The closer you can match your articles and posts to what’s going on inside people’s minds, the better.
We all have an inner voice. For some people it’s fairly quiet, for others it’s as though it has a loud hailer at its disposal. And all points in between, often at different levels at different times.
Most people don’t vocalise their thoughts but if you can get inside your own head and get to the bottom of what’s bugging you, you can write an article or a post about it. And it will resonate with your readers.
Start to notice the questions that crop up regularly.
Whether they’re in your head, in comments on your blog, inside emails you receive, on forums or places like Yahoo Answers or just in the suggestions that crop up as you type in Google.
Any of those places are ideal for getting inside people’s minds.
The beauty about most of them (except maybe the questions buzzing around inside your head) is that you’ll get the actual words people use.
That’s critical in my view.
In so many areas, it’s easy to get caught up in industry jargon.
TLAs (three letter acronyms), buzz words abound.
So does concentrating on what your niche talks about when it meets up and gossips.
That’s why an outsider can often wreak havoc in an industry by focusing on what customers think and want.
A while back, Firefox did it to Internet Explorer. Now, Chrome is doing it to Firefox.
So take the time to find out the common questions being asked – even if you think that everyone knows the answer to them. Because obviously they don’t, otherwise people wouldn’t be asking!
For instance, there are plenty of tutorials for setting up WordPress (including some I’ve done) but that doesn’t stop the question being asked on a regular basis.
So make it your mission to track down the things that are going on inside people’s heads.
Then write an answer!
Using as many of the words and phrases that they’re using when they ask as possible,
It’s one of the ways I come up with ideas for the posts I make on this site.
I use questions I get in emails or on Skype calls or just chatting.
Or – and this one takes a bit more practice – by drilling down to the core problem.
Often people will just say something general. Maybe because they don’t know the question to ask – there are lots of things I search for that it’s only obvious what I should have searched for after the event.
Knowing what to ask is often the key to getting a good answer.
And that’s actually a good place to come from – that could be a blog post in its own right (and maybe will be) – teaching people how to ask better questions.
Another great way is to pretend that you’re a curious child.
Keep asking “why” until you get the breakthrough answer.
So if the questions you get are vague, start by answering them in a sentence or two, then ask yourself “why”.
Keep repeating – it often takes between 5 and 10 times to reach the real underlying question.
But when you do, a light bulb goes off in your head and you’re ready to write your article or blog post.
And you’ll have hit the underlying question that’s been bugging the people you’re trying to reach.
Try it for yourself.
Why?
Because it works.
Why?
Because it reveals the underlying questions in people’s minds.
Why?
Because we’re taught from an early age that we should conform. And that if we ask seemingly dumb questions then we’re the dumb ones.
Why?
We still have those thoughts but they’re supressed.
Why?
Because our minds don’t like unanswered questions – that’s why television shows end on cliffhangers or with a trailer for the next show.
Why?
We need completion or closure.
See how that’s drilling down? And kind-of going in circles at times.
But all the time it’s clarifying what the original question was.
And if you follow my 20 minute article method you could easily make each of those points into sub-headings and then your article or post would cover the most popular variations going through people’s minds and would crop up in all sorts of search results you’d never have covered in any other way.
Feel free to add your thoughts about this in the comments box below.