Do we need a content writer/specialist for website?

My online travel business partner and I have been in a drawn out debate on whether it’s a top priority for our small startup to hire a content writer to review & improve our website content. In particular, the debate right now is on the FAQ tab on an activity page.

We’re getting enough user inquiries for things already answered in the FAQ tab so we’d like to improve by making the content clearer and/or getting rid of the tab and just having an expandable section. Not sure if it’s primarily a content issue or a design/layout issue.

We would appreciate others weighing in. Here is a sample activity page (feel free to check out a few). Is the FAQ tab content relatively clear or in need of some outside help?

Thanks in advance!

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Hey @tyler– welcome!

Let’s call in some content specialists. ping: @melanie_seibert @jakkii

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Thanks @HAWK! Hi @tyler!

First of all, having seen the page, I would say this is a content issue and not strictly a visual design issue. In a nutshell, I would recommend that you hire a content strategist or a good, UX-minded writer to go through this with you.

If you hire the right person, they should ask some questions, like:

  • What do you want the goal of this page to be? (It sounds to me like you want fewer calls about questions answered on the page. Are there types of calls that you’d prefer the page cause—like sales calls?)
  • What do your current and prospective customers think of the page? What confuses them about it? (It would be great to give your writer access to some of these folks, who might provide some valuable insights in exchange for a perk or small discount. For this reason, you’ll want to hire someone who’s comfortable with some light user research. It doesn’t have to be onerous, it could be as simple as a conversation with the user.)
  • What questions are they asking when they call?

From what I’m seeing, the FAQ starts out pretty reasonable and quickly gets confusing. The scheduling sections in particular are difficult to follow. If I were a traveler, I would give up trying to understand the ins and outs of scheduling, and just call you to find out the real deal for my situation.

One factor that contributes to this is the way the text appears on the page. Studies have shown the users are unlikely to read long blocks of text (aka, the “wall of words”) and you have a few here and there.

A good writer should be able to eliminate extra verbiage, make the writing scannable and inviting, present information in a logical and consumable way, and reduce any duplication of content.

Finally, it would be extra-dreamy to have a designer that the writer could collaborate with to create any useful diagrams, timelines, tables, or infographics.

Does that help?

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I forgot to mention, the ideal state would be not to have a FAQ section at all, but rather to fold all the relevant content into the main trip info area. I’m not sure whether that’s doable, but the FAQ is kind of a “catch-all” and users aren’t sure what it holds or whether it’s relevant. For that reason they may not read it.

I think you should definitely hire UX writer instead of a content writer but if a content writer has knowledge as same as UX writer then it’s very good. I got to know the power of writer on a product because it increases profit now I am taking it to the business perception. What I meant is that people need to understand what all about your product is and for that there should be simple words(not Jagrons) where they can understand easily

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Thanks, Melanie, for responding! Some great things to think about for how to approach this!

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@tyler Hi, Tyler… I just took a look at the Road to Hana page and the FAQ’s. I’m a budding UX writer and I see many areas of content that could be condensed. I might make a few UX design suggestions, but really, it would interesting to find out what design elements your users find most helpful.

I’m trying to build up my portfolio of different styles of UX writing… I could offer you up to 10 hours of UX writing for free in exchange for allowing me to add it to my portfolio. Feel free to drop me a line at christine@offuttemail.com, or check out my website www.christineoffuttdoescontent.com

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Maybe you should insert something like a tab section with tags and group this question with it e.g. swimming pool, private tours, lunch, breakfast etc. and filter results according to it.