your site at the end of the customer journey, after the event that you've determined that the customer has accomplished the end Read more
We've seen the Ecommerce FAQs content notably grow in importance with Google's shift towards "people first helpful content" and since AI needs to feed on this quality "people first" content to have any idea of what it's talking about. It feeds off content like Q&A to source the answers. We've seen this across various industries, and the automotive parts ecommerce merchants have also seen this lift. Let's dig into Read more
Below is the content formatting guide you should use when looking to import questions. There are different guides noted below depending on if you're using a hierarchical category structure or a tag structure for organizing your content, so make sure that you're referencing the appropriate structure based on your system settings that you have defined under "System Settings > General Settings". For a smooth import w Read more
Different customers have different preferences on how to manage specific Q&A threads, and which threads they'd like to act as their own page for SEO purposes and which threads where they actually want that content to live on other pages on their website but also be available on a page in the knowledge base. For these purposes, Answerbase gives them the ability to point the canonical tag for Q&A threads to any Read more
Rovingblue provides a selection of Ozone water purifiers for travel, off-grid living, and emergencies. They came to Answerbase because they have great products, but in the new land of SEO (search engine optimization), GEO (Generative engine optimization), AEO (answer engine optimization), or whatever you want to call it....it's been hard to filter through all fo the communication about AI and determine what is actual Read more
We have many customers where Ecommerce FAQs contribute to a significant percentage of their organic traffic, as search engines like Google, Bing, Perplexity, etc. need to fulfill their information searches/questions with the information that best addresses their needs. Those engines can only service up what they've read/consumed....so as long as you're creating great original content based on great experience...the c Read more
Thanks for choosing Answerbase to power product questions and answers on your ecommerce store. This guide covers how to manage an in-depth integration and configuration of Answerbase to get the most out of product Q&A over the long run, which includes the full list of items we encourage you to manage for the best integration. This in-depth guide will be an investment of time to manage an ideal integration. We do Read more
As you grow question and answer content on your Answerbase platform, you'll find that similar questions are being asked on Google and you'll start to rank and get clicks from people who are asking those same questions, driving new organic traffic to your site. You're able to easily (1) ensure that your content gets indexed and then (2) track the progress of how many impressions, clicks, the click-through-rate, and po Read more
When you're integrating your site with Answerbase you submit a test question on a widget, and get the following validation: What this means is that there hasn't been at least one product or category associated with the question, to let us know what the question is about. MOST COMMON CAUSE OF THIS VALIDATION The most common cause of this validation is with an ecommerce integration, where you're supporting product-spec Read more
In 2022 Google got a patent issued on something called an "Information Gain Score", where Google can compare several pages that cover the same information and create a score based on which pages are actually adding something to the Internet as far as new information, which they're coining as creating "Information Gain". When you ask Google what information gain is regarding SEO, this is what they pull up as an answer Read more
When you add Q&A to your product page around the product description, its also helpful to have a more simple widget installed near the product title on the page which allows the users to (1) ask a new product question and (2) see how many Q&A threads are available for that product. To manage that, we support a call-to-action (CTA) widget. See the example below under the review stars: In order to add this widg Read more
Answerbase has partnered with Gorgias so we can ensure that your customers have the best possible experience on your ecommerce site and can utilize the best available channel to get their product questions answered. This article goes over the steps that you should take in order to integrate Answerbase with Gorgias. If you're using either Bigcommerce or Shopify, please go to specific instructions for each here:
Read more
Answerbase gives you the ability to have your growing knowledge base of content sit on your own domain under a subdirectory or subdomain of your site, depending on your preferences. This article will cover how to manage this for your Answerbase account. If you prefer to watch a quick video on how to set this up and it's importance, you can see that below. The video does also give a foundation of why it's important an Read more
Answerbase enables you to optimize your product and collection pages (product category pages) in just minutes per page, as we're able to recognize and aggregate the customer demand for information related to each product and product category and fed that to your team. We have customers optimizing their site in less than 5-10 minutes per page with great content that is important for customers and has been rewarded han Read more
