Have you ever typed a question into Google? Or maybe you’ve asked your voice assistant like Siri or Alexa a question?
Where do the answers come from?
If you’re clever, you can position your website so that YOU become the source of the answer, boosting your SEO, establishing your expertise, and ensuring that clients find you first.
Think about how your business can solve problems for your target audience and how those problems can be formulated into a Q&A format. By stepping into your ideal customer’s shoes, you can anticipate what industry questions people are asking and you can stand out from the crowd by being the business to answer them.
Providing answers to popular questions is one of the best ways to boost your SEO. Search Engine Optimization is how search engines improve the search results you receive when people “Google” something.
As a business, it’s vital to rank on the first page of Google when someone performs a search that’s relevant to your product or service. An average of 33% of search traffic will visit the website ranked number one in their search results, but only 2.4% of traffic will click on the website ranked at number 10. The sad fact is that 95% of the traffic won’t even look at websites ranked on page two, so being as high on page one as possible is paramount.
So if you want to drive more traffic and convert more customers, SEO is key! Let’s take a look at how answering popular questions can really boost your SEO efforts:
Identify Popular Questions
First thing’s first, to provide answers to popular questions you need to think about the most relevant questions people will be asking that relate to your business. For example, as a digital marketer, some of the most popular questions we receive are:
- How can I improve my SEO?
- How often should I post on social media?
- Should I build my website in WordPress?
- What is content marketing?
- Would my business benefit from digital marketing?
Think about your own industry. For example, if you operate a medical spa the questions might be something like this:
- Is botox safe?
- What are the side effects of lip injections?
- Does photorejuvenation work?
- Etc.
Once you’ve identified questions like these that relate to your business, it’s time to write clear answers to them on your website. A good SEO strategy will answer these questions using short answers, and whenever possible, bullet points.
Pro Tip: If you use ten or more steps, Google will add a ‘read more’ link to the answer box, and this can improve your CTR (click-through rate) for regular online SEO or Google will provide more information for those searching by voice. When you use this technique to answer questions, your content will be ready for Voice Search and could even result in a featured snippet on Google!
Use Natural Language
In today’s digital world Voice Search is becoming more and more popular. So any good SEO strategy needs to take Voice Search into account. Voice Search is speech recognition technology that enables you to search for something by speaking out loud instead of typing search terms into a search bar either on a mobile phone, tablet, personal computer, or smart car interface.
Part of optimizing your content for Voice Search means using natural language. The way people speak and the way people type are very different. For example, if you’re looking for a bakery you might type, “bakeries near me” but if you’re using Voice Search you’ll probably say something like, “Hey Google, what are the best bakeries near me?”
Using natural language will also help with readability. Reading on the internet is not the same as reading a textbook, and neither is the spoken word. It should be easy for your audience to understand what you’re saying. When you answer popular questions, you want to be straightforward! Always keep your target audience in mind, if your audience isn’t made up of astrophysicists or neurosurgeons, you shouldn’t be using complex language just for the sake of sounding fancy.
You’ll want to ensure that your answers to these popular questions are easy to understand, easy to skim, and instantly understandable.
Use ‘Long-tail Keywords’
If you want Google to love your answers, you need to make sure you’re following a question-answer approach that includes a variety of long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords are sets of 3 or more words that go together and are very specific both to what you’re selling and to what people are searching for. Here are some examples:
- Men’s all-star converse high tops white
- Most powerful vacuum under $300 for pets
- Natural eczema cream that really works
Use Autocomplete
How can you know what conversational queries people are using? One of the best ways to find out is to use Google’s autocomplete feature to see what predictions Google will make when you start to type in a question.
Wherever you find a Google search box, you’ll find the autocomplete feature. This is where Google fills in its best predictions of the search query by mining real searches that are already popular. Google will show common and trending searches that are relevant to the words you’ve entered, and these are also related to your location and previous searches.
Use a Question and Answer Approach
By providing answers to popular questions, you’re providing a direct solution for a specific problem that someone would search for. Think about the question that a user would ask and use that as your title. For example, people might ask:
Question:
How can I boost my SEO?
Answer:
Boost your SEO by providing answers to common questions.
Here are some more examples of questions that people might ask a search engine:
- “What is Bitcoin?”
- “What is a government shutdown?”
- “What is Prince Harry’s last name?”
So the titles to your answers should follow the same approach:
- “What is Bitcoin”
- “The government shutdown explained”
- “Prince Harry’s last name”
It’s also a good idea to answer Who, What, Where, Why, and How questions and use these in your title. For example:
- Who is the best digital marketer in Toronto?
- What can digital marketing do for my business?
- How did Google get started?
- Where is the next Olympics?
- Why is the sky blue?
When your content is fully optimized, Google will figure out the question and the answer right from your content and this will really boost your SEO.
Use an FAQ Page
Another great way to provide answers to popular questions and boost your SEO is to add an FAQ page to your website or optimize the FAQ page you already have. An FAQ page is a great chance to clarify questions and answers with a focus on long-tail keywords; strings of words that fit naturally together in your content that people will also be searching for.
Partner with Barker Social to Boost Your SEO
Are you looking for help with your SEO strategy and execution? Providing answers to popular questions is a great way to boost your SEO, but so is consulting with a digital marketing expert. At Barker Social, our integrated digital marketing services can help your business build relationships and establish trust with your target audience while also driving more traffic to your website, app, and social profiles.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today. We offer a FREE consultation, and we’d be more than happy to establish an SEO strategy that will help you accomplish your business goals.
