In this post you will learn:
Question-based keywords are now ranking higher for SEO than ever before and more than two-thirds of searches are voice-assisted questions. Making sure you have the answers to long-tailed questions should be a key part of your SEO strategy
The answer is yes. Google ranks question-based keywords higher for SEO as the trend towards asking more voice-assisted questions continues to grow.
You can write the perfect piece of content but if it doesn’t answer the questions that your ideal clients are asking the search engines then the chances of the article, page or website ranking high are almost nil.
If you can get into the mind of that customer and give the answers that are most relevant to their questions, then the search engines have no choice but to rank your content.
Let’s take it a step further back. Google, Yahoo and Bing want to give their searchers the quickest and most trustworthy answers they can to any search questions.
Making sure you understand how your customers search for information must be the cornerstone of your SEO strategy.
Changing search patterns
Look at the way you yourself search for products or services online. It has changed drastically in the last two years and will continue to evolve as AI continues to evolve in Google and their rivals.
You may have searched two years ago for a particular word, now you most likely search by asking a question. Instead of ‘green tea’ you may ask ‘why is green tea better than black tea.’
That is because they have a particular intent when they go online and that intent comes out through their online question.
It is surprising that some developers and content writing are sticking with the focused, concise words when they should really be looking at longtail words or phrases.
Algorithms have developed so much in a short space of time that an answer to almost any question can be done in less than a second. That keeps users on their search engine page and that is precisely what Google want from you.
If they can answer your question quickly, then the chances are you are going to stay there and look at the answers and the first three snippet boxes will be ads which is how the search engines make their money.
Increase in voice-assisted searches
Secondly, the increase in voice-assisted searches has continued to skyrocket with over a billion voice-assisted questions a month on Google.
There are almost 2 trillion (2,000,000,000,000) online searches a year or 5.6 billion a day. 71% of online searches were voice searches in 2021
Questions make up a huge portion of the search traffic so if you don’t understand the questions your customer is asking you could be missing out on a large amount of potential business.
Why are voice searches so important to SEO?
To answer that question you need a quick lesson in semantics. I had a school teacher in Cork that use that word a lot and I used to think it had something to do with artificially inseminating a cow.
Understanding Google semantics
I didn’t understand the meaning of the word which is quite ironic given that semantics is the study of words and their true meanings.
Google has an algorithm for understanding semantics quickly and presents the most relevant search results.
So they take into account the understanding of language, the context of the search and how two questions could relate to one another if your first search answer wasn’t satisfactory.
It’s where Google analyzes the search information and tries (and most times succeeds in) understanding the natural language behind what you’re searching for to allow Google to give you the best results.
Is there an SEO benefit to answering questions?
In short, yes. As voice search continues to be more popular, people tend to have a more conversational approach to their searches rather than trying to focus on a particular word or words.
Google knows you’re asking a question if you use any word like who, what, where, when or how and their algorithm has determined the search query is a question phrase. It is then that the semantics-based search begins.
Trying to make the featured snippet
The featured snippet is the box you see in your searches that stands out from the rest of the results and ideally your company’s product or service should aim to make it there.
So keep it in mind that you should be looking for what your customers’ intentions are when they ask a question and have a solution ready for them once you understand their pain points (the reason they went searching in the first place.)
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