What are users wondering about? Optimize for frequently asked questions

Google is constantly working to better present the most helpful information to users. They want to ensure that their users are shown valuable content, written by humans – for humans.

Many might think they’ll rank higher by writing for the search engine. But it’s quite the opposite—Google rewards and values content that users appreciate. Content that doesn’t meet user expectations tends to rank lower.

But how do you actually write for the user?

What do users want to know?

When writing content for users, you need to think about what they want to know. What kind of information is valuable to them when you’re writing about something like “SEO”? Explaining what it is and what it stands for can provide a lot of value. Meanwhile, a landing page offering quotes might be less useful at that stage.

Optimize for commonly asked questions

One of our tips when writing for users is to optimize for commonly asked questions—questions anyone can easily find right in the search results.

In many SERPs, there’s a box you might have overlooked before. This box is called “People also ask” and consists of important—and often very relevant—questions related to the keyword.

If you’re writing about something like “SEO”, try doing a Google search and scroll down a bit—you’ll find that box:

Around the keyword “SEO,” these are some commonly asked questions. It’s a good idea to answer a few of them in your content on the topic. Just remember not to go too broad – you still want to stay focused on the subject at hand and not drift off into unrelated areas.

To uncover even more question suggestions, you can often click on the questions to expand and reveal additional ones:

Even if not all of these questions are suitable for the page you’re working on right now, they can still serve as inspiration and ideas for content on other pages or in future articles. For example, the question “How do you work with On Page SEO?” fits better as a standalone page rather than on a general SEO page.

Google the topic

In conclusion, we recommend that you always do a Google search on the topic or keyword you plan to write about. That way, you get a head start and insight into what users are actually searching for – which allows you to write content for the user, not for the search engine.