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Section 2: Recipe No. 1 | Answer your customers’ questions
Use open questions
Using Wordtracker ’s Keyword Questions tool isn’t the only way to find the questions that people are searching for. You can also do some keyword research using Wordtracker ’s database, using open questions. The inspiration for this methodology comes from the British author and poet Rudyard Kipling , who wrote:
I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.
What? Why? When? How? Where? and Who? are known as open questions, because they usually require answers that contain more than one word. Memorizing Kipling’s lines of poetry is one way to remember the six open questions any writer should ask about a potential story.
Creating content
Let’s take those open questions and see what we can find out. Using Wordtracker’s Keywords tool, there are two steps to the process:
1. Choose a popular keyword for your market. Start with a single word. I
chose ‘business.’ Then pair it with each of the question words — don’t worry if the resulting pairing doesn’t make grammatical sense:
• What business
• Why business
• When business
• How business
• Where business
• Who business
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Section 2: Recipe No. 1 | Answer your customers’ questions
2. Now enter all six pairings into the search box. In the search options,
choose ‘broad match,’ which will then look for your keyword pairings in any order. A search for ‘what business’ will generate questions such as ‘what is a business plan?’, ‘what are current business problems?’ and ‘what are the most successful home-based businesses?’. For the best results, make sure you select ‘include plurals’.
Here’s a screenshot of the settings:
Questions create great content ideas.
Each of these questions represents searches made every day by real people. Use them as inspiration for articles and you’ll optimize your web page for the specific question as well as for other related keywords. What’s more, your article will address a specific question, so it is more likely to attract keyword-rich inbound links. And inbound links will help boost your search engine rankings.
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Reveal some of your secret tips and tricks
Articles that reveal secret tips and tricks are a great way of helping customers to learn something new and get real benefits from your site and your wisdom.
Everyone loves a secret
Many business owners feel they don’t have enough to write about, or time to crystallize their ideas. The fact is, if you’re in business or operate your own site, you probably have a wealth of knowledge, experience and insight that many of your customers and prospects will find interesting.
Break down the writing into manageable chunks. Pick 10 tips or tricks and write 100 words on each.
Read other sites for inspiration
Let’s look at some examples of tips pages that work well.
2
Kodak, a world leader in developing cameras and
photography accessories, has tips on its site about how to take better photographs . The site helps readers understand the dos and don’ts of different types of photo — whether that’s sunsets, nature shots, weddings or fireworks. The article describes what angles you should try to achieve, the settings you should be shooting in, and how to stop images from blurring in certain lights.
Wordtracker.com
Kodak’s site includes tips on how to take better photographs.
The tips are short, so they are easy to follow, and use plenty of images to illustrate the points made. The website engages with customers and encourages them to make the most of Kodak’s products – exactly what a tips section should do. It enhances the customer’s use and enjoyment of the product.
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Section 2: Recipe No. 2 | Reveal some of your secret tips and tricks
Gain links from authority sites
Hot Tip
Ask your website
visitors to submit their own tips and tricks and you’ll unearth valuable content ideas.
Wordtracker.com
Tips and tricks are not only useful to your customers but also to external publishers and authority sites. So, they can provide valuable inbound links and click throughs.
Have a look at this article: job interviews, Tips and Tricks written by Jeremy McCarthy, chief executive of VentureLoop , a company that helps create long-term relationships between venture capital firms and entrepreneurial individuals. McCarthy has 15 years experience in recruitment, as VentureLoop also provides job advertisements on its site. He uses his recruitment expertise to outline interview tips. He advises how to:
• research prospective employers
• prepare for behavioral questions (when interviewers ask you to give examples of how you would deal with problems and scenarios
• deal with questions like, “where do you see yourself in five years time?”
This is useful content – which is what people want. A good tips and tricks page can present you with an opportunity of reaching out to potential customers who don’t yet use your services or products. There’s a good chance your customers will email the web page to their friends or Tweet the article.
Think about your own industry. What kinds of insight can you provide that would be interesting and helpful to your audience?
How to collect tips and tricks
Here’s a simple method for collating and writing short tips for your potential customers.
1. Get yourself a method for keeping simple notes either your cell phone,
organizer, or a good quality paper notebook. It should be the right size to put in a pocket or purse and keep with you throughout your working week.
2. Pay particular attention to the ‘content’ of your work — the problems
you face, the solutions you come up with, the ideas and shortcuts you develop, the tips and advice that you give or receive from colleagues. Jot down a short sentence on each as they happen.
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Section 2: Recipe No. 2 | Reveal some of your secret tips and tricks
3. At the end of the week review your notes. If you face these problems, then
so do your customers, colleagues and others working in your industry. Pick the best of your content and develop the notes into sentences and paragraphs. Keep your writing simple and focused on solving a practical problem or idea.
4. Don’t over-elaborate. You don’t always need to justify your position — just give
people the nitty-gritty of what they need to do to solve the problem.
5. Now, get someone you trust to read and edit your material. You will
end up with some well-written, practical tips that people in your industry will value. Repeat the exercise until you’ve got 50-100 tips.
6. Now you can take the best and turn them into a useful collection of
published content.
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