tip

Save hours each month by speeding up your FAQ research using this neat trick

Skrevet af Esben Rasmussen i SEO     Comments Ingen kommentarer      
jan
18
Quickly identify questions in Google Search Console for FAQ research - represented by a single stone with a question mark in a field of stones
Quickly identify questions in Google Search Console

In this blog post you will learn my tips on how to quickly identify optimization options for your content using frequently asked questions (FAQ) – which is especially useful in a zero-search volume niche.

I will briefly introduce my recommended process for working with a zero-search volume niche in a non-English language – and why FAQ research is important in that context.

If you already perfectly know how to work with zero-search volume keywords, here is your shortcut to jump straight to the FAQ research bookmarklet.

How to do keyword research for non-English zero-search volume keywords?

For my Danish LinkedIn connections I have mentioned this earlier but the process is this:

  1. Create a keyword analysis in English (remember to include questions) – due to bigger search volume than other languages
  2. Identify and group patterns in the keywords by intent
  3. Translate this to your respective language and build out your framework* for zero search volume keywords

* = An example of a generic framework could be:

  • [product] price
  • [product] cost
  • [product] Vs. [product 2]
  • [competitor brand] Vs. [your brand]
  • [competitor brand] alternatives
  • [who, what, where, how etc.] [niche lingo]

Now that we have the keywords, we need to convert this to great content! Here is the process:

How to optimize for zero-search volume keywords using FAQ-markup

FAQs come in handy for zero-search volume keywords, since we need to do everything we can to broaden the visibility of our content and expand upon Google’s understanding of what could be related contexts.

The process in its entirety would be:

  1. Create a keyword analysis in English – due to bigger search volume than other languages
  2. Identify and group patterns in the keywords by intent
  3. Translate this to your respective language and build out your framework for zero search
  4. Create the content and the pages based on the framework
  5. Ensure these pages are using all relevant schema markup (FAQ, recipe, article, course, event etc.)

Marking up your content using schema markup ensures Google understands the context around your content as much as possible – meaning it increases the chances of appearing for neighboring searches as “related” or “also asked” besides perhaps earning a coveted featured snippet for the main keyword.

FAQ markup is especially helpful in this context, since it allows to cover known questions or logical followup questions inspired by your framework while easily tapping into “related searches” and “also asked” based on similar questions.

For this part you need to have uncovered the related questions for which your site could be relevant.

FAQ research is therefore a prerequisite and here is how to speed it up.

Speeding up FAQ research in Google Search Console using a dynamic shortcut (javascript bookmarklet)

Below I will walk you through how to quickly research the most interesting FAQs using any SEO’s favorite tool – Google Search Console in combination with an awesome shortcut.

  1. First drag THIS LINK to you bookmarks bar in the browser for easy access
  2. Rename the newly added link/bookmark to “GSC EN FAQ shortcut”
  3. Visit any website in GSC and click your bookmark “GSC EN FAQ shortcut”
  4. A new tab opens with all (that I could think of) English questions

The bookmark is a dynamic shortcut to the web performance report going back 12 months while using the following regex:

( |^)what( |$)|( |^)which( |$)|( |^)who( |$)|( |^)can( |$)|( |^)should( |$)|( |^)would( |$)|( |^)do( |$)|( |^)where( |$)|( |^)why( |$)|( |^)when( |$)|( |^)how( |$)|( |^)whose( |$)

The shortcut dynamically identifies the currently visited property and uses this in combination with the bookmarked report.

Since I live and work in Denmark, I have also created a Danish version of this dynamic shortcut, which uses Danish questions.

Drag this GSC DA FAQ shortcut to your bookmarks bar to add it to your browser as a bookmarklet for easily getting all your Danish FAQ questions in Google Search Console.

If your are even more technical, I would of course recommend using the API to extract a bigger set of data from GSC.

You are always welcome to reach out if you have any questions – both regarding the process or the bookmarklet.

My LinkedIn profile is probably the easiest way to contact me since my website is mostly in Danish.

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