See this customer who signed up for Answerbase over a year ago and they have consistently answered questions well....and then in Google's December core update...that is when Google decided that it trusted their Ecommerce FAQ content and were going to source it. See here: They jumped from Q&A being worth just a small percentage of their traffic...and now Answerbase is responsible for over 25% of their organic traf Read more
Answerbase integrates with Zapier, enabling you to do more with your Answerbase engagements and data and automate the sending and usage of data collected by Answerbase. When you connect Answerbase with Zapier you'll be asked to authenticate your Answerbsae account through Zapier and you'll see the information you need to manage that within your Answerbase Administration Site under "Integration > API" so you should Read more
We get a lot of questions about the timing of results when it comes to answering questions...and how those are fed into search engines, how long it takes for the search engines to digest that content...and when you can see results. So, we have many examples of this and how this plays out for Ecommerce FAQs to drive anywhere from 10% to 50% of an ecommerce merchant's organic traffic ....but let's show you another cust Read more
We often get the question of how quickly ecommerce customers will see results as they scale their ecommerce FAQs.....and our answer is always the same: "Don't think about SEO, think about serving your customers well with great information...and the SEO comes after that because search engines need that good content". The only real question is...what does your company and your company's employees have locked within you Read more
Again, we're needing to temper expectations here....creating great content for your customers needs to be the focus here and it's about a steady diet of great content for your customers that will win over time....but when it's done well, sometimes the results are a bit staggering. See this customer who started publishing content early March 2025 within their Answerbase....and look at what's happened recently. It's in Read more
If your a Bigcommerce 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 Read more
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...a Read more
There are several things going on in the ecommerce, technology, customer behavior and SEO which is driving merchants to explore solutions like Answerbase on their site. We've listed a few of those below so you can understand a bit more about what is going on and why you should consider Answerbase for your site.
Google's Shift to Ranking Pages & Sites with "People-first content": Google has notable changed i Read more
We know that ecommerce FAQs bring value...but we're always honest with our customers that quality content creation, recognition, and then SEO results are a longer term game. We communicate this constantly and we will continue to....that this isn't some kind of "SEO Magic Trick" and that they should be in it for at least a year mindset....but every once in awhile the "SEO Miracle" happens so we're fine with communicat Read more
This customer was an interesting story....because they actually reached out to us in September of 2024 talking about how Q&A wasn't performing for them. Turns out....now we're driving 24% of their organic traffic and the scalable recognition and publication of good helpful content should turn that into much more over time as they continue to give Google and AI what it needs to drive traffic. Help Us Help You When Read more
Recently, SEO expert Lily Ray wrote an article discussing some observations in the ecommerce SEO landscape over the past year. The insights highlight a growing trend: Google is now prioritizing results from ecommerce, user-generated content (UGC), and social media sites over traditional product review websites for many commercial and comparison queries (think about the queries like "What is the best xyz product?"). T Read more
There are SEO-related topics that commonly get asked about that are commonly misunderstood in the SEO world, so we went to help clarify some of these "SEO Myths" that are spreading around as it's putting unnecessary handcuffs on customers and many times restraining their ability to create pages and content that is going to be most satisfactory for visitors (and therefore not rank as well as they could/should on Googl Read more
As you answer questions through Answerbase you should start seeing an increase of your Google Search Console impressions and eventually clicks and click through rate. If you're not experiencing this we have a few items that you should check in on to ensure that you're set up to get the best out of your Answerbase engagement. Have you Added Your Answerbase Knowledge Base Sitemap to Google Search Console? As you're ans Read more
When implementing Answerbase Ecommerce Product Q&A App on your ecommerce store, you'll be looking to make it easy for users to understand that they can ask their pre-purchase questions about the product and allowing them to see the most commonly asked questions about products on your page as well. Call to Action Widget Typically under the product title, there will be a preview of the reviews activity for the prod Read more
If you're integrating into a services website, you want to identify the different "Services" that you provide and you'll want to ensure that those are defined when you insert the widget. This documentation covers a services site that has a multi-level taxonomy and navigation of different categories of services they provide represented on their site. If you don't have mutliple levels or categories of services, you sho Read more
