ANSWERING INFORMATIONAL SEARCH QUERIES TO INCREASE ONLINE VISIBILITY

Take Colgate, for instance. Predominantly, it sells retail dentistry products. Yet, if I search for any dentistry related informational query, they will normally come up at, or near, the top of the Google search results. Being a knowledge provider is a great way to gain visibility across the web.

BREAKING INTO A NICHE

This is a tactic that works particularly well for companies starting out in a new industry. When there’s an innovative product gaining traction, a lot of the search queries will be informational — people are trying to learn more about a product and an industry they are unsure of.

It’s important to strike while the iron is hot and answer all these informational queries before other competitors jump on the bandwagon. Not only does this bring in traffic to your own website, but it also establishes your position as a trusted knowledge provider within Google’s algorithm.

It’s a win-win because you can also use your informational content to turn readers into buyers. After being reassured of the benefits, people will naturally browse your site and look at your products, and you can use the CTAs (Calls to Action) in your content to get them to do so.

DOES THIS WORK IN A COMPETITIVE INDUSTRY?

In an already established industry, it can take a bit more time to become an established knowledge provider, just because of the sheer amount of competition you are up against. Most informational queries have been answered many times already.

To counter this volume of information, you can use the Skyscraper Effect to break into a saturated knowledge space. It can be used to answer high volume informational keyword searches with a high level of competition.

This method entails replicating an already existing post on a specific subject, then going above and beyond.

Say, the top-ranking page for a certain keyword term is a post of 1500 words — you want to go above that and crank out 2000 words of quality, value-providing content on the topic.

Let’s say you make microcontrollers — a well-established product category with lots of content already written about it. If a top article gives a general overview of an embedded system, your article should also give an overview and then go into more detail and discuss every feature and technical detail of said embedded system, going into depth where the original post did not.

Having said that, there will still always be shorter, longtail, lower competition keywords you can answer and rank for even in a competitive niche. It’s good to compile a list of every question you can answer and possibly rank for in your topic area. You can then either answer each individual query with shorter, more frequent blog posts, or you can make a larger guide and intertwine a few different keyword queries if it makes sense and they naturally fit in.

FLOOD YOUR NICHE WITH CONTENT

If you don’t know where to start when it comes to gaining visibility, start with content. It’s a great way to achieve initial traffic and provide some social proof for your products and services by becoming a trusted, value-providing knowledge guru.

Not only does providing knowledge improve Google’s perception of your business as a trusted, authoritative leader, you also become trusted in the eyes of your potential customer. If your knowledge is good, they think, your product must be good. That’s a truth universally acknowledged.