SEO Tip: Write content to answer your users questions

April 13th, 2007 | Category: Google, Marketing, SEO, Usability, Webmastery, Yahoo

Having worked on many website design projects, I often tell my clients to first define who the users of their website are, which should be obvious for any project, and then secondarily, write the content in a manner that answers your users questions. As more people become familiar with search engines, they often pare their search phrases down to “local Chicago stores” or “sustainable chicago” and cut out the key terms they actually want “Where can I find local Chicago stores?” or “How can I live more sustainably in Chicago?”. As more natural language processing is incorporated into search technology, this will be less of a problem as search engines are able to “guess” what people are looking for. In the meantime, content providers should try and word their content in a manner that answers exactly the questions their users will ask so there is no need for technology to catch up.

Take Yahoo Answers for example, this site is an SEO’s and an information seekers dream as most posts are from consumers looking for answers to their questions. It’s not written with business logic or marketing intentions behind them. There’s no “Contact Us” or “About Us” or “Services Strategies”, it’s people asking questions and getting answers. “Detroit or Chicago? Pros & Cons, please give me the good and the bad of Detroit & Chitown?” and “Is being a vegetarian healthy?“. This is exactly what the web was created for. It’s topical and relevant and what the user is looking for. I agree that Yahoo Answers is also the lazy person’s search engine, but many of the questions and answers that are on Yahoo Answers represent intangible events and experiences not easily found on the web. For example, where is the best place to get an oil change near Halsted and Diversey in Chicago? I can always google “Chicago Oil Changes” and get a big list of places. Then I can look at a map and see which places are closest to that. Then I can look at reviews of those places, if any exist. However, if I am a smart content writer, I figure out what terms, questions, and answers my users are looking for and write content to exactly match that.