Write your content
Write FAQs and Contact INFO
Two of the most useful pages on any website are the FAQs and the contact information. These sections have become so commonplace on websites that users practically expect the information to be on your page. So we recommend you include it!
If you choose the right information, use student language, and position this information so it’s easy to find, your office will save time. Your office will spend less time fielding phone calls about basic details. That means you can devote more time to working one-on-one with students who need personalized help. The key is using language your audience members use. Here are some tips on how to make these sections of your site sing!
FAQ tips
Be honest about which questions you include.
If you don’t know which questions are the most common, ask the person who fields most of your office phone calls. That person will know for sure!
Keep your list short.
Shoot for about 10 items. If you have a longer list of commonly asked questions, sort your FAQs into shorter lists by topic or subtopic, like we did with the Consider K-State page (see below)
Don’t be repetitive.
If a topic is already covered on your site in detail, don’t rewrite it as an FAQ answer. Just link to the info already on your website. By avoiding duplicated information, it will be easier to keep your site updated.
Be brief.
Keep your answers short and direct. Don’t babble on and on.
Use your audience’s language.
Avoid administratorspeak. People outside the university won’t know our insider jargon—and shouldn’t have to. When you use the language of students, you aren’t dumbing things down. You’re communicating. And by communicating clearly, you won’t be lowering the image of your office. You’ll be improving it.
Be conversational.
Write the answer as though you were talking to a student standing in front of you. K-State’s friendly image is well-deserved—so make sure your answers live up to our reputation. Be conversational, not terse. Tip: Read your answers aloud. If they sound like a tax form, your FAQs need fixing!
Don’t preach.
Don’t pad your FAQ list with questions nobody really asks. An FAQ list isn’t the place to say what you want to say, it’s the place to answer what they (your audience members) want to know. You can make your points elsewhere on the website.
Put the FAQ list where users can find it.
If you bury the FAQs, you’ll still field every one of those nuisance phone calls! We recommend that FAQs appear as one of your main topics.
Be specific.
Don’t just tell people to call the registrar’s office. Give them the number, a specific person’s name (when appropriate), times to call, and when to expect a response.
Contact us tips
Give people options
Listing just the e-mail address is not enough on your contacts page. Give people options to call if they want to talk to a person.
Centralize it!
Put all contact information in one central location. Sprinkling contact information through the site makes it harder to keep current.
Don’t just organize information by office or position names
Chances are, the user doesn’t know the name of the office they need to contact. If there are key contacts that your audience is always looking for, don’t bury them under an office name. Make topics or tasks a prominent option on the page and use easy-to-understand language.
For example, on the Consider K-State site, we knew our audience frequently wanted to contact K-State to request more information about K-State. So we put that option at the top (see below).
