Knowing your audience is an important part of any content creation, particularly when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). Your audience is the desired target for your product. If you can’t appeal to them, then you won’t have a product to sell. So, identifying audience questions is essential in marketing. It lets you address people’s questions before they even have to ask them, which means better communication and brand trust. It can also help improve your search engine rankings and identify more opportunities for user-generated content on your site. Ultimately, you’ll vastly improve the customer experience and earn more business. All you have to do is follow the steps in our analysis of audience questions, and you’ll have fresh insight into your customers in no time.
1. Make Google Search Console Your Best Friend
Google Search Console is one of the simplest, most direct ways to track audience questions. It is slightly limited in that it only accounts for people already on your site, but it’s nonetheless a great way to gauge general impressions. To get a broad list of questions asked on your site, open GSC to a date range of your choice and search for key question words like “what” or “who.” Depending on how much traffic is on your site, you might get a long list. If it’s too long to scroll through manually, you can import rows from the Console into Google Sheets or Excel and sort through audience questions there.
2. Scour Social Media
With 4.2 billion active social media users, odds are, customers have discussed your brand somewhere on the internet recently. Their discussions can easily shed light on audience questions and general perception of your company. Sort through some hashtags on Twitter or Instagram. Fall down the YouTube rabbit hole. Or, search directly on Reddit and Quora. With so many different forums, your brand has likely been mentioned at least once. Better yet, you can even create an account and invite users to ask their questions directly. The easiest way to analyze audience questions is by having them sent straight to you.
3. Integrate Question Forms
It also never hurts to have question fields right on your site — it’s another great way to have audience questions sent right to you without having to look for them on your own. Plus, you can combine this with your Google Console data and combine them into an Excel or Google sheet for better organization. The more times you’re being asked a particular question, the more likely it’s important. This will help you rank questions in order of importance and respond accordingly. As an added bonus, allowing customers to ask questions directly shows them you care. They’ll trust you and be more likely to shop with you again. Around 67% of shoppers will stop buying from a company they don’t trust.
4. Identify Related Searches
The SEO community is no stranger to the effectiveness of searches and search results on marketing. Roughly 49% of shoppers use Google to discover new products, after all. Through the power of Google’s People Also Ask box, you can scroll through related questions. This way, you can identify audience questions by jumping from question to question, picking up on specific trends for your brand. To make your audience question analysis even easier, you can use AlsoAsked.com, a free tool that completely automates the “also asked” process. Get questions pulled straight from Google search results and keep expanding from there.
5. Ask Google Itself
As a universal search engine, you can also use Google in reverse to find audience questions. It’s just a matter of proper phrasing in the search bar. A straightforward “what questions are people asking about (my brand)?” may work, but it likely won’t encompass all the potential different questions. You’re going to want to use the intitle and vertical bar operators to properly sort through topics and question words. The result should look like this: intitle: “(my brand)” intitle:who|what|when|where|why|how. You’ll start seeing results quickly!
6. Use Comprehensive Tools
There are plenty of powerful SEO software out there that you can use for audience question analysis. The more powerful ones you have to pay for, but it’s well worth it for the value you get out of harvesting audience questions. A cheaper option like Keywordtool.io is a great intro utility that can quickly give you questions on most topics. It’ll even give you insight into trends. There are also more expensive options, like Ahrefs, Conductor, and Moz. These platforms have features to isolate questions within keyword research platforms to make your work more precise. Experiment a little and see which tool best suits you.
7. Put Yourself in the Consumer’s Shoes
This one may seem silly, but you would be surprised how out of touch some companies can get. 52% of adults think companies are out of touch with current events, and this extends to their demands as well. A great way of seeing audience questions is to consider yourself a part of the audience. Ask yourself this set of questions:
- Is the site easy to use?
- What don’t I understand about this product or company and why?
- How do other companies with similar products compare?
- Do I need more info on this product before I would be willing to buy it?
This may help you identify pertinent questions for yourself and give you a better understanding of your customers.
Don’t Be Afraid to Put in the Work
Identifying audience questions can be as easy as plugging in a few keywords in a dedicated program. But it can also mean sorting through hundreds of questions or poring through social media manually. It can be a tedious task, but it’s well worth it. You’ll be able to prioritize your brand message, get new customers, and maintain trust with existing ones. Audience question analysis is a tool you’ll be glad you took advantage of.
Have questions of your own? Don’t worry! Best SEO Service Companies is here to help. Don’t hesitate to get in touch; we’ll be happy to discuss any aspect of SEO you have in mind.