The Article That Breaks All the SEO Rules (Update)

byParthaB

4.2K followers

3 years ago

You would think, considering that most of my WA blog posts are between 2,500 to 4,000 words that I’d pretty much cover everything that you’d want to know.

But, OH NO!!

I mean, you guys and gals have no questions for the oft-seen WA blog post of 45 words titled, “My Hamster Has Dyed Her Fur Pink, What Shall I Do?”

However, I give you my heart-and-soul and what happens?

It spawns 3,279 questions and a further 2,866 PMs.

I just can’t win!!!!

In fact, I was going to title this post, "Oh Zarina, Zarina, Zarina!!!" But, I did't (Love Her).

Actually, I can't lay the blame at one person, Hahaha, bless her, it seems you ALL love a question!!

Anywho, this post is an update to a previous post - I Want You to Break All the SEO Rules and Write This Article.

The crux of the post was to simply go to Google, input your main niche phrase into the search bar, and then keep clicking on the “People Also Ask” section to reveal more-and-more questions.

You would then answer each question, perhaps one or two a day over a period 20,30,50, 90 days to create the ultimate resource within your niche.

Once you’ve got a good few questions and answers, you can publish the post, but you can still update and add to the post as and when you wish.

I also stated that I have done this for a number of websites and niches, although one of them really took off this year.

It took 2 years of a few hundred to a few thousand visitors a month to that one article, and then BOOM!!! This ONE article received over 20,000 visitors in February 2022 alone.

However, as I say, my WA blog post explaining the process produced multiple questions (in fact, it felt like I was given homework and made to create another FAQ just for you - HOW RUDE!!! LOL)

So, here it is.

You Can Do This More Than Once

I guess I’m to blame, as I initially said that this article would be the most informative and ultimate resource in your niche.

Plus, I spoke about working on the article (in your spare time and ON TOP OF your normal article writing) for 10-30 minutes a day.

Basically, open a Google Doc (or writing tool of choice) and answer one question a day.

Once you’ve done this for X amount of days you’ll have created a huge FAQ-type resource.

Plus, this can be added to on a regular basis and made into a menu item on your site.

With that being said, depending on your niche, this doesn’t actually have to be a one-off.

In fact, let’s be honest, even though we are taught to “drill down” to find an appropriate sub-niche, many of us (most, if not all) have actually created a broad niche website.

In truth, I don’t actually see anything wrong with targeting a broad niche, as long as you’re willing to put the work in, and that you understand that it will probably take longer to gain traction in a broad niche.

That said, pretty much all my sites are broad niches.

But, I’m not afraid of either writing or outsourcing a few hundred articles a year, on an on-going basis.

Now, I’m going to use my Exercise site as an example to show you how you can create many, many of these FAQ-type articles.

However, please be aware that although you may start to get a trickle of traffic for many of the questions, it could take a long time to get some real traction with these articles.

Case in point, the example I used, I never received more than 3,000 visitors a month to the article I mentioned previously, and it wasn’t until month 27 that I hit 20,000 visitors for that one article.

But, trust me, it was worth the wait.

So, the point being, you can write many, many, many of these types of articles, but you should still be writing your bread-and-butter articles in the meantime, i.e. longtail keyword-focused, low competition articles, product reviews, etc.

Okay, so back to using my exercise site as an example.

So, I am going to do this for each specific body part, e.g. chest exercises, leg exercises, shoulder exercises, back exercises, bicep exercises, tricep exercises, ab exercises, etc.

I am also going to pick popular exercises and create the same type of resource for this, e.g. squats, bench press, deadlifts, bent over rows, bicep curls, etc.

Basically, the possibilities are endless.

So, let’s say if you have a Bootcamp website promoting Wealthy Affiliate and the Make Money Online niche, more specifically Affiliate Marketing.

You could do exactly the same for each one of your CATEGORIES.

So, let’s say you create an FAQ resource around, “Website Plugins”, “Website Hosting”, “Facebook Marketing”, “Pinterest Marketing”, and so on… the same principle applies.

You put your seed phrase into Google, scroll down to the “People Also Ask” section, click numerous questions multiple times to reveal more questions.

You can then create a separate resource for each category.

For me, I’m aiming to create around 20-30 of these types of FAQ articles, plus I was looking to also write another 250 “normal” articles for the site as well.

So, I would typically write a “normal” article a day, and then have a separate Google Doc where I pick an FAQ category and answer one or two questions from “People Also Ask” every day.

