Keyword research is essential to any SEO content marketing strategy. Using the right keywords helps your audience find your content with Google and other search engines. Whether you’re refreshing old blog posts or creating new content, the right keywords will boost the visibility of your work.
But knowing what people are searching for isn’t enough. You need data and context to understand why people search for certain information, how often they search for it, and how much competition exists for those search terms, i.e., how many other pages have content with the same keywords.
AnswerThePublicis a useful keyword research tool that focuses on keyword discovery, showing you the questions people ask with just a simple keyword search function. It can help you fill up a content plan in no time, all while helping you discover questions, topics, and keywords your audience cares about.
AnswerThePublic serves as an initial step in your SEO strategy. It helps to demystify the process of keyword research and discovery. But how does it work?
In this guide, we'll review what AnswerThePublic offers so you can decide if it’s the right fit for your business’s SEO content strategy.
What is AnswerThePublic?
AnswerThePublic is known as a search listening tool. It “listens in” on search engine autocomplete results, like Google’s autocomplete feature, to find the questions people are asking.
AnswerThePublic lets you plug in a few relevant words about a topic to see an array of insightful (and sometimes downright weird!) things people are looking for relative to your topic.
By letting you know what people are searching for, AnswerThePublic helps you generate content ideas while offering keyword research data, such as how popular the term is and the cost per click for running ads using these keywords.
And it's not just Google results that AnswerThePublic helps with. You can do keyword and content idea research for Bing, YouTube, Amazon, and TikTok to make sure you're targeting the right topics on the right platforms and meeting your audience where they hang out online.
Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital, runs AnswerThePublic. He believes the search listening tool is one of the most powerful keyword discovery and research tools and favors AnswerThePublic for SEO keyword research.
Why Is Keyword Research Important?
Before diving into how AnswerThePublic can help you optimize your digital marketing strategy, let's take a moment to discuss the importance of keyword research.
You spend time and care creating quality content that piques reader interest, showcases your services and products, and helps your customers lead better lives. Quality like that deserves to rank highly on search engine result pages (SERPs). But to rank, you need a robust SEO strategy that gets your content seen. And one of the main tenets of SEO is keyword research.
What Are Keywords?
Keywords are the words and phrases people plug into their search engines to trigger a list of results. So, to be visible at the top of the SERPs, you need to use keywords that are relevant to your content and represent what people are looking for. When keyword strategy is coupled with quality content that provides value to readers, the chances of ranking higher will increase.
Your audience must be able to find you. And that means speaking their language by including words and phrases they're using to search online.
Read more:A Step-By-Step Guide to Keyword Research
Think about it. You might be the perfect match for a potential customer searching on Google, but if you use slightly different words to describe your product or service, you're not speaking their language. And like two ships sailing past each other in the night, you may miss one another without even realizing it.
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research gives you insight into keywords and related words — synonyms, slang or buzzwords, and semantically related words — that your target audience uses to describe your service. Once you get the right terms, you can develop online content around them and drive organic traffic to your online content.
Having an assortment of keywords to focus on ensures your content stays relevant for years. Check keywords once again when you do your regular content tune-ups, and be sure to follow the Google E-E-A-T guidelinesfor ranking on their search pages.
Read more:9 Ways to Increase Organic Traffic to Your Website
How AnswerThePublic Works
AnswerThePublic gets its data directly from Google and other search engines. As NP Digital puts it, their tools "listen in" to the autocomplete data of search engines to reveal all sorts of things people have searched for. AnswerThePublic constantly goes through this data, picking out "useful" phrases and questions and storing them in a database.
Using AnswerThePublic for Keyword Research
To use AnswerThePublic, enter 1-2 relevant keywords. It will then reveal a goldmine of audience insights. Notably, it combines your keywords with other sentence elements to provide a visual image of search queries.
For example, the keyword query "rock climbing" gives data on the number of searches for this keyword, plus:
Questions Analysis: Questions that start with "are," "can," "what," and so on. For example, "Are rock climbing gyms safe?"
Prepositions Analysis: Prepositions used, such as "for," "near," "without," and so on. For example, "rock climbing without ropes documentary."
Alphabetical Keyword Lists: Alphabetical keyword phrase lists. For example, "rock climbing auto belay" under "A."
Related Searches Data: Related searches for the key phrase.
In visual mode, each result has a small dot underneath ranging from deep red to pale pink. This gives you a quick insight into the search term’s popularity. The darker the circle, the more often people search for this term.
It also offers the click per cost (CPC) for ads, which tells you how much it costs advertisers to run the ad per click. This is a useful piece of data if you’re a company looking to run ads with these keywords.
A Tip for Using AnswerThePublic
The great thing about AnswerThePublic is that in visual mode, you can click on each phrase and it will take you straight to the Google search results. There, you can see exactly how the keyword is used by the highest-ranking content.
Think about it: If you’re using the keyword “Are rock gyms safe” and write about bacteria buildup in the mats, and all the search results are about safety harnesses and helmets, Google is unlikely to rank that piece for that keyword. Context is just as important as the words and phrases you use.
Limitations of AnswerThePublic and Alternatives
AnswerThePublic is a great starting point in keyword research and a big help in identifying potential keywords and generating content ideas. However, it doesn’t provide an in-depth analysis of performance.
