An effective way to drive more website traffic that most businesses won’t do

You don’t always need a lot of fancy SEO work to get a lot of traffic, but the technical aspects of SEO do help, and we’ll get to them shortly.

But for businesses that want to attract more right-fit prospects who are more likely to become customers, you need to create content that addresses your prospects’ questions.

We aren’t talking about just any questions, though. To rank higher than your competitors, you need to address the questions your competitors are too afraid to answer but your prospects want to know.

If you’re familiar with IMPACT, perhaps you already know Marcus Sheridan’s incredible story: Before Marcus was a co-owner of IMPACT, he owned River Pools and Spas, a pool company that almost lost everything to the 2008 recession.

To save his business from going under, Marcus began publishing content on his website that answered the questions his customers were asking. But not in just any way — he answered every single question they asked, even the difficult ones, with complete honesty and transparency.

On the heels of this last-ditch effort to save his business from bankruptcy, Marcus watched in disbelief as his website’s traffic, leads, and sales exploded. By answering the questions his competitors wouldn’t address, Marcus saved the company (which is still thriving today) and set the stage for his lucrative career teaching other businesses how to achieve the same success.

The bottom line is, if you want to drive the right kind of traffic, you need to get honest about your products and services and what it is you do.

As outlined in Marcus’s bestselling book, They Ask, You Answer, if you write down every question you’ve ever been asked by a prospect or customer, you have the foundation for your entire digital marketing editorial calendar. These can be the topics you cover in articles, videos, podcasts, and so on, to publish on your company website.

Focus on addressing your prospects’ fears, issues, concerns, and worries. Write them down exactly as your buyers would ask (or search) them — not the way you (as the business) would state them. Cover these widely and deeply, hitting every angle of the issue possible.

As you brainstorm this list, be sure to also include the five topics that most companies are asked but are uncomfortable answering, even though they move the sales needle the most. They’re effective in any industry, whether your business is B2B or B2C.

We call them The Big Five, and they include:

1. Pricing and costs: How much your solution costs (factors, considerations, what defines value, etc.).
2. Problems: The negatives about, or issues with, your solution that buyers ask about.
3. Versus and comparisons: How your product or solution compares to similar products or solutions.
4. Reviews: Honest and unbiased opinions and observations about your product, solution, etc.
5. Best in class: What the best solution available is.

We’ve seen this SEO strategy work over and over again. When businesses take the time to answer these questions honestly and thoroughly, their search engine rankings improve and they see organic traffic increase steadily, month over month.

If you’d like to learn more about how to write these topics most effectively, we have a free, detailed course called “How to Write The Big 5.”

You can also talk to one of our advisors, who can give you more direction on writing these topics. They are always there to help walk you through how to approach The Big 5 and to answer any questions you might have.

In the meantime, here are some of the basics of SEO that you can use together with They Ask, You Answer for even better results.