Basically, it all mounts up.

My “normal” articles are targeting low page one competition, so will rank and produce traffic immediately.

My FAQ-type articles realistically target a SHORT tail keyword by simply answering lots of questions (so, it will generally take longer to get any search engine traction).

Something else to consider is that these FAQ-type articles are very shareable.

So, make sure you share them on social media, and as they are fairly long articles (once completed and updated over time) you could actually convert them to PDF and then add them to document sharing sites, such as slideshare and scribd.

I just thought, I'm going to get 14,267 questions about "converting to PDF" and "sharing to document-sharing sites" - Come on JAY, help a brother out - "Happy Friday, Happy Saturday, today's training is on converting to PDF and document-sharing sites" - Thanks Man!!!

The aim here is not only to share the article yourself, but for other people to also share them, while linking back to your original article on your website.

In essence, you are looking to create backlinks to the article in the hope that this will push you further up the rankings, and quicker too.

You're gonna ask me more questions about this now, aren't you? Hahahaha

Always Keep An Eye Out For Those “Golden” Questions

Now, while you’re happily clicking away on the “People Also Ask” section, you should also check the google search for each question.

Every once in a while you’re going to come across an absolute gem.

What I mean by this is that you may find a question that you can write an INDIVIDUAL article about, as you can go into more detail, and you’ll especially want to do this if you find low page one competition.

Case in point - I’ve recently written an FAQ article about the Bent Over Row exercise.

However, one of the People Also Ask questions was, “Should You Row as Much as You Bench?”

BOOOOOMMMM!!!

Google page one had a Quora result, Reddit result, and THREE forums - easy rankings.

Now, the basic answer to this question is NO.

However, there are around 4-5 different reasons why the answer is NO.

So, those 4-5 reasons form my article subheadings, and then I simply expand of them to create a SEPARATE “normal” article.

So, always keep your eyes open when going through People Also Ask for your FAQ article. You may just find an absolute Golden nugget that is easy to rank.

FAQ Schema

Now, this was something that Jovo brought up in my original WA blog post.

I had to admit that even though I was aware of it, my knowledge was somewhat limited.

Here’s what an FAQ schema will look like.

So, as you can see it actually looks very similar to the “People Also Ask”, so if and when you eventually get ranked for your article, searchers could well be drawn to your post, as it almost looks like an official Google part of the search results.

I have found Jay’s training on this, but it appears to have been created in 2013.

I’m sure he said he created a newer one in 2020, but I can’t seem to find it (Linkie/Abie HELP!!!)

Oops, quick update, Kyle turned up in Live Chat and said he would push for a new FAQ Schema Training Webinar (ooohhh, it's all coming together).

Plus, I think most people will know that I’m a fan of Syed at WPBeginner, so here’s his article about the different ways to add FAQ Schema.

I believe there is a specific Elementor plugin for those of you using Elementor. Actually, I now believe there is an FAQ Schema standard plugin

But, as I say, my knowledge in this area is somewhat limited.

Perhaps, if Jovo reads this he can enlighten us in the comments below (or Pedro for that matter - they both love correcting my mistakes, LOL… It’s lucky I really, really, like both of them, Hahaha).

Final Thoughts

I think that covers most of the main questions I was asked as a follow up.

Actually, just remembered, Lynn also asked about changing the date of the article once you had more information during future updates.

I only ever change the date once, and that’s once I believe I’ve done enough for that subject.

So, in effect, if I publish my FAQ article on Bench Press on 22nd March 2022 with 15 questions answered.

I then add another 10 questions on 15th April 2022, I still keep the date the same.

Then I add a final 17 questions on 12th May 2022, and this will be the final time I add anything to this article, so I would update with the new date (I honestly don’t think the date matters as much to Google in terms of ranking anymore, they just like fresh and updated content, but searchers and visitors to your site always like to see a newer date. Think about your own experiences when you search for something online. You see two articles, one dated 2016 and another dated 2022, human nature makes us automatically click on the 2022-dated article - basic human psychology).

Right, I have no idea what this blog post reads like (I started drinking about halfway through - come on it’s 6.30pm in London you know, time to relax, and it’s not like I drink that often. So I have noooooooooooooooooo dhSHFUHefDSBFBDShdhdfvuufvjrvkev%%%%^£”))B )

Thank You For Reading

Partha