Garry West April 21, 2021 If your brain goes into overdrive the minute you lie down to sleep, just pose yourself a question. Something silly like: “How many green beans did I see today?”. Your brain will immediately stop its endless chatter in order to try and answer your question. The chatter will resume but repeat the exercise 3 or 4 times and your brain will quieten down enough to allow you some sleep. That’s the power of questions – they hijack your thought process it and refocus your thoughts.
Questions are a very human form of connection; they give voice to our endless curiosity about the world and other people. We greet each other with questions (How are you?); start conversations with questions (What do you think about?); most of our decisions are based on an internal question (I wonder what would happen if?). They’re connectors, binding us to the world and each other. Are questions good for SEO, though? Let’s put it another way…
…Does Google Like Questions?
Google is having something of a love affair with questions at the moment. The ‘People Also Ask’ box that now appears in response to search queries is testament to this. Fleur Heesen of the Yoast SEO Academy suggests that the BERT update in 2019 gave Google the ability to understand and recognise questions, even if they weren’t framed as such. So a list of words such as ‘Jam homemade no sugar” becomes “What can I use instead of sugar in jam?”
Google is hungry for questions to answer right now, and so long as Google loves questions – questions will be good for SEO.
How Can I Use Questions as Part of my SEO Strategy?
There’s loads of different applications, and each product or service has niche questions that are unique. Here are a few examples that are useful as part of an SEO strategy:
Where Can I Source Questions?
Most questions tend to hide in plain site. Once you alert your brain to looking for them they’ll turn up all over the place. Get into the habit of grabbing them and filing them for future use. Whilst you’re creating your natural archive though, there are 5 free sources that are very useful for finding out what the questions are that people want answers to:
Quick Summary
Garry West – Founder of Imagefix | Creative Director #Tech Enthusiast, #SocialMedia Researcher. When Imagefix was established back in 2006, he brought to the business a combined expertise in digital design and marketing. The growing team now offers a range of contemporary web design services, including web design, graphic… View full profile ›
(2)
This content was originally published here.
Recent Comments