An SEO tool to understand your audience’s questions
Did you know that 60% of marketing professionals publish at least one piece of content per day? And that nearly 1,500 new articles are created every minute on WordPress?
Faced with this plethora of new content being poured onto the internet every day, it is essential that yours be relevant enough to stand out and capture the interest of internet users.
But instead of reinventing the wheel each time, you can simply use Twaino’s People Also Ask tool to find new ideas that truly interest your audience.
What is Twaino’s People Also Ask?
How and why use it?
We discuss this in our usage guide dedicated to our tool.
Chapter 1: What is Twaino’s People Also Ask and how to use it?
Let’s start this first chapter with a description of the tool.
1.1. What is Twaino’s People Also Ask?
This is a free tool offered by the SEO agency Twaino to quickly explore the queries presented in the “Other questions asked” section of Google.
Twaino’s People Also Ask extracts data from this box on Google to allow you to discover in just a few clicks several questions asked by internet users themselves on a given topic.
The idea is to really help you find in one place all the OTHER questions your users are asking and especially the words or phrases they use to ask them on Google.
1.2. How to use Twaino’s People Also Ask?
Twaino’s People Also Ask tool is intended for SEO and content marketing professionals. No download needed to use it, it’s available online and allows you to understand the search intent of your users so you can create more relevant and useful content.
To use it, nothing complicated:
access the Twaino People Also Ask tool;
enter a search term;
choose your language, then your region;
click the “SEARCH” button to start the search.
After a few seconds of processing, the tool generates a first page of results organized by default in the form of a tree structure.
As you can see, the idea suggestions are organized according to a silo architecture. This is a structure form highly appreciated by indexing robots as it facilitates exploration and improves user experience.
But if you prefer another form, you can click on the 3rd icon on the left and get a display in the form of a list.
This type of display is simpler and you just need to scroll the page to discover the rest of the results.
But the tool doesn’t stop at this first page. You can continue your search by clicking on a question of your choice and the tool will make it a starting node to generate other associated questions.
To retrieve the information obtained, you have the choice between copying the questions manually, saving them by taking a screenshot, or exporting them directly to a spreadsheet to make their use easier.
The save process is just as simple, you click on the download icon and choose the option that works best for you.
1.3. Why use Twaino’s People Also Ask?
To provide content with real added value, it’s important to know what questions your users are asking. Every day, your target audience asks thousands of questions on the internet.
And what are you doing to stay on top of these questions?
If you don’t have a strategy in place, Twaino’s People Also Ask tool will be of great help to you.
Our tool is based on data from Google’s “Other questions asked” section to help you find what your target audience is really searching for.
Indeed, apart from search engine optimization techniques, content must first meet the search intent of the internet user. Unfortunately, many content marketing professionals miss this crucial element simply because they don’t address the right questions.
Highunately, the queries recorded by search engines, particularly Google, are a valuable resource for content marketing. Every day, through billions of queries, internet users enter questions on Google that they have never discussed on a forum or social network.
These questions are a goldmine of inspiration that you can exploit at every stage of the content creation process to provide relevant and useful answers to your users.
Thanks to our tool, you will be able to:
1.3.1. Find new content ideas
Instead of reinventing the wheel with each new piece of content, you’ll find many questions on Twaino’s People Also Ask that you can develop throughout your editorial calendar.
The tool serves as a source of inspiration for your new content.
1.3.2. Improve your existing content
The Web is a medium of the moment and things are constantly evolving. An article that was successful a year ago is probably no longer relevant today and becomes obsolete. Such content needs to be updated and if possible repurposed to other formats to generate more traffic.
The questions suggested by the People Also Ask tool are trending searches that you can use to update these old pieces of content.
1.3.3. Provide an FAQ on your site
By knowing your users’ concerns, you can create a well-organized FAQ section to help them find solutions to their problems.
By browsing Twaino’s People Also Ask tool, make a list of a few questions you deem relevant to your audience and try to provide clear and useful answers to them.
On one hand, your users will find an answer to their concern, and on the other hand you get positive feedback on your traffic.
A little tip: when creating your FAQ page, be sure to integrate FAQPage structured data so Google displays your Questions/Answers as Rich Snippets in its results.
