Blogging: Answer Questions on your Blog

Jan 17, 2012 | Better Blogging

One of the easiest ways to generate high quality, relevant content in your blog posts is to answer questions from your subscribers. There are several reasons why.

Questions are Automatically Relevant

When you get a question from a reader, you know that at least one person wants to know the answer. In reality, unless the questioner is a complete odd ball, there are a lot of people who want to know.

You’re the Expert

Your readers perceive you as an expert. So unless you’re faking it, you should be able to craft a helpful answer quickly.

People Search for Answers

Once you’ve answered a question, your answer lives on your blog. Search engines index it. When other people ask the same question they’ll find the answer on your blog. If the answer is relevant and helpful for them, they’ll probably like your other content as well.

Example: Two Ways to Answer Questions on Your Blog

Some blogs are built on questions. One of the best is Alison Green’s Ask a Manager blog. She’s been posting since 2007 and almost all her posts are based on questions. She answers those questions in two ways.

Most of the time, Alison answers a single question.  Her answer to “What should a new manager ask to get to know employees better?” runs to about 300 words.

She also writes posts that answer several questions. For an example, check out her post, “Mini answer Monday: 7 short answers to 7 short questions.” The answers to each of the questions are around 150 words.

Bottom Line

Posts where you answer questions give you an opportunity to produce high quality relevant content that other people will seek out in the future.