Answer shoppers' questions on product pages

A shopper asks an assistant whether your tote bag fits a 15-inch laptop. If your page says “roomy and versatile”, the assistant has no size to repeat. It may guess, or name a bag whose page gives the size. A product page FAQ fixes that only when it holds real answers. This guide shows how to find the questions shoppers ask about each product, answer them in plain sentences on the page, and keep those answers the same in your feed and markup, on any platform.

What are good questions to ask about a product?

Good questions are the ones shoppers ask before they buy: will it fit, what is it made of, how do I use and care for it, does it work with what I have, is it right for me, and how do shipping and returns work. Your own data shows which.

Shoppers look to the product page to answer their product questions, Nielsen Norman Group found in its usability research. Your job is to learn which questions, for which product. Six places to look:

• Reviews. Read your reviews and your competitors’ for the same product type. Note what buyers wish they had known, such as “runs small” or “smaller than I expected”.
• Support emails and chats. Every question asked twice is a sentence missing from the page. Search your inbox for the product name.
• Site search. Shopify’s Behavior reports list the terms customers typed into your store search, including searches with no results. On other platforms, Google Analytics records site search as the view_search_results event.
• Search Console. The Performance report lists the queries people typed when a product page showed in Google results, and how many clicked.
• People Also Ask. Search Google for your product type and note the questions in the People Also Ask box.
• AI assistants. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the shopper’s question, such as “does this bag fit a 15-inch laptop”, and read the answer. Where the answer is vague or wrong, or names another brand whose page states the fact, your page may be missing that fact.

That last check is not a measurement of your visibility. It is a way to see which facts an assistant could not find. To measure how often you are named, use the method in our AI visibility check.

Work through the sources in order for each priority product:

What should be on a product page?

A product page should state, as plain facts, what shoppers ask about: size and fit, materials or ingredients, how to use and care for it, what it works with, who it is for and who it is not for, and the shipping and returns for that item.

The question tells you which fact to state. Match each type of question to a fact a shopper can check:

Google Merchant Center’s description guidance lists the same kinds of facts, such as size, material, intended age range and technical specifications, and asks you to be specific and accurate. The facts that matter most are often the ones only you know. Google’s AI search guide recommends content that provides value beyond common knowledge.

Other assistants say they work from the same kind of detail:

• Amazon. When it launched Rufus in 2024, Amazon said it would answer questions on product pages from listing details, customer reviews and community Q&As. Rufus was renamed Alexa for Shopping on May 13, 2026.
• Perplexity. Its help center says it is more likely to recommend merchants who provide deeper product details, such as availability, reviews, pricing and specifications.
• Microsoft. Its Copilot help says the details Copilot shows depend on what the merchant provides.

How to write a product description?

Open with one sentence that says what the product is and who it is for. Then answer each common question in a plain sentence with numbers and units. Put sales language after the facts, and leave out any claim you cannot back up with a measurement or a document.

Five rules for each answer:

1. Lead with the answer. “Yes, it fits a 15-inch laptop” before any story about the bag.
2. Use numbers and units. “16 x 12 x 5 inches” beats “spacious”.
3. Say what it is not. “Not waterproof” saves a return and gives an assistant a clear limit to repeat.
4. Stick to facts you can prove. No health, medical or performance promises. If a claim needs a test result you do not have, leave it out.
5. Write plain text. OpenAI’s feed spec asks for a factual description in plain text, and its best practices ask for concise, factual copy. The same text works on your page.

Here is a worked example. Example Goods and its Market Tote are made up for this guide.

Before (example):

Meet your new everyday favorite. The Market Tote is roomy, stylish and built to go wherever life takes you.

After (example):

The Market Tote is a 12 oz cotton canvas tote for groceries, books and a laptop up to 15 inches.

Size. Inside it measures 16 x 12 x 5 inches. Handles have a 10-inch drop, long enough for a shoulder.

Materials and care. Cotton canvas and cotton webbing handles. Spot clean with a damp cloth. Do not tumble dry.

Who it is for. Daily errands, work and travel. It is not waterproof, so it is not for wet gym gear.

