If you’re not optimizing your content for
questions, you’re missing out on opportunities to engage customers and drive
more traffic to your site.
Questions are valuable for many reasons:
- Question research is excellent
content inspiration.
- Questions are engaging and trigger a
natural reflex to answer.
- Questions are useful for audience
research.
- Question research gives you a better
understanding of natural language for voice search.
- Question optimization increases your
organic search visibility.
Types of Questions and How to Categorize Them
- Basic questions: These typically
define concepts, and those searching for them are looking for quick answers.
- How-to questions: These typically
include step-by-step questions.
- Branded questions: These typically
include a brand name or product name.
- Online research questions: These are typically specific questions
that relate directly to your product, such as pros and cons or reviews. These
include:
1.High-intent questions, such as
asking how to buy.
2.Navigational questions about site
navigation.
3.Competitive research questions, such
as brand comparisons.
4.Reputation questions, such as concern your company culture.
Regarding basic and how-to questions, the query
may only have the intent of searching for information. That said, there’s
always a possibility that this question is searched with the intent to
purchase.
How to Discover Questions with Tools
**“People Also Ask” Tool**
The “People Also Ask” tool from Google contains
related questions to a given query. While not a lot of information is available
on how Google generates these, we can assume that these questions would only be
shown if there are enough queries to justify them.
More space is taken up in the search engine
results by the “People Also Ask” tool, and showing up in more search engine
results with one query is a valuable aspect of organic search visibility.
The “People Also Ask” tool is important for
content marketing for two reasons:
- It offers insight into
the searches of the target audience.
- It boosts organic
search visibility.
**Google Search Engine Results**
**Page**
Search results provide a lot of information
about terms and concepts from search engine results pages, if you analyze them
properly. A Text Optimizer
tool will extract
terms and concepts from the search engine results pages and analyzes them to
provide a list of questions to include in content. This tool will expand on the
knowledge you gain from the “People Also Ask” tool.
**Google Suggest**
Google Suggest is a search-based tool that’s
designed for content marketers. Google autocompletes a query based on the most
popular searches from other users. With this in mind, we can assume that Google
Suggest results have a significant search volume or demand to end up in the
suggested index.
The challenge with Google Suggest is deciding
how to start the question to see it completed. First, you type your query in
and hit search, then you pull your cursor back to the beginning of the query.
If you add “how,” Google will suggest other popular searches.
You can take this a step further by using Serpstat
, which is a keyword
research tool that gives you niche questions according to your core question.
You can also sort the results by the original question and filter questions by
the most popular term to organize your results.
**Quora**
Quora
is
arguably one of the largest sources of questions online. Unlike some other
discussion boards, however, Quora requires users to post discussions in a
question form, so it only offers questions.
Quora’s search can be challenging, due to the
complex architecture of topics, and it doesn’t show you the most popular
questions. The algorithm works on personalization, timeliness, activity and
some other factors.
With this in mind, the Buzzsumo Question Analyzer
is
useful to organize your Quora results. It aggregates results from Quora and
other discussion boards to analyze your query and generate results, giving you
in-depth insight into what searchers are looking for.
**Twitter**
Though not many content marketers use Twitter
for this purpose, it’s an incredible source of content inspiration. Twitter’s
question search allows you to see what questions users ask when discussing your
brand or product with the following search:
Type \[brandname ?\] (be sure to include a space)
into the search box and you’ll see any questions related to your brand, product
or topic.
This can also be used to monitor your
competitors and get an idea of what your prospective customers are searching
for from them, so you can position yourself to solve customers’ problems
better.
How to Include Questions in Your Content
Questions provide a virtually limitless source
of content marketing opportunities. Here’s how you can use questions to inform
your content:
- Create a frequently asked questions
section that addresses the basic questions that come up in queries often.
- Develop and optimize your existing
content to address common questions.
- Add Q&A sections to your landing
pages, which may also help you get a product page in Google.
- Develop new content to address a
question that lacks satisfying answers.
The value of questions goes far beyond content,
however. Question research should involve different departments in your company
to maximize your results.
**Basic Questions**
Basic questions do well with content like
glossaries or FAQ. The customer support and sales teams should use this
information to adopt the same language or jargon as the customers. The CRO
(Conversion Rate Optimization) team should be involved as well, since basic
questions could be transactional.
**How-to Questions**
How-to questions do well with content like FAQ
and videos. Your CRO team should be involved, since these can lead to sales.
**Branded Questions**
- ROPO (Research Online/Purchase Offline) questions: These should be addressed in the form of blog
content or tutorials, which should be optimized for many related brand terms.
The product management team should be involved to collect answers and feedback and to implement product improvements or updates.
- High-intent questions: These should
be addressed in the form of a product Q&A. The CRO team and A/B testing
expert should be involved to
optimize on-page conversions.
- Navigational questions: These should
be addressed with a product-specific knowledge base and video tutorials. The
design team should be involved to improve usability and to solve any existing
navigational concerns.
- Competitive research questions:
These should be addressed with specific landing pages and videos that address
benefits, as well as being optimized for brand-related terms. The product
management team should be involved to collect feedback and implement
improvements. The sales team should also be involved to learn how to best
explain the product benefits to potential customers.
- Reputation questions: These should
be addressed with landing pages and videos specific to the query. The
reputation management team and social media team should be involved to address
these questions properly and to ensure your brand has the best possible image.
Final Thoughts
Questions are incredibly useful for content
marketing inspiration, but they can also provide insights into audience
research, conversion optimization and product development. Optimizing for
questions also boosts your SEO and ensures that your copy is ready to earn you
more organic search visibility.
Researching questions and optimizing for them is
a continuous process, however. Over time, you may discover new questions or new
ways to find them, offering real-time knowledge that gives your business a
competitive edge.