How to create frequently asked questions using the ‘Answers’ functionality

Posted on August 12, 2020

Frequently asked quetioned displayed on a web page

Example

In our ProudCity demo site, we created an Administration frequently asked questions page, where the questions are displayed in accordion and list view.

Video

Steps

Create FAQ topics

By creating FAQ topics we are able to distribute where the answers will display throughout the site. If you have already created a FAQ topic please skip to the “Create a question and answer content” or “Display frequently asked questions on a web page” section.

  1. Go to dashboard
  2. Click on ‘Answers’  on the left navigation bar
  3. Click on  ‘FAQ Topics’ on the left navigation bar
  4. Add new FAQ Topics
    • Write a name for the FAQ topics
      • To distinguish the label as a FAQ, add ‘FAQs’ at the end of the name. For example,  Finance FAQs
    • Leave the ‘Parent Category’ dropdown with the default text of ‘None’.
    • Click ‘Click ‘Add New FAQ Topics’
    • faq topic option

Create a question and answer content

A frequently asked question, has a searchable common question, clear answer, and FAQ topic label.

  1. Go to the dashboard
  2. Click on the ‘Answers’ icon or the ‘Answers’ label on the left navigation bar
  3. Click on ‘Add New Answers’
  4. Enter the question in the title area
  5. Select the FAQ topic, on the right side, in the ‘FAQ topics’ section
    • The answer post can belong to many topics, click all that apply
  6. Add answer using the content using the visual editor
    • Be detailed with your answers, if there are follow up action items, hyperlink to those pages or forms to keep answers content concise and direct.
    • The visual editor is your standard WYSIWYG editor and the simplest editor for just adding content to a page.
    • A quick detailed guide on how to structure content
  7. Click ‘Publish’ answer content fill out steps

Display frequently asked questions on a web page

The answers list widget will display a list of questions and answers based on the selected FAQ topic on an existing page.

  1. Navigate to an existing page or create a page
  2. Click ‘Edit page’
  3. Enable page builder by clicking on the ‘Pagebuilder’ tab, if there is no option to click on the tab, the page builder layout is enabled.
    • Note: In order to use the answers list widget, the page builder has to be enabled
  4. Click on the ‘Add widget’ icon tab
  5. Add page title by selecting the ‘Page title’ widget
    • Note: You can scroll through the widgets or type in the widget name on the search bar.
  6. Click on the ‘Add widget’ icon tab
  7. Add the ‘Answers list’ widget
    • answers list widget
  8. Hover over the ‘Answers list’  widget and click edit
    • Add widget title
    • Pick the FAQ topic to display
    • Select display style
    • Insert a number of answers to show in the ‘Number of post to show’ field
      • Enter 0 for ‘Number of posts to show’ in order for all answers that are attributed to the selected FAQ topic to display.
      • Select ‘Sort By’ option
      • Click done
    • answers list steps 1 through 2
    • answer list steps 3 through 6
  9. Click ‘Update’
  10.  Click ‘View Page’ on the top admin bar or  the permalink to view page
    •  Note: To go back into the page admin functionality click on ‘Edit Page’ on the top admin bar.
  11. Finished, your frequently asked questions and answers content will now be listed on the page!

Do’s and don’ts

Do

  • Consider how someone may be searching for this question and strategically use content to guide users to the information with language such as How do I, Where do I , to start question titles.
  • Remember to select an FAQ topic for the answer.
  • Link out to more detailed pages, forms, resources, or actions to help keep the answers direct and concise.
  • Remember that your answers are being displayed on a page and therefore in order to change the content of the answer, you have to go into the ‘Answers’ functionality to edit the specific answer, not the page.

Don’t

  • Just add FAQs as formatted content instead of taking the time to enter individual answers content.
  • Forget to consider the language used by your community or customers when writing your questions and answers.
  • Forget to add the page title widget.

Resources

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