Answer Your Customers’ Question

If you do One Thing to market your business this month, answer a question on your website.

I feel like I’m “punting” to give this advice. Adding content to your website will always help you market your business. In this case, I’m suggesting a specific kind of content that answers a question.

How will this help you market your business?

Answering questions will help you get more website traffic.

More traffic from organic search. Since the Pigeon update, Google loves questions and answers. People turn to Google for answers. You can get that traffic if you have a post that answers them. Don’t just answer one question per piece of content- answer a few. Longer content helps you take advantage of the long tail. You’ll find your article answers more questions than you knew people were asking.

Questions that generate content tend to get traffic but not conversions. Usually, we’d be interested in leads and sales, not just traffic. In this case, traffic is good. The more people see our answer, the more they are introduced to your company as a potential solution. They might not be ready for your help now, but when they do, they know you can help. Content like this also has the ability to generate organic links. This will help your website grow in authority. As your site grows in authority, all your landing pages will appear more in the search engines.

More traffic from social media websites. Content that answers commonly asked questions tends to be shared on social media. This helps by introducing more people to your business. This also sends social signals for your website, improving its search engine visibility.

Social networking websites are search engines. People ask questions of their followers, and they will even search social networks for answers beyond their network. Having answers to these questions will bring traffic beyond those already following your account.

Answering questions will help your sales team get more leads.

Customers often ask the same questions. If you have an answer ready for them, you can make a good impression and make the sale easier.

Has a salesperson told you something that was not quite the full story? Having consistent answers to common questions also avoids confusion later. It’s always easier to keep customers than get new ones. Having prepared answers can help your sales team’s retention rate.

 Now that I’ve convinced you to provide answers on your website, how can you learn what questions to answer?

What questions should you answer?

What are people asking over the phone?

Keep a pad of paper near your phone. Maybe it’s by your receptionist, maybe it’s on your desk, or maybe it’s a shared Google Doc to which everyone can add a question they’ve been asked. The point is: people are asking you questions all day, so make sure you keep a record of them. Once you start a record like this, you’ll find a treasure trove of content for your website.

What are people asking your salespeople?

Ask them. Do you have a monthly sales meeting? Ask your salespeople. Do your salespeople speak with customers over email? Have them forward you an email with a question. Your salespeople are on the front lines with potential clients and existing customers. Tap into their experience to find the questions people are asking.

What are people asking Google?

You might not have a sales team or even a receptionist. If this is you, turn to Google.

Google Autosuggest. Ever notice that Google anticipates your search query as you type it? If you type slowly, you’ll see that Google suggests some queries. These come from commonly asked queries from other Google users. These are also an excellent source for potential questions to answer on your website.

Google Related Searches. Ever travel to the bottom of a Google search page? Next time you search, notice that Google adds a series of “Related Searches” to the bottom of the page. Given the query you entered into Google, people might have meant to ask these queries. It’s another excellent source of questions to answer.

Do a Google Search

Enter the following into Google, replacing “keyword” with a phrase related to your business:

Keyword who OR what OR where OR when OR why OR how

This will give you pages on the web that have already identified questions about your topic. They might have tried to answer that question before, but your company has a better answer, right?

If you answer a question that someone else has already answered, be sure to note this. We’ll use it later.

What do people ask on social media?

What do they ask you? If you are active on social networks, you already have a great source of questions. It’s hard to answer a question accurately in 140 characters on Twitter. If you answer a question on Facebook, how will non-Facebook users find it? Answer it on your website, instead.

What do they ask your competitors? Don’t have an active social presence? Poach questions that people ask your competitor. The fact is, your potential customers might have the same questions. Since your services are better than theirs, this is your opportunity to stand apart.

Search social networks

Just like we did with Google, you can search social networks for questions:

Keyword who OR what OR where OR when OR why OR how

You can search Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Quora, and maybe even Google Plus. You can search several social networks with websites like Topsy or SocialMention.com.

 Now that you have lots of questions, what should you do with them?

How should you answer these questions?

Publish the answers on your website.

Answer questions in your blog. I hope this is the obvious answer. Sometimes, people try to focus on fancy new things and overlook simple solutions. Your blog should answer the question that the title asks.

Don’t have a blog? There’s nothing magical about the word “blog.” Do you have a “News” section on your website? Do you have an “Articles” section? Publish your answers there.

If you have a difficult-to-edit website, start a blog (for free) on WordPress.com or Blogger.com. Better yet- contribute as an expert to a third-party website in your industry.

Answer questions on your landing pages. Potential clients have questions, too. Ensure you provide the answers on the page dedicated to a particular service. Like I mentioned earlier, Google’s Pigeon update loves questions. This might send the landing pages more traffic. You might also see a higher conversion rate as you dispel a prospect’s questions.

Whether you blog or update a landing page, keep each page unique.

Record a short video that answers a question.

YouTube is a search engine. Even your phone is a video camera. Take five minutes to answer the question over video and load it to your channel. If you want to be more successful, spend some time and money to make a professional video.

There are a couple of advantages of video over text. Video can make complex topics easier to digest. Video is also easily shared. You can publish the same video on many websites, expanding your reach more easily than rewriting the article.

Prepare a White Paper that answers common questions.

White Papers can generate soft leads. People might not be ready for your services. These people still have questions. Provide something for them to download until they’re ready to contact you. You might ask for an email address before they receive it. If you don’t, be sure you set up tracking. You will want to know that the White Paper generated the final lead when they finally need your services.

White Papers can reach an offline audience. Your sales team will not always be in front of a computer. Give them something to hand to a prospect. This will give them something to hand up the ladder to the real decision makers.

White Papers can reach C-level employees. C-level employees don’t read blog posts or watch videos; that’s delegated to someone beneath them. However, white papers can reach these decision makers.

 UPDATE: Won’t LLMs steal my content?

I wrote this article a few years ago. Will the rise of LLMs (like ChatGPT or even Google’s AI mode) change this strategy? After all, they take your content and answer the question without sharing your website as the source of the answer. That means you provide an answer but don’t get the traffic!

While I feel the loss of traffic from informational queries, like these, I’m okay with that. You lose traffic from people who would never be your customers. These are people looking to answer a question but not looking to pay someone for a solution. If they need help, they can ask their favorite LLM, “who can help me with this?” and then the LLM can recommend you.

I’m seeing this for clients who have followed this content strategy since I first wrote this post. They might be losing traffic from their blog, but they are now getting traffic from LLMs. It’s not as much as they were getting to their blog, but the smaller amount of traffic has an excellent conversion rate (upwards of 10%). That’s because if someone needs us- and is willing to pay us- they still have to come through our website.

Consequently, I’m continuing this content strategy for my clients with full knowledge that I might not get as much traffic as I used to, because I will still get the conversion I want in the first place.