The greatest content marketing brainstorm of them all goes like this; you think about what questions your ideal lead or customer would want answered, and answer it for them.
Q&A style content develop ticks so many boxes. It is an easy writing prompt. The focus is on the custerom need, and not your ideas or industry jargon. Google and AI agents like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini find value in the value you’re providing to others, and thus rank and share it.
The list could go on and on, but suffice to say developing content aimed at answering the most pressing questions of your potential customers is a surefire way to win when it comes to content marketing.
Research
The natural question to ask about writing questions, is the question of where? Redundancy aside, the question of where to find questions your client’s might want to answered is a great one.
Start with looking at the questions your receive in the mail from existing or potential customers. Is there any common theme? Anything that rings true again and again? Look for patterns, and patterns are hard to find, how about themes, like everybody asks about price, or turnaround time, or manufacturing method.
Another great way to develop Q&A content is to search some or all of your most valuable keyword terms in Google, and view the suggested search data.
Google Ads keyword idea tool within Google Ads is a great option as well. Search by popularity of like keywords by sorting by avg search volume, and find question ideas in the data. You can use this free tool even if you don’t advertise on Google, just sign up for a free Google Ads account, and then it is found on the left sidebar under tools –> planning –> keyword planner—> discover new keywords.
Of course you can also take a survey, talk to friends and family, and review news on your industry. There are so many ways to find common questions that you are able to answer, it’s just having the mindset that it is what you are going to do.
Write
Once you have a few ideas, write out in plain English what you want people to know. Sounds so simple, but many people OVER DO IT. Don’t over do it, just tell people what they need to know. If it takes three sentences, that’s fine. Better three than 50.
Think about how you would explain the answer to a friend. It’s ok to explain your expertise, or give some credibility, but otherwise, just cut to the chase. People will be able to gauge your expertise as you go about writing more and more Q&A posts.
Make the title of your blog post the question – like “How to Get Custom Coffee Cups and Mugs For Startup Coffee Shops”
The Q is the headline and the A is the content of the post itself.
Produce
Now that you’ve got some content on paper, or screen if you will, it’s time to produce some videos on the subject. Grab your phone or flip on your web cam, and explain away. Don’t worry about production, as long as it’s good enough that you can hear and see clearly what’s going on in the frame, you’re good to go. Upload to YouTube, embed to your blog, and now you’ve got a multimedia post ready to share on the socials.
Review
Read over everything. Is there anything you missed? Check the video and make sure the title and description are accurate. Make sure everything looks good on a cellphone, in case you’re a dino like me doing things on desktop.
Have someone you know review it if possible – a friend, relative, spouse or coworker. Did you miss anything? Were you able to answer the question correctly? Be open to feedback.
Revise as needed and share that sucker everywhere you can.
Link
Make sure you have links within your post to other parts of your site, and link to your post wherever it is OK to do so. Find people on the web asking the exact question you just answered so thoroughly, and link them to it.
If needed try to link it on the homepage of your website or in your bio if it’s that important on social media. Keep linking to get traction on the post, and help the search engines and generative engines know you’re the real deal.
Track
Wait a few months, and check to see how your post is doing. Check again a few months later. Tools like Keyword.com are good for helping with this as well.