People Also Ask – A Key Way to Get Organic Traffic

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If you have ever typed a query into Google, scrolled down a bit, and hit the drop-down on one of those questions just under the first few results, you have seen the ‘People Also Ask’ feature in action.  This is a feature that gives you questions related to your query and a snippet of an answer.  And it is an interesting way to increase your organic traffic as more and more ‘ordinary’ companies find their content in it.

What is the People Also Ask box?

SERPs or search engine results pages have been changing for a while now.  Go back 4-5 years and the top-ranked result on any page would get around one-third of all of the traffic from that query.  But that percentage has been declining for a while as Google pushed in more paid ad content.

Then they started to add more features such as knowledge panels, featured snippets, and local packs.  As a result, that coveted top spot is worth less than 20% of traffic now. 

The People Also Ask box was one of the new features to appear to help handle the demand created by the answer box that often appears at the top of the screen.  Their aim was to provide more related content to help answer your questions based on related queries that people have also asked.

PAA and voice search

All of this means that People Also Ask could be a good way to get organic traffic to your site, especially with the continued growth of voice search where these snippets could be particularly important. 

Experts said in the US alone, there are expected to be 70 million households with a voice assistant like the Amazon Echo by 2020 and this means these answers will be an ideal way to get traffic from this type of search.

Facts not promotion

It is also worth noting that the answers are facts, not the space for promotion.  If you were to search for something like ‘How much does Tailwind cost?’ then the answer comes up with a link to Tailwind’s own website. 

The PAA box for the query starts with ‘Does Tailwind cost money’ and the answer is a snippet from a review post that breaks down their three plans and the costs involved.

Key things to know about People Also Ask

So, there are definitely benefits to trying to rank for the People Also Ask boxes but what are the key things you need to know to have a chance of doing this?

PAA often repeats featured snippets

People Also Ask Questions can also create featured snippets and these can be the same answer even if the queries are a little different.  For example:

• Business card ideas – keyword 1
• What is on a good business card – keyword 2

These show the same query (keyword 2) on both the top of the PAA box and as a featured snippet with the answer, image, and links.  Clearly, Google knows that if you are looking for business card ideas, then what is on a good business card is going to be relevant for you, even if that isn’t quite what you asked.

They aren’t always at the top

According to MOZ, the PAA box isn’t always at the top of the page and can be mixed up with other key elements of the first page of a search including ads, organic listings, and related videos or images.  While this might mean your PAA might not be as valuable as one for another keyword, it still means good solid organic traffic.

There doesn’t seem to be a limit on them

People ask how low do they go?  And the answer seems to be ‘no one knows’ at the moment!  If you click a box, more appear.  Click another one and a new set of related questions appear.  If you have a couple of days to keep clicking, you may find an end.  Let me know if you do!

They can be video as well as text based

The majority of the time, the content in a PAA box will be text based but it can be video.  One article from Search Engine Roundtable found that they had a video in a PAA box alongside the typical drop-down questions.  Now no one knows how you get your content into those boxes but by optimising video content, especially YouTube, you might be in with a chance.

Structured data and PAA

It is important to understand that if you want to have a chance of showing up in those People Also Ask boxes, you need to use a special formatting called structured data or Schema.  While Google hasn’t said you must have it, the general consensus is that it is the best way to have a chance of your information appearing in those little drop-down boxes.

In short, featured snippets are a summary answer to a query.  Just like the examples above with ‘how to start a blog’, the snippet will often give a short, to-the-point answer.  It isn’t always right at the top but in this example, before the People Also Ask box, there’s a ‘how to start a blog in 6 steps’.  Note that they list six short steps – this is done with structured data to help it show up in this way.

How to create content for PAA

In a sense, you don’t create content for featured snippets or People Also Ask.  You create content for your reader with solid on-page SEO.  And you use formats that will have a chance of being picked up for one or both of these.  To do this:

• Address questions in your content and give a concise answer
• Aim for a paragraph that answers the question of 40-50 words then go into more depth in the rest of the article
• Make sure you use the right heading tags
• If you have a list or table-style content, make sure it is formatted in this way

Work on that SEO

There’s no way to be sure you rank for People Also Ask or any of the other features on the first page of search results.  But if you use solid practices and ensure that you provide good content while working on those SEO basics, you can increase your chance and get more free organic traffic from Google.

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