Google releases “Question Hub”

Digital marketers, no matter if they work in SEO, content writing, or performance marketing, often seek out new ways to answer a searcher’s question while still driving results for clients. Determining which questions are being asked can be done in a variety of ways: analyzing Google searches, watching YouTube videos, looking at similar searches at the bottom of the results page, cruising forums, and more.

Luckily for us, Google has released a new product that just might make it a little bit easier. Introducing Question Hub.

What is Question Hub?

Question Hub is a new tool designed to enable creators the ability to develop richer content by leveraging Google’s unanswered questions. The tool isn’t completely new though. For the last few years, it’s undergone a test phase in regions like India, Indonesia, and Nigeria. After finding success, it’s finally made its way to the United States.

Google made the decision to develop and release the tool in regions where it discovered there wasn’t enough content to answer questions users were searching for. Google states: “Question Hub collects unanswered user questions and surfaces them to bloggers, writers, and content creators. With Question Hub, you can:

• Explore topics you’re interested in
• Use relevant user questions to create more comprehensive content
• Track the impact of your content created”

How to access Question Hub

In order to leverage Question Hub, marketers must either use an existing Gmail account or create a new one. It’s worth noting, however, that it’s best practice to use an email account that has access to a verified site on Search Console. If a site is not verified in Search Console quite yet, verifying site ownership will be the first step in accessing Question Hub. If you’re part of a larger organization, webmasters can add individuals as users in Search Console.

Question Hub is relevant to more than just content creators

While Google only mentions the usefulness of the tool for bloggers and content creators, digital marketers can also get in on the fun. For example, if you’re running search ads for a B2C client, Question Hub can surface relevant questions that would inform ad copy creation, landing page selection, and guidance on additional keywords that could be targeted.

The same goes for those on SEO and content teams. If content pros are looking to create new landing page copy or optimize an existing landing page, Google’s Question Hub can guide copy creation or keyword optimizations. Furthermore, content or SEO professionals can submit existing or new pieces of content that answer a question featured in Questions Hub and monitor its performance. Specifically, they’re able to monitor impression and click data of this content that comes from a site’s data in Search Console.

What marketers need to know about Question Hub

Google’s Question Hub is a new tool that marketers shouldn’t sleep on. It’ll allow marketers in charge of both organic and paid efforts to expand and nuance copy using an exciting new data input. And now that it’s open to the public, more creators (and brands alike) will be submitting their content to answer these questions. Ultimately, now is the time for marketers to become more familiar with the new tool in the chance it may be of use in the future.

Marketers should be capitalizing on the ability to use these questions to inform content creation and optimizations, as well as improving presence within the organic search results and potentially increasing the chance to appear in the Google Answers box. Both of these opportunities come with many benefits. For organic content and SEO professionals, the potential is there to improve organic search result performance and the ability to establish a brand, whether B2B or B2C, as a thought leader.

For performance marketers, utilizing the questions within paid copy could lead to improvements in click-through-rates and, potentially, conversion rates. Finally, it’ll help brands surpass competitors in the search results as ads will be answering the questions that their competitors are not.