How to Use ‘Answer the Public’ in your Content Marketing Efforts

We all know that providing useful, generous content is a winning approach for content marketing. But how can you find out what people are searching for in order to perfectly tailor content to their needs?

The answer lies in Answer the Public. The website is an excellent starting point for content marketers wanting to see what questions people want answered around a particular term.

Aside from having a very entertaining home page, Answer the Public can work wonders for your content marketing efforts.

So, what is Answer the Public?

This nifty website acts as a consumer insight tool, combining suggested searches from Bing and Google into a search cloud. Divided into categories such as why, where and what, the diagram generated gives an overview of what kinds of questions consumers are searching for (as seen in the example below when we searched for ‘digital marketing’).

What are the benefits for content marketers?

Answer the Public is a useful tool for content marketers for the following reasons:

• • It provides deep insight into what your audience are searching for

• • It assists with keyword research

• • It lets you optimise long tail key phrases

• It shows you how to phrase questions to get into Google’s featured snippets

Let’s delve a little deeper into each of these perks.

Insight into your Audience

Researching your target audience is an essential step in any content marketing strategy. While tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights have their place, Answer the Public can also be used to get some valuable insights. Answer the Public can reveal questions of a more personal nature than what people may be publicly posting on Facebook, for example. This allows you to craft content that directly answers your audience’s questions, especially when it comes to embarrassing medical or relationship concerns.

Keyword Research

Putting your chosen keyword into Answer the Public instantly reveals a plethora of other searches, shedding light on some of the terminology and phrasing your audience is using. You can then use these terms to gather more data using a tool like SEMrush, providing you with more information on the best keywords to use. Remember that a mix of generic and long-tail key phrases will increase your relevance according to the Google algorithm.  

Optimise for Long-Tail Key Phrases

Because Answer the Public shows you exactly how your audience is phrasing their questions, you’ll be able to better work these key phrases into your content. A clever way of sticking exactly to the phrasing provided by Answer the Public is to format them into a FAQs section or as subheadings in a how-to guide. After some further keyword research, you can optimise your content for more long-tail key phrases that are less competitive.

Google’s Featured Snippets

What if I told you there was a way you could appear on the first page of Google twice, organically? If done right, this can be possible with Google’s featured snippets.

Featured snippets are bits of information that Google presents as answers to user questions so that they do not have to click through to a website. Having your content appear in a featured snippet not only provides you with incredible exposure, but also establishes you as a thought leader in the minds of your audience.

Structured and concise content that provides exact answers to the questions your audience are asking is a solid first step. Providing valuable content at a glance is an excellent way of drawing people in for more, with further optimisation increasing your chance of appearing as a featured snippet.

Answer the Public operates on a freemium model, and can be well worth the Pro version for some businesses. However, even with the limitations of the free version, valuable insights can be gained using this nifty tool.  

Delve deeper with Digital Squad

Want to take your keyword research to the next level? Speak to your content marketing agency Auckland – Digital Squad. We are the leading SEO agency in Auckland and we can provide you with an in-depth content marketing strategy designed to serve you.

Hania Syed is a Melbourne-based content specialist with a passion for marketing and storytelling. When she’s not writing, she can be found exploring the city’s cafes or libraries. You can visit her at www.haniasyed.com or www.linkedin.com/in/haniasyed