AnswerThePublic alternatives like Semrush, UberSuggest, Ahrefs, and Moz offer a more detailed view of keyword analytics. Due to the nature of AnswerThePublic’s search listening capabilities, many marketers use it as a complementary tool alongside full-service SEO software options.
If you’re looking for simple keyword discovery or want to generate keyword-rich content ideas, AnswerThePublic is an excellent option. Just be aware that it doesn’t provide heavy analytical data about CPC, search volume, competition, and other factors.
Read more:How to Set SEO Goals (and Achieve Them)
Learning to Use AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic, like other SEO research software, has a learning curve to get the most out of it. If you’re a beginner, you might find it tough to translate the data generated into content ideas.
Fortunately, if you need an AnswerThePublic user guide to get started, the platform offers a free email courseon how to use the platform's search insights. You can also buy the full video coursefor $199 or get it free with an AnswerThePublic Pro subscription. Both options help you learn how to do keyword research on the AnswerThePublic platform.
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AnswerThePublic Features
You can use most AnswerThePublic features without signing up for a paid plan. However, there's a cap of 3 searches per day. Subscribing to one of the premium tiers will unlock additional insights, features, and more searches.
AnswerThePublic is not a full-service SEO Tool like Semrush or Moz, but it does offer a unique view of how people are searching for content organically. It gives you a more nuanced understanding of the keywords produced and how you can improve your content so it performs better.
Here's an overview of what AnswerThePublic offers.
Perform Unlimited Searches & Exports
With a paid subscription, there's no limit to how many searches you can perform daily, which is particularly useful for digital marketers and other professional users. Premium subscribers can export results directly to a CSV file for later reference, so you won't have to return to the platform to revisit your results.
The exported CSV file enables you to filter the search data in a way that works for you. Alternatively, if you need visualization tools, you can revisit your AnswerThePublic dashboard to view the insights options. You can even export high-resolution images of these visualizations for easier referencing, presenting, and sharing.
Monitor & Receive Alerts for New Suggestions
The nature of this tool means it's always collecting new, potentially valuable data on how people are searching online. After all, as time goes on, people’s interests change. So the option to monitor and receive alerts for new suggestions on specific searches is a powerful feature.
Premium users can set up alerts for a weekly email digest highlighting the questions being asked around a given topic. Considering the ever-changing brand perceptions, seasonal trends, and constant stream of fresh, emerging ideas and concerns, this feature lets you stay ahead of competitors. You won’t need to log into your account to perform new searches that take away valuable marketing time.
Hide Unwanted Suggestions
Not every result is useful — we’ve tried it. We used “Scripted” as a keyword and found questions like “How scripted is WWE?” and “Is Love is Blind scripted?” Interesting questions, but not very relevant to our company or content.
AnswerThePublic lets you prune them out of your search results and hide anything you consider irrelevant. That helps you keep your research efforts streamlined and reduces time spent sorting through irrelevant results so you can work on what matters most — creating quality content that resonates.
Try it:Scripted's Free Blog Idea Generator
Learn and Collaborate
AnswerThePublic makes collaboration easy. Users on the Pro plan can include up to 3 users, while the Expert tier allows you to invite unlimited team members. You can work side-by-side on a project or operate independently on separate projects.
What's more, if you want to make the most of this tool, it offers a video masterclass, training eBook, and other educational resources to ensure you can use every feature available.
AnswerThePublic Pricing
The free version of AnswerThePublic is powerful, but with only 3 daily searches, you'll quickly hit your search limit. If you want more searches or the premium features described above, opt for one of the tool's paid subscription plans.
Each plan offers the choice to pay monthly or a one-off fee for lifetime access. Depending on your job and how long you think you'll be using this tool, plus your budget, a lifetime plan may be cheaper in the long run. Here's a breakdown of the tier costs:
Individual: $11/month, $199/lifetime
Pro: $99/month, $990/lifetime
Expert: $199/month, $1990/lifetime
All plans include:
7-day free trial (when paying monthly)
Keyword search
Keyword search volume
CPC data for advertisers
High-resolution image download
Ebook
Online course "How to Master AnswerThePublic"
Pro and Expert plans include:
Unlimited projects
Unlimited search tracking
Online course "Search Listening and the Customer Journey"
Unlimited CSV exports
Individual plans include 100 daily searches but are limited to 1 user and 1 project, and they don’t include priority customer support. They also allow you to set up 1 search listening alert. When downloading CSV exports, you will be capped at 25 per day.
What Users Say
AnswerThePublic’s G2 score is 4.5/5based on 30 reviews.
The pros mentioned by reviewers are its usefulness in creating FAQs, social media content, and blog posts. Users also like the simple, intuitive interface.
The cons include the limits on information. It doesn’t provide contextual information like the time frame or combined searches. According to one review, AnswerThePublic results include repetitive questions.
Create Content that Matters to Your Audience
AnswerThePublic helps you visualize keywords in context by showing how search engines interpret different words and phrases. This makes it an excellent tool for generating content ideas and discovering new potential keywords to use in your written content. While it doesn’t provide the comprehensive data that traditional SEO keyword search tools offer, it’s a useful assistant for starting your keyword discovery process.
Of course, once you have your keywords sorted, it’s time to create compelling content that draws in your audience. That’s where we can help!
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Published bySuzanne EricksononWednesday, July 24, 2024inMarketing Agencies,Content Marketing,Tools Reviews.
