How to answer a question matching user intent ?

[seoanalytics]

Hello,

How do you answer questions (the famous user intent) in your content when moz keyword tool, google related searches or all the other tools on the market don't have any questions to propose ?

For example take the keyword title tag, the questions are, the optimal length, title tag definition etc...

But what about with the keyword Provence bike tours ? what are the questions people have ? It is an informational query but I can't find any questions for it with the different tools out there ?

The only one that I find are "best base for a bike tour in Provence" or "one day bicycle tour in Provence" but this isn't what I offer or do and it will be very hard to integrate in my content other than I do a blog page that answer those questions...

Is there a way to answer for example "biking in Provence" which is a keyword the keyword tool gives me ?

Thank you,

[seoanalytics]

Thank you for the info and I will re watch the whiteboard friday as they are very useful, I agree.

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

Yes of course.  Why not?  Why should you listen to LSI graph or answer the public if they are just not picking up your niche.  If you just google cycling holidays in france (or wherever) there are many many results.  I can see cycling for softies and 'the chain gang' which sounds more sporty.

So this is just as I thought it might be in my previous answer.  The actual words you use are not the point.  If you have a good level of English and write intelligently and at the level of your audience then google will understand what you are trying to say.

My strategy would be to model your clients site structure on some of the top performers in searches for the terms you are interested in.

But getting bogged down in the semantics of keywords is a 5 year-old strategy and is going to get you into trouble with the recent update that penalises sites that try to optimise for keyword variations like having two pages for "Cycling in France" and "French Cycling Tours"  These mean the same thing and rankbrain understands they mean the same thing so just choose the one that sounds most natural and relevant and run with it.

Google doesn't rank keywords anymore it ranks topics.  So put together a diagram of your topics and what you want to write about (a good place to start is by googling these sites and seeing what topics are present) and then start writing articles that are relevant to your audience.

If you google "cycling vacations in Provence" all the information you need is on that first page.  Right there infront of you.  I'm not sure why you're trusting LSI graph and these tools when the only tool you need is google itself.

But use you r own intelligence, creativity and intuition to inform what you should be writing about.  That's a strategy that never fails.  And as google gets smarter and smarter it's only going to reward great content and punish people for trying to game the system.

At the end of the day you are not fighting to understand the algorithm.  It's designed and changed and updated in a way that intentionally obscures its intricacies.  All you can do is be authentic, helpful, accurate and comprehensive.  Then mark it all up with schema and when it's done you can then think about maybe benchmarking what you've got against the number one position and you might realise you're inadvertently using words too much or haven't mentioned important phrases.

But just get the thing researched and written first and see how it does.  Research should be the longest part of the process.  And that involves reading through each site and each page on those sites for the top five results.  That will give you a feel for what is important.  Screw LSI graph.  Use your own brain to solve the problem - becoming overly reliant on SEO tools can lead into a downward spiral of confusion.

But I URGE you to watch some more whiteboard fridays.  All the answers are there.

[seoanalytics]

Hi Ed,

Thank you for your detailed reply. So you are saying to answer questions that I can think off even though I can't find those through related searches or lsi graph ?

Then, how do you answer a question when one of the related searches is Cycling vacations in Provence ? How do you answer that with the where are  , what is a, why take ? is it the way to do it ?

Thank you,

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

Hi there,

I think you're being too 'keyword focussed' here. Google doesn't rank keywords anymore it ranks 'topics'.  So the first thing I might do would be to remove the local identifier in your research (not on your page). So you might get more info about bike tours.  I mean they are going to be fairly and broadly similar wherever they are in the world.   If you're talking about a specific location then google will know about it if you make sure that the location is in the URL and in the H1 and mentioned in the copy etc.

But I see your point, Answer The Public and LSI graph have pretty limited choices about bike tours and they are mostly just relating to different parts of the world.  So go low tech.  Think 'what do my people want to know about bike tours in Provence?'

Answers I can think of off the top of my head might be:

Things to take with you, what to do in an emergency, great villas and wine stops, how long is a good day's biking without fatigue for different ages, families vs couples, what are the best bikes? bike racks for my car if i'm driving? What if I want to fly and hire a bike? Where are the best places to stay.

Google loves comprehensiveness and is like a library so it likes organisation.  So I'd be tempted to divide my site into main topics like couples, families, wine enthusiasts, fitness fans, stag parties, whatever are the general groups of people you have.  and then include subtopics like the best bikes, ways to travel, places to stay and other elements of the tour to suit each 'customer avatar'

Go low tech, speak to your customers, use your own expertise on the topic.  Tools are great but some of the best positions and number one position articles I have were just really comprehensive and well ordered, nicely written and super helpful pieces addressing a topic or group of people.  So like a customer avatar.

Then at the end of each page have an FAQ and that will pick up all the long tail keywords and questions that will appear in blue in the SERP and increase your click-through-rate.  Rankbrain is smart and you don't need to think about keywords anymore so much.

Just think about organising the content and covering all the bases with FAQ'a and you'll rank just fine.  Even with a low domain and page authority.  I have 'Veneers Cost' which is one of the most valuable dental terms imaginable in the number one position nationally here in the UK and I wrote the article before I knew a thing about SEO.  I went around my dentists and asked them all what they thought and gave a no BS assessment that helps people find out how much veneers cost and makes useful comparisons rather than tries to get them in for a consultation. Watch Rand's WBF on searcher task accomplishment.  That might help you. Good luck!