The easiest way to write a great one-pager.

You’ve got to put together a one-page description of your new project, event, product, or service. It needs to be very clear and easy to read. You don’t have a lot of time to work on this, so you’d be happier if it were also easy to write. No problem. All you have to do is ask questions.

How do you use questions to write a one-pager?
It’s pretty simple. Just ask the questions your reader would ask. And start writing. Yes, you have to make sure you cover all the key points that you want your readers to know. But try to tackle everything from their point of view. If they were interviewing you about this topic, what would they ask? Why should they care? What details do they need?

After you’ve outlined some initial questions, what do you do next?
Just answer the questions. As you write your answers, you’ll probably think of other questions you want to add. You’ll find that some of the original questions weren’t that important, so they can be deleted. By the way, don’t worry too much about the order of the questions at this stage. You can always move them around later.

Should all the answers be about the same length?
No. A little variety makes the format more interesting.

Shouldn’t there be some sort of title or introduction or something?
Yes, of course. You can use one big question as your main headline. But the headline doesn’t have to be a question. The headline for this article could have been, “What’s the easiest way to write a great one-pager?” Instead, I shortened it to “The easiest way to write a great one-pager.” Either approach will work.

You then follow it up with a short intro paragraph. This paragraph absolutely must give the reader a reason to care about what’s in the one-pager. (You might want to go back and look at the intro paragraph to this article as an example.) After the short intro, go straight into your questions and answers.

Why are questions so effective?
Three reasons:

1. First, the questions put you in the readers’ shoes. This means you’re automatically thinking about what’s important to them. You’re trying to ask the questions they would ask.
2. Second, questions and answers just naturally lend themselves to a more conversational style. That’s great, because conversational writing is generally more appealing to readers. It’s warmer, more personal, and more authentic.
3. Finally, the Q&A approach automatically puts your text in a better format. Without even thinking about it, you’re breaking your text into short blocks consisting of one question and its answer. Short blocks are always more appealing to the reader. They make the text look more accessible. And because each block starts with a question, you’ve also automatically created subheads for your text. These questions/subheads make your page easier for the reader to scan, and they highlight the critical issues in it.

So is this the same thing as writing an FAQ page?
It could be. But you certainly don’t have to call it an FAQ page. For example, I wrote this article in a question-and-answer format to demonstrate the approach. However, I wouldn’t really call this article an FAQ.

But what if I don’t want to use a question-and-answer format?
You certainly don’t have to turn every one-pager into a Q&A session. I’m simply saying that, if you have to write a one-pager in a hurry, this is one of the easiest, most effective ways to do it. Other formats usually take more effort, more editing, and more finesse. If you want to change up the format, one alternative would be to write the paper as a Q&A first, and then turn the questions into topic subheads.

Does the Q&A approach also work for longer documents?
This article is longer than a one-pager. And the approach still works. The questions help to keep up the readers’ interest and carry them through to the end of your document. There are no hard and fast rules about this, so feel free to experiment.

Any more questions?