Answer your web site visitors' questions, and share.

 

When it comes to knowing your audience and building lasting relationships, nothing beats asking questions and writing personal answers.

 

So here's a question for you...

 

Would it be possible to answer questions from your site's visitors on an individual basis, one on one?

 

I'm not talking about directing people to a dusty FAQ page. Nor about dragging and dropping pre-written answers to commonly asked questions with live chat. (Like we can't tell the difference between a canned answer and a live answer.)

 

I'm talking about inviting people to ask questions, and then answering them, one at a time.

 

If you work for a truly massive web site with tens of thousands of visitors arriving each day, you can reasonably answer no to my question.

 

But is that the case with the site or sites you work on?

 

Or is it possible to find people in your company who can put aside some time to answer questions?

 

Here are some good reasons to take the trouble to invite questions and answer them individually.

 

1. Your visitors and customers will love you for it.

 

They will genuinely appreciate hearing from a real, live human being who is taking time to answer their questions. You can do this with live chat or by email. Just make sure you write each response individually. No dragging and dropping.

 

It can be tempting to drag and drop an existing response, primarily because you'll find that the majority of people will ask one of anywhere between five and ten commonly asked questions.

 

Just keep in mind that while it may be the one hundredth time you have been asked that question, it is the first time that individual has asked it.

 

2. The more questions you answer, the more you will come to truly understand the people who come to your site.

 

If you have ever really listened to your visitors, you'll know what I mean.

 

It is tempting to think that we can get to know our visitors simply by studying the keywords they use to arrive at our site, and their behavior when they get there. Not true. As soon as you invite people to ask you questions, you'll get a whole new perspective on who your visitors really are.

 

3. By publishing the questions and answers on your site, you'll show people that you're listening.

 

One of the bad things about live chat in particular is that the questions and answers are "live" for a few minutes, privately, and then they are gone.

 

Far better to create a system that allows you to post both the questions and answers to your site. When you do that you are showing your visitors that you are the kind of company that both listens and answers.

 

4. Google will reward you.

 

If you create a new page for each question and answer, Google will surely notice.

 

This is the best way to access the "long tail" of search terms. When people ask you questions, they rarely use exactly the same words as everyone else.

For instance, if someone wants to know how to make a stronger brew of coffee, they might ask:

 

- How do I make stronger coffee?
- How do I make my coffee stronger?
- My coffee is too weak, what am I doing wrong?
- How do I brew really strong coffee?
- Do some coffee beans give you stronger coffee?
- How do I set my coffee maker to brew stronger coffee?

 

There are dozens of ways in which people will ask what is essentially the same question. And if each question becomes the title or headline of a new web page, then you are covering a broad and wonderful spread of long-tail search terms.

 

Concluding thoughts...

 

Answering customer questions one-on-one may seem like a scary allocation of resources.

 

But if you can find a way to do it, you'll not only please your visitors and make it more likely that they will buy from you, you'll also have the opportunity to make your site a lot more attractive to Google and the other major search engines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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