How to use a tool to build links: Introducing the keyword questions tool by Ken McGaffin, 5 November 2008
Creating a useful free tool is a great way to build links. To illustrate the point, we’re releasing the free ‘Keyword Questions’ tool for the first time today. We’ll be starting with no links and we’ll update you on how our inbound links are doing. (If you like the tool please link to it).
You’ll find it at Wordtracker Keyword Questions Tool.
Here’s how it works
You just enter a short keyword – one or two words – and the tool will pair it with six question words - what, why, when, how, where and who – and then conduct a broad match from Wordtracker’s database.
- So someone with a coffee website, could enter ‘coffee’ and find questions like ‘who invented the coffee maker’, ‘why use cold water when brewing coffee’, ‘how to make iced coffee’ and ‘how to clean a coffee pot’.
- A flower shop could enter ‘sorry’ and find questions like ‘how to say sorry to your girlfriend’ or ‘how to say sorry after huge argument’.
- A website on UFOs might be interested to know that the most popular questions on UFOs include ‘how to fake UFO photographs’ or ‘how to build a UFO’.
People have a ton of questions about all sorts of things. They want answers and many of them will go to a search engine to find them. By providing the answers to their questions, you’ll create interesting copy and pick up a lot of relevant traffic for your website.
Use the questions as inspiration for articles and you’ll rank for the question as well as for other related keywords. Furthermore, since each article you write will address a specific question it is therefore more likely to attract keyword rich inbound links.
Creating content based on the questions
Once you’ve completed this research, sift through results to pick what you think are the best or most relevant questions for your market. You can then decide how to answer the questions:
- You could create one web page or one blog post per question.
- You could group similar questions together and create one page per group of questions.
- You could create a single web page that answered all the relevant questions in one place.
Remember, if you like the tool, please link to it. Thanks.
For a comprehensive list of articles on SEO, keyword research, internet marketing and more go to Wordtracker Academy Articles. And there's always the Wordtracker Link Building for Search Engine Optimization page.
About Ken McGaffin
Ken McGaffin is Chief Marketing Officer at Wordtracker. He is an experienced internet marketing consultant and has worked for major pharmaceutical companies, advertising agencies, government bodies and non-profit organizations.
36 comments
What time frame does the #of times asked cover? 30-days, 60-Days, 1-year, etc.
Looks like an excellent tool.
Appears to be a useful tool.
Although I was surprised there were no results for terms such as "master resale" or "private label".
A general term such as "ebook" returns a surprisingly low number of results. Is it possible the database is fresh and still retrieving results?
Tried it with one of my main keywords and it came up with some useful ideas. However, it would be helpful to know what the timeframe was, as asked above.
Great tool, but I also want to know what time frame the number of times asked covers.
I think the tool is a great idea. I hate to ask the same question already posted before me, but it would really be nice to know what the number of "times asked" refers to.
Is this a daily, monthly, quarterly or yearly number?
I tried it and it came up with some useful suggestions. As above I need to know the timeframe. I can see the value of developing this tool.
I used the tool with the 5 main keywords associated with my website 3 gave zero results, 1 gave 1 totally inapropriate result and the other gave 9 results. with between 2 and 5 times. The tool may be useful when fully operational.
Hmm... some interesting and useful results, but I have trouble believing that 112 questioners asked:
"where can i find streach expercise for joint pain"
This is stretching (streaching?) credibility a long way!
There were some other long, mispelled and weird questions that were supposedly asked several times.
ken, great looking tool, my question is the same as above what kind of time frames are we talking about daily, weekly, monthly?
Excellent article! Keyword and link building is a difficult maze to venture through...You have helped to guide the way with this article....
I, too, would like to know the timeframe of the number of times the questions are asked? Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? Otherwise, I agree, it's a nice tool - and easy to use.
wow cool tool.i always liked using wordtracker but for newbies like me i can not afford their membership fee.thanks Wordtracker for this free great tool.
I love when I find my question as the title of a web page or a blog. I feel I am lucky that day.
Thanks for the article.
Rob, Jen, Howard, CD Rates, Frank, Pete, cheapprinterink: Wordtracker data comes from the last 140 days.
Rick, Frank: as I write (and you commented) we show the number of searches in our database. Others, including Google, extrapolate from their sample and show their estimate of real search numbers. I think we might start showing estimates of actual searches.
Richard: I don't know your market but 'questions' will always be a small % of searches in a market and smaller in some than others. The main use is not to find the most popular keywords but to create content that targets long tail keywords and others might find useful, perhaps link to.
Linda: I agree. We work hard at filtering out odd results like this but every now and then some get through and they can appear in clusters. An extra filter of common sense like yours is always needed.
Thanks so much for such practical nuggets. I am challenged to go and evaluate my site, and apply these principles.
Excellent tool. I can already see where I can implement it. kudos!
Hello! Good techniques to get traffic using questions. thanks
Is there any way of turning off X rated results. The search results for "women" made me laugh, then blush.
Cool tool though, especially for blog post ideas etc
lots of keywords return no result
not quite good
When Wordtracker says it's from the past 140 days, does it mean (let's say) 114 searches over a 140-day span OR 114/searches day using a sample size of 140 days? Like the rest of Wordtracker's results (even those are based on 150 days) ...
It would be nice to get some answers to some of these questions sometime soon.
By the way, where are these results or questions being asked?
Annie: It's the same database as Wordtracker's other tools and it would be "114 searches over a 140-day span".
sunsss: see reply to Richard above.
Allison Reynolds: I've made a request for the same feature.
Webtraffic: I'm on UK time and I try and answer questions twice a day. See Annie and reply to your question on another page.
I like the idea .. I posted in my blog in Bahasa
I really like this tool, after doing a few searches I am able to create and answer questions my potential customers may have with regards to our service in general. It helps to create better quality content as well like faq's on the site you may not have thought of etc. Great for creating articles as well on the subject or theme of your web site.
I have tried several keywords that are important for my site and are pretty common but i got no results. May I know the time frame for this? This is an awesome tool however especially when you have really developed it fully. Thanks!
Sorry to sound stupid, but is this tool free? I cannot find it on this page.
Daniel
Daniel: there is a link :)
Hi Ken, Very nice and interesting tool i ever seen. Keep it up. From where results come on this keyword tool? I hope this is major question you being asked. I am seo expert. Find this tool awesome and give it 10/10, if these results for google.
Hi Ken, looks like an excellent tool, which I will be able to use to optimise my site, keywords, links. Thank you. Will look forward to more traffic to my site.
Great advice for giving away a free tool to encourage links. When you give away a free tool, would you advise using a title tag related to the tool or a tag related to your overall website content? Thanks.
Excel: probably the tool but depends on its name.
This is a fantastic idea. Why nobody has ever done this before I do not know.
Simply brilliant!
I am using this to research the questions that our readers are asking, then writing a story about it and directing them to the best services/products/prices.
This is going to help me to help them and that will grow my business.
Thanks again
One of the things I like best about this tool is the ideas you can get from it for blog posts. I often hear students complain that they cant think of things to write for their blog.
However, if they just use this tool, they'd see all kinds of questions that people are asking about that relate to their products or services. By using the results shown, they can write answers to those questions within a blog post. Not only does it give them something to write about, it gives them another way to bring valuable eyeballs to their web site.
All in all this tool is a real winner!
We have been using this tool since it was released in labs and it makes creating outlines for FAQ pages very easy. Thanks for another a great tool!
Great tool for ideas on article writing. Each question can be a new article title.
Love the idea.
Did I miss the answer to "what is the time frame" that was asked so many times?
Thanks