FAQ and how-it-works pages strangers (and AI) can use
People show up with a question. If the page is one long essay, they leave. Short answers and a plain sequence of steps let them see how you work.
What this is
An FAQ is a set of real questions with real answers on the page. A how-it-works block is a numbered path: what happens first, next, and last. Three to seven steps is enough. More than that becomes a manual nobody reads.
The questions should be ones clients actually ask. Fees, timing, what you need from them, and who the work is for. Not “What is excellence?”
Short answers, often under forty words, are easier to scan. A question with a blank under it is worse than no question.
Why it matters for trust
A stranger is trying to picture the first month with you. Steps and answers do that without a sales call. They also give search and answer tools something concrete to quote, when the words are actually on the page.
A wall of text hides the same facts. The person who needed one sentence never finds it.
Answer tools can only repeat what you actually published. A clear question heading and a short answer are easy to quote. A buried sentence in the third paragraph is not. Do not add a question you are not willing to answer in public. “It depends” is fine if the next sentence says what it depends on. Empty accordions that never open are the same as a blank page.
Do this
- List five questions you hear on first calls. Write them as the client would say them.
- Answer each one in a few sentences. If you cannot answer yet, do not publish the question.
- Add a how-it-works list of three to seven steps. Start with the first meeting, not your origin story.
- Put the block on the home page or a page linked from the home page.
- Use real headings, not an image of text. A phone or email in the answer should be text too.
- Read it on a phone. If you have to pinch and scroll through a paragraph, break it up.
How Free Trust Score treats this
Free Trust Score helps when it finds questions on the page, short answers, or a numbered how-it-works. It hurts when the home page has no answers at all, or when questions are listed with nothing under them.
The scan does not grade whether the advice is clever. It checks that a stranger can find an answer without guessing.
Related
See what a stranger can already see.
Run a Free Trust Score, or book a short fit call if you want help reading it.