Answerbase has several ways of syncing with your product and product categories for your ecommerce site, most are automated but there are some cases where you may need to import your product data. First, identify whether this is needed or not for your integration. Here are the ways that Answerbase syncs with your product information:
Automated Through Widget Parameters: If you've already installed our Q&A w Read more
Answerbase can read through your historical customer support communication, identify the pre-sales questions that have been asked and answered and lead to a sale...and then leverage them for what you can publish in order to increase future conversions and grow your organic traffic. The goal is to create an efficient manner of funneling your teams expertise related to your products directly on your site...and publishe Read more
You can distribute Answerbase's subscription widget throughout your site in order to prompt customers to subscribe to answering questions related to the products that they've purchased. You can find the subscription widget in your administration dashboard under "Integration > Subscription Widget". This widget will display on your page similar to what you see below, but you can customize the verbiage and look as yo Read more
Answerbase enables you to fulfill Google's demand for "people-first content" by engaging your existing content and visitors, identifying their demand for information, and ensuring that every one of your articles is fulfilling that full demand for information related to the topic. You can accomplish this by integrating Answerbase Q&A at the bottom of every one of your articles or blog posts. What Q&A on Articl Read more
You can have your product questions and answers functionality search through your product descriptions, details, and specifications to ensure that if you've already provided an answer to a customer's question...Answerbase can auto-suggest that information to automatically answer that customer's question and lead them to convert to a sale. Within your administration area, you'll find under "System Settings > Produc Read more
If you've installed the Answerbase Shopify Product Questions & Answers App into your store, you're ready to integrate into your site and make sure the functionality is configured as you'd like. Once you are within the administration dashboard, you can review some other configuration preferences by clicking "Shopify App Configuration > Installation Instructions" as seen here: From there, you'll see a number of Read more
When you integrate the full featured Q&A widget into your product page to support product-specific questions and answers, you'll want to test the integration after it's done to make sure everything is working well. POSTING A TEST QUESTION The first thing to do is get to a product page on your website and get to the Q&A widget placement where you can ask a question. Follow these steps:
Write a simple tes Read more
When you're testing your Q&A widget on your product pages and try to submit a question as a guest you may run into a validation that says "This is email is associated with an existing account. Please sign in." like this: The most common cause is that the email address that you've provided when testing out posting a question is one that is associated with one of your Administrator or Moderator users. In that case, Read more
Domain options for integration of Answerbase.
Subdirectory through a reverse proxy.
From an SEO standpoint, the ideal integration is using a subdirectory so you would have something like:
Yourdomain.com/answers
That can be managed on Answerbase through use of a Reverse Proxy, see how Moz addresses the comparison between a subdomain approach and a subdirectory approach in their article What is Read more
Now that you have your account information, you'll want to determine what users are going to be managing content on your platform. If you are the only person who is going to be managing the site and content, then you don't have to worry about setting up new users....but you may want to consider the "Default Content Publishing Rules" below to ensure that newly posted content is published based on your preferences. If Read more
Answerbase supports the ability to not only have product page questions and answers, but you can also put questions and answers on your product category pages. This helps you accomplish the following:
Enhance the content on your product category pages for SEO
Engage your visitors on your product category pages if they have questions related to which product fits their needs best.
This article will give Read more
Thanks for choosing Answerbase to power your community of users. This guide goes over a few foundational elements to consider as you get started with configuring your Answerbase account and customizing your community platform. Add and Manage Your Categories or Tags In your administration area, you'll see an option for either "Categories" or "Tags" in your main navigation depending on what configuration you've chosen Read more
If you're integrating Q&A on the bottom of your website articles so that customers can ask any questions relevant to the topic in that article, you want to ensure that there are specific parameters defined when you insert the widget so that Answerbase knows what the article is and associate the appropriate Q&A content to that article. Answerbase's Q&A widget can be added to the bottom of every one of your Read more