Shipping and returns. Ships in 1 to 2 business days. Returns are free within 30 days of delivery.

Questions

Will it fit a 16-inch laptop? No. It fits laptops up to 15 inches.

Is it waterproof? No. The canvas is untreated, so keep it out of heavy rain.

Can I machine wash it? No. Spot clean it with a damp cloth.

Does it have pockets? One inside pocket, 7 x 6 inches, for a phone and keys.

The after version is not longer for the sake of it. Every sentence answers something a shopper asked, and each one is a fact an assistant can quote without guessing.

Where should the answers appear?

On the product page, as visible text next to the detail each one answers, with the four to six most common questions in a short FAQ section. Then put the same facts in your product description field, feeds and markup, so every reader gets the same answer.

Start with the page, then carry the same facts to every place your product data goes:

• The visible page. Keep answers in the page text, not only in an image or a pop-up. Google’s structured data guidelines say not to mark up content that is not visible to readers, so the page text comes first.
• Your product data. On most platforms that means the product description field plus custom fields for size, material or care. Shopify says agentic channels list products with their title, description, options, images, price and availability, and its Catalog help names metafields among the data you can map. Shopify also points to its Knowledge Base app to review the FAQs that AI platforms use to answer questions about your store. Those FAQs are not shown on your storefront, so they add to the answers on the page and do not replace them.
• Your feeds. OpenAI’s feed spec says raw review entries and question-and-answer lists are not part of its discovery contract. So your answers reach that feed only through the description and fields such as size and material. Merchant Center asks that the description be consistent with your title and your landing pages.
• Your markup. Your Product markup should state the same price, availability and identifiers as the page. Our product structured data guide covers what to include. Check it here:

• Your policies. Item-level shipping and return answers must match your store-wide policies. Our store policies guide shows how to write them.

When something changes, change it everywhere at once. Google Merchant Center asks that updates to your site and product data happen at the same time, and its policy reviewers flag price or availability mismatches between your product data and the page.

Done when: each priority product page answers its four to six most common shopper questions in plain sentences with numbers, says who it is for and not for, shows those answers as visible text, and states the same facts in your product description field, feeds, Merchant Center and markup.

Doing this by hand works for a few products. We built SourceVision for the rest: we ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity your shoppers’ questions about your lead product and the products you promote, and report how often you appear, with the range across runs. Then we propose the answers each product page is missing, drafted only from facts you confirm, and nothing is applied to your store without your approval. SourceVision is in an invite-only beta.

Request an invite

Is FAQ good for SEO?

Not as a Google search feature. Google limited FAQ rich results to authoritative government and health sites in 2023 and stopped showing them in Google Search from May 7, 2026. A visible FAQ on a product page still helps shoppers and anything that reads the page.

What Google documents:

• 2023. Google said FAQ rich results would only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. It added that unused structured data does not cause problems for Search.
• 2026. Google’s documentation log says the FAQ rich result no longer appears in Google Search starting May 7, 2026. Google removed the FAQ rich result documentation on June 15, 2026.

So write the FAQ for the people reading the page, not for a search feature. FAQPage remains a valid schema.org type, and markup that matches a visible FAQ is fine to keep. Do not add it expecting a result in Google.

What about AI assistants? We found no documentation from OpenAI, Google, Perplexity or Microsoft saying their assistants read FAQPage markup. Microsoft’s Fabrice Canel said in 2025 that schema markup helps its language models understand content, without naming a type. Google says no special schema.org markup is needed for its generative AI search. What these makers do describe is page content, product data and reviews. That is why the answers belong in the visible text and your product data first.

What is a good product page?

A good product page lets a shopper decide without contacting you: what the product is, whether it fits their need, what they receive, what it costs to get it, and what happens if it is wrong. Its answers are true today and match every other place the product appears.

Keep it that way with three habits:

• Add a question when it repeats. When the same question reaches support twice, add the answer to the page and the product data in the same week.
• Update with the product. A new size, material or supplier changes the answers. Change the page, feed and markup together.
• Recheck the assistants. Ask your shoppers’ questions again after you change a page, and see whether the answers now use your facts.

Add your top products to the monthly review in step 8 of the AI search guide.