If your site runs on WordPress, you can use the FAQPage Schema plugin to configure this structured data.
1.3.4. Get ahead of your competitors
While your competitors exhaust their imagination trying to find new content ideas, you can draw inspiration from Twaino’s People Also Ask to access many relevant suggestions.
It’s a tool that allows you to be quick in creating your content while remaining effective, since thanks to PAA questions, you answer exactly the queries that internet users themselves have formulated on Google.
But concretely, what are “PAA questions”?
Chapter 2: Understanding Google’s PAA box
To make this guide as comprehensive as possible, we thought it would be useful to explain what “PAA” means in SEO.
As we’ve seen, our tool draws its questions from Google’s PAA box, which we’ll examine in detail.
2.1. Some important points to know about Google’s PAA box
2.1.1. Is there a limit to the number of PAA questions on a SERP?
The answer to this question is NO. For those who don’t know what we’re really talking about, here’s a definition that should clarify things.
In SEO means “People Also Ask”, in French “Other questions asked”.
It’s a search engine feature that suggests questions asked by other users that are related to your original query. What makes the “Other questions asked” block particularly interesting is its dynamic nature.
As soon as you click on any question in the PAA block, you unfold a text excerpt that briefly answers the selected question, with a URL that links to the source of the answer.
To illustrate this, let’s simulate a Google search: “how to play scrabble”.
Notice that on the first page of Google results, we find 4 questions that form the “Other questions asked” block.
Now, let’s try clicking on one of the questions in this block, for example “How to learn to play Scrabble?” and observe what happens.
First, the selected question has indeed unfolded, displaying briefly “5 tips to play scrabble like a pro”.
Next, the PAA block that had 4 questions at the start now has 6 questions, with 2 just added.
In reality, the “Other questions asked” box typically has only 4 questions at first, but with each new click, 2 or 3 additional questions complete the list.
And the more clicks you make, the more new questions are added. It’s a truly dynamic and infinitely expandable question box.
What you should remember most from this exercise is the PAA box’s ability to offer questions so diverse on the same topic that they can guide the internet user in a gradual understanding of the subject.
2.1.2. Can “People Also Ask” boxes occupy multiple positions on a SERP?
Many internet users think that PAAs occupy the same position on SERPs most of the time. But with some perspective, we realize that unlike Rich Snippets which are always at the top of search results, PAAs can be found in multiple places.
Here are some examples presented by Moz :
With the query “dj software”, we get this:
As you can see, Google displays for this query:
3 PPC ads;
related videos;
a list of 4 PAA questions at the top of the page;
10 organic results.
Now, let’s take another example: the query “cocktail dresses under 50 pounds”.
For this search, the search engine displays:
shopping ads;
1 PPC ad;
1 image carousel;
3 organic results;
a list of 4 PAA queries in the middle of the page.
The last example focuses on the keyword “TV unit”.
For this query, Google displays:
shopping ads;
1 PPC ad;
10 organic results;
a list of 3 PAA questions located at the bottom of the page.
As we can see from these 3 examples, PAA questions can be positioned anywhere on the SERP.
And each position has an impact on click-through rate, especially on mobile devices where space is more limited.
2.1.3. Can PAA questions lead to video results?
One might think not, but this tweet from Scott Clark clearly shows a video when clicking on a PAA block question:
This is a rather interesting approach when you know that most PAA queries are important and useful questions.
We hope Google offers more of these, even to the point where almost all queries that normally display video results also trigger videos when they appear in the PAA block.
The query “how to clean suede shoes diy”, for example, displays video results in the SERP, but not yet in the PAA block.
This could have been interesting since video content is increasingly appreciated by users.
On one hand, this approach would give your video content or YouTube channel more chances to gain visibility.
On the other hand, it’s the PAA block that becomes enriched for the satisfaction of internet users. With a single click, the user gets direct access to the part of the video that answers a given query.
2.1.4. Can the same PAA questions be displayed for different queries?
The question may seem obvious, but it’s important to recall these three points:
almost all PAA questions also display Featured Snippets;
the same PAA question can appear for different queries;
different questions listed in a PAA block, triggered by different keywords, can give the same result.
