Almost every business site you see today has a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. This phenomenon of answering questions before they are asked is one that is born out of the Internet. The Internet is, as we already know, a fluid medium that is constantly growing and changing allowing for any company, no matter how large or small, to be a useful, dynamic source of information for their clients.

It is precisely this inherent fluidity that makes the Internet so useful for a company interested in publishing a great site for their clients. Virtually every business enjoying some measure of success finds itself having to answer questions about their product or service. Many businesses realize that a large proportion of their sales effort is dedicated to educating and informing the consumer. After all, it is the supplier (or vendor) who educates his/her client about the advantage of owning/using their product. It appears that there is a fine line between where education starts and sales stops. OR, perhaps, educating and informing your clients is really a "nice" form of sales. This statement must beg the question, "What business has no use for an FAQ page?"

We don't know. If you are a purveyor of fine foods your clients will want to know about shelf life or optimum storage techniques or, perhaps, your clients are asking about some special preparation tip such as which part to use and which part to discard. Perhaps you own a pet shop and specialize in tropical fish. You clients keep on asking you if a certain variety of fish they want to use to help keep the tank clean is compatible with other fish they have. You are a manufacturer of objet d'art. Your pieces require careful cleaning and you should be using your site to inform your clients on appropriate maintenance practices. You can also use this page to tell your clientele about historical values and the potential for appreciation of your collectibles as an investment. It appears that the only business that would not benefit from and FAQ section would be a business that has no clients - hmm..Does this exist?

There is almost no business where clients do not ask, on a regular basis, certain questions. The FAQ page can be used as a form of insurance for you that says, "Yes, all information was and is available to all our clientele."

FAQs serve another useful purpose. A good FAQ site will attract people already using your product - looking for information about it. This gives you the opportunity to establish yourself as an authority in your field as well as helping to brand name your product. Additionally, it has the potential to bring you new clients.

FAQ pages are not so easy to write but the Internet does allow you to be responsive to questions as they come up. Initially, you will write the most common questions, with their answers, and give them to your site developer. Invariably, as time progresses, you will find a client who is having a problem to which there is a fairly clear answer or solution. You may then submit this new information, in the form of a question and answer, to your site developer/maintainer. (S)he will then code this information and add it to your site so that anyone with a similar problem can easily find a solution on your site. So, where lays the problem in writing FAQ pages? It is in figuring out the right questions to put up and good, concise answers to these queries. Once again, we would remind you that if an answer is not correctly worded or if you missed an element of an answer, unlike printing, corrections and/or additions are relatively easily made.

So, does your business need an FAQ page? If you sell automobiles, you can use it to tell people how, best, to maintain that beautiful new car finish. If you do home renovations, use it to explain the process to completion of jobs or how to keep those kitchen cabinets lustrous looking. If you operate a pharmacy, tell people about the best way to deal with medical emergencies or how to cope with arthritis. Even a clothing store might answer questions about return and lay-away policies or cleaning of certain fabrics. Ask yourself this question, "Do my clients ask me questions and do I have fixed answers to any of them?" If your answer is "yes", then you can make effective use of a page that answers Frequently Asked Questions.

Well, what about newsletters? So far as we can tell, almost all the same considerations apply. The only exception might be a company that doesn't issue newsletters - one such as a retail clothing outlet. Are we right in this statement? A clothing outlet may use a newsletter page to help its clients follow fashion trends and to give them an advanced peek at what's coming for the next season. Of course, we know that in the real world, most clothing outlets would just find it too costly to produce quality newsletters on a regular basis. This, however, is not the case on the Internet. Most of the difficulties and costs associated with producing a "four colour process" newsflash in the real world are meaningless in virtual reality. The cost of producing/publishing on the Internet is the same whether it is in black & white or colour. In fact, the Internet is so abundant in colour that black & white does, in some cases, have higher impact than "hot" colours.

Newsletters need not be published on a regular basis. If you produce one a year - post it! It's "value added" and not only will it service your existing clients but it will also contribute to your pool of potential new clients by helping to create new, return visitors - the visitors looking for information on the Internet. These "surfers" may be your clientele of tomorrow - if you give them a reason to be.

So why publish this information on the Internet? Well, it is a text book "Win-Win" situation The client benefits because (s)he has all the most current information available when (s)he wants it and in the quantity (s)he wants. For business, the benefit is not just in adding value for present and potential customers but it also reduces the amount of time your sales and service staff require to inform the consumer as well as reducing the paper and printing costs (the trees really like that). All of this, of course, means that posting information, in the form of FAQs or Newsletters, on the Internet is simply profitable (and that should really make you and your shareholders happy).