Understanding the Questions Your Audience Is Asking

Have you ever watched an interview and realized there was a huge disconnect between what an interviewer asked and the answer an interviewee rendered? While a question that seems disjointed from the resultant response may occasionally be chalked up to a miscommunication, that’s rarely the case when it comes to Internet marketing.

Too often, the answers that businesses provide in the form of digital content are provided in response to no specific question. In other words, too many organizations publish content for the sake of publishing something, anything online. These companies have no idea if their content answers a specific question that their target audience is asking because they have no idea what their target market wants to know.

When you think about it, publishing content with the hope that it answers a specific question when you don’t know what that question is, is somewhat like throwing a pot of cooked spaghetti against the wall hoping just one noodle sticks. Put simply, it’s wasteful.

Your Content or Your Audience: Which Reigns Supreme?

Even if you’re only moderately familiar with SEO and content marketing, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “content is king.” Believe it or not, Bill Gates introduced that catch phrase in an essay he penned way back in 1996. In his essay, Gates predicted that content would be responsible for generating “much of the real money” on the Internet.

You don’t have to be an online marketing expert to know that Gates’ prediction has certainly proved accurate over the years even though his prophecy pre-dated many things that are commonplace today, such as pay per click advertising and social media. While that’s the case, simply publishing content on your digital platforms is no longer enough to increase your visibility, conversions or revenue.

Today, your audience is more important than your content. That is, your target audience determines the value of your content as it relates to the questions they’re asking. For content to resonate with your target audience – and rank well in search engine results pages – your content must be meaningful and relevant to the lives of your audience.

How can you ensure your content is meaningful and relevant to your audience? By making sure the content you publish answers the questions the members of your target market are asking. That’s how.

What Kind of Content Does Your Target Audience Want?

If you’ve ever done any blogging, you probably know how challenging it can be to come up with fresh topics that will interest your followers. When it comes to digital marketing, the same is true. Luckily, digital marketers and business owners have an advantage here because you’ll never run out of content ideas if you know the questions your audience wants answers to. You can always expand on an answer, delve into the details a bit further or provide related content, after all.

While that’s all well and good, the fact remains you have to identify the questions your target audience is asking before you can provide one meaningful and relevant answer, let alone provide supplemental information. Here are some of the tools you can use to figure out the kind of content your target audience wants:

Your Own Words

When it comes down to identifying the questions your audience wants answers to, your own words are one of the most effective tools you can use. You can use your words to simply ask the members of your target audience about the things they’re curious about.

You can do this via email, social media, a telephone campaign or, if you own a physical store, face to face encounters. You can also put a contact form with a compelling call to action on your website, blog and social media pages to encourage people to share their thoughts.

Quora

Quora is one of the most valuable resources on the Internet for people who want to know what their target audience is asking. Quora boasts more than 100 million monthly users who ask and answer questions about just about every topic across industries and interests.

With thousands of new questions being asked and answered every day, the odds are good that at least a portion of your target market is using Quora. You can search Quora to see what questions your target audience is asking and review the responses your competitors provide to see how you can respond better and more informatively.

Twitter

With millions of people Tweeting regularly and following others on the popular social media platform, Twitter has become a fantastic resource to collect information about nearly any subject you can think of. And that includes the questions your target audience is asking. You can search Tweets using keywords and hashtags or you can take your search results up a notch by including a question mark at the end of your search queries.

Google Search Console

You don’t have to work for a digital agency to appreciate the information that’s available to you through Google Console. When you add your website to Google Console, you’ll be able to see how your site is appearing in organic search results. Even more importantly, you’ll be able to see the specific inquiries that eventually led people to visit your website.

If you really want to know what your target audience is asking, the ability just mentioned will be invaluable to you. As you look through the queries that took people to your site, be sure you identify the questions for which you don’t already have content on your site. Then, prepare meaningful and relevant content in response to each unanswered query.

Contact GoingClear 

If you need help figuring out the questions your target audience is asking and how you should respond to them in a relevant and meaningful way, our digital marketing agency can help. Since 2001, GoingClear has been one of the leading digital marketing agencies helping businesses in the Boston area thrive.

We offer a full suite of digital marketing services to small and midsize businesses operating in a wide array of industries, including yours. To learn how our comprehensive digital marketing services can help to take your business to the next level of success, contact GoingClear now!