Here are some examples to understand these three points.
2.1.4.1. PAA questions also display Featured Snippets
In this first example, 2 keywords were searched on Google: “business card ideas” and “what is on a good business card?”.
For the query “business card ideas” we can clearly see that Google has displayed a list of some PAA questions. When you take one of these questions and put it back in the search bar, a Featured Snippet appears in Google’s answer elements.
2.1.4.2. The same PAA question can appear for different queries
A question that appeared in the PAA block for query A can indeed reappear in the PAA block of another query B.
This time, let’s take the keywords “business card ideas” and “quality business card design”.
In fact, a PAA question is not tied to one and only one keyword, it can always come back for other similar keywords.
2.1.4.3. Different questions listed in a PAA box, triggered by different keywords, can display the same result
A same list of answers that appears when you unfold a PAA question following query A can also appear for the same question, but after a different query.
A screenshot to better understand all this. Let’s go back to our example of “business card ideas” this time accompanied by the query “best online business cards”.
As you can see, for the keywords “business card ideas” and “best online business cards”, we get the same answer, which appears when we click on different PAA questions.
One might find it inconsistent that the search engine gives the same result for different questions. In reality, this is not as inconsistent as it seems.
Notice that, even though the two keywords are different, they express the same intent: to search for a business card using different terms that emphasize certain attributes (best and quality).
This way Google organizes results is important for you, in that one of your pieces of content can serve as both a Featured Snippet and a PAA question for different keywords.
2.1.5. PAA questions can be commented on
This is a feature unknown to the general public. Many internet users have certainly already glanced at this feature without really noticing it. It’s placed at the bottom of the PAA block, just after the last question.
It’s a hyperlink with the mention COMMENT, this pop-up window when you click on it:
So it’s possible to leave comments on Google’s PAA boxes. However, the search engine reminds us that this feature may not be available on some search results.
Furthermore, even if an internet user sends a comment, Google doesn’t promise to respond directly to them, but rather to take their comments into account to improve search results.
But appearing in PAA questions, what does that concretely bring to your site in terms of SEO benefits?
2.2. SEO importance of PAA questions
The PAA question block is becoming a key element for improving a website’s visibility. The fact that content selected to answer PAA questions is proposed by Google itself gives them a certain credibility with internet users.
These sites are perceived as credible sources and internet users are more inclined to click on their URLs for more information on the question. This is an opportunity to increase your site’s traffic rate.
Moreover, a website that appears in the PAA question box can still be duplicated on Google’s first page. This is in a way a double advantage on the first page of Google.
Furthermore, PAA questions directly impact the click-through rate of organic results. Notice that a PAA box, Adwords links, and video results push the first organic results further down.
Sometimes it’s even difficult to see them without scrolling the results page. And when you remember the expandable, quasi-infinite nature of the PAA box, you realize that organic results can go even much further down…
Ultimately, occupying the first position in organic results is no longer sufficient to guarantee good visibility of a website on Google SERPs.
It becomes essential to also optimize your content so it appears in the PAA block and has more visibility.
2.3. How to optimize content for the “People Also Ask” block?
Google’s “Other questions asked” and position zero content share the same objective: to best answer internet users’ questions. Regarding content for the PAA block, here are some optimization techniques.
2.3.1. Research content ideas for the “People Also Ask” block
Before optimizing content for PAAs, you need to make sure it’s a topic likely to be selected by Google to be displayed in the block. And for that, you might be considering using Google to list such topics.
However, browsing Google SERPs to collect them manually is not very productive. You risk spending far too much time on it. And that’s where Twaino’s People Also Ask tool becomes very important.
With one click, the tool generates several questions related to your search term. The questions are organized and presented to be easily visualized from a wide angle, ideal, for example, for content brainstorming.
You can then select questions and make them your list of content ideas before moving on to actual optimization techniques.
2.3.2. Put value in your content
Before hoping to appear in the PAA box, you must make your content the best possible, otherwise it won’t be selected by the search engine.
This is a sine qua non condition that requires the content to be well written, attractive, and above all, to provide value to internet users.
