Answer the Public is a tool that allows you to visualise search queries, helping you to see exactly what your target audience is looking for – basically it performs an automated autocomplete. It fetches and maps the keyword suggestions/predictions that you see when you perform a Google search. So, when you type in a search term, Answer the Public shows the most common questions that have been searched in relation to that term.
You get shown the most searched questions:
- What?
- Why?
- Can?
- Will?
- Which?
- Who?
- Where?
- When?
- How?
- Are?
- The most searched prepositions:
- Is
- Without
- To
- With
- Can
- Near
- For
And, the most searched comparisons:
- Like
- Or
- Versus
- And
- Vs
You also get access to a list of the most common phrases beginning with your search term (that’s the automated autocue which appears when you start to type) – ordered alphabetically. And finally, you get access to a selection of related terms.
Answer the Public, in effect, shows you the questions that people need answering and shows you the things that people are interested in learning about, in relation to the search term you’ve specified.
Just like to Google Trends, the alphabetically ordered search terms and related search terms are invaluable keyword research, especially when it comes to finding long-tail keywords. (These are keyword phrases which are very specific to what you are selling that the customer who knows exactly what they are looking for, types in). But it really comes in to its own when used to help create content marketing. Content marketing is all about creating content that people are interested in, or that they find informative. Answer the Public provides you with a unique insight into these very things. If people are searching for something, then it seems logical to assume that they are interested in finding the answers. So, it becomes an effective tool to find the questions that people want answers to. It’s also a great way to get in to Google Snippets. This is when someone searches for an answer to a question, Google pulls answers from various websites. So, if you give concise, list style answers to the question, Google may pull a snippet from your site. Then, if someone clicks on it, you get more traffic.
Inevitably, numerous keywords will be irrelevant, but when you tailor and filter the results, you are left with an invaluable resource for both keyword searches and content marketing campaigns.