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Google’s People Also Ask Feature: The world of SEO has changed considerably in the last few years. New features have sprung up to help searchers. But many of these features have left SEO experts a little confused initially!
It is only after studying the new features carefully and through thorough experimentation, SEO pundits have worked their way to optimize the new features. You can say this about Google and the work they do that they work for the benefit of everyone who is a stakeholder in this equation: the searcher and the average SEO professional.
What is Google’s ‘People Also Ask’?
In this context, one feature that has dramatically changed the space above the fold in Google searches (SERP) is a series of questions which try to answer your initial query by proposing other similar questions.
By clicking on the drop-down arrow beside the question, you get a quick glimpse of the answer, followed by a URL of the answer’s source. If you want to take a closer look at the answer, you can click and go to that page.
This feature is titled ‘People Also Ask’. The question to ask is, how has this feature changed the face of SEO? Are they stealing away clicks which would have gone to websites that are ranked higher?
This question is even more pertinent in the case of mobile searches because space on the mobile phone screen is very vital for SEO professionals. In this post, we are looking at some of the implications of this new ‘People Also Ask’ or PAA feature.
Location No Bar
The first pointer to understand about People Also Ask (PAA) is that their location is not always specific. Sometimes they appear at the very top while at other times, they may be located a little further downwards.
The location is crucial because clicks depend on where a particular content is located. Sometimes, they are below paid ads, sometimes even below the 10 organic SERP listings.
Videos No Bar
You should know that People Also Ask is not only about questions and their answers. Sometimes video links also form part of the PAA. However, right now this feature is not available globally. Probably Google has rolled out video links in PAA only for USA.
If you have a video content marketing team and use YouTube regularly for disseminating content, you should work on optimizing the videos to feature in People Also Ask. For questions that demand a video answer, like ‘How to’ questions, your videos will do better than just text answers.
Limit No Bar
If you are concerned about the number of PAA questions that can be triggered against a particular query, you should rest assured that there is no such limit. Moreover, the whole People Also Ask list is quite dynamic in the sense that once you click on a particular question to read the answer, it can trigger an avalanche of several other questions which were not originally there.
In other words, your initial query may trigger 3 or 4 People Also Ask questions but the moment you read one, another 5 may pop up. So the limit varies and you cannot put a number on it. Yet. So, you can work on several questions to address a matter. It will give you more opportunity to grab the searcher.
Hope these pointers help you make better SEO with the People Also Ask feature!
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