WPblab EP112 – WordPress Marketing: Turning Support FAQ into Content Marketing

In this episode, Jason and Bridget chat about the frequently asked questions we get while supporting our WordPress products and services. Answering those questions can easily be converted to blog posts and fit into your content and SEO strategy. Join us live to ask questions in the chat.

Repurposing Content

DON’T – go to someone else’s website, highlight, copy and paste onto your site – that is bad!

DO – open up your email, look at the emails that your customers are sending you (the questions they ask), THOSE are the questions you should be using to turn into your FAQs and to fill content pages on your site.

HOW:

  • Don’t assume you have to start with a title (a concept is fine) but if you have one, use it!
  • Ask yourself what are the basic questions that your customers frequently ask or need to know? Questions via, phone / email / in person / help desk
  • Make sure to give your marketing team access to any help desk software you use, so that they can see what customers are frequently asking and where they get stuck.
  • Write it down or start a Google Doc and keep track of the Q’s
  • Go do a Google search – they’ll show “people also ask” which might frame it in a way that makes for a better title  (pay attention to the context)
  • Try using anchor tags in your FAQs to help people navigate better

If you are answering the same questions all the time, why waste time repeating yourself?  You’re better off adding the answer on a page or as part of an FAQ or blog post on your website.  That way, when you receive the same question again, you can share the page and your well-worded answer with your customers!

Jason uses a plugin that will take all the header tags on the page and use it to create a table of contents at the top of the page with anchor tag links that will direct customers to the exact spot on the page that will answer their questions.

Check in with your receptionists or the people answering the phones at your business – have them make a list of the questions they are receiving and what people are calling about.  If they are digging around on your site and can’t find things and calling for the answer, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your content!

Richard at WPHelpdesk.nl – He gets comments & questions through a gravity form on his website and when he answers the questions, he posts it as a blog post on his website. This is a great way to create content that’s tailored to your users!

Instead of building a site and hoping people will use it (and that you have the right content), you’re building it based on exactly what your audience needs.  Do right by your audience and your audience will find you! (it’s kind of hard to know who your audience is until you start having conversations!)

Sometimes  your customers can be frustrating – they don’t get it!  When it’s your specialization, it’s hard – you won’t be able to see why they don’t understand. A lot of times the way you communicate when someone doesn’t get it can increase frustration.

How to excel at communicating with your customers is by offering true education. Use your FAQs to help them understand your products and services. You want an educated customer base that values your products!

Use multiple ways to communicate – try video or audio along with your text, and infographics. (Always include text on the page with your videos – if it’s just video, it will have zero SEO value)

Don’t just think of one way to answer a question.  Think of different ways the question could be asked and rephrase / reframe it.  It will help your google search results too.

https://bridgetwillard.com/social-media-success-adjust-and-adapt-to-change/

Bridget  took a question to google and made note of the different “people also ask” questions and answered each one using them as an H2 on her page!

Your content marketing should be easy to produce. Take a look at the bullet points you include on  your website about the services you provide – each of those bullet points can be the starting point for a blog post!

You can also take a look at your reviews (from Yelp, etc.) and use them to frame a blog post around!  Also, consider reaching out to the reviewer to do a Case Study. The who, what, when, where, how of their experience with your product. The more technical the problem, the more detailed the case study. Case studies are also really excellent for pre-sales!

Russell tends to blog straight from his head and will write exactly as he thinks and not as someone would typically write.  What’s great about that is that people will search exactly as they think too and will get results from his site they might not find elsewhere.

Think about it from your mom’s, brother’s, uncle’s, grandparent’s point of view – what would they ask, how would they phrase it?  You want to answer the questions that your customers / readers / consumers are going to ask.

Use Help Scout or equivalent – it’s a great way to aggregate the info coming in.  Or use Gmail and their Labels feature to help organize your conversations and keep track of them. (Also, remember to keep your subject lines relevant to your emails to make them easier to search!)

TOOLS AND TIPS

Bridget: Use Google Drive https://www.google.com/drive/ to help organize your content/files and make it accessible for posting with your phone (download the app)

Jason: Believes in putting an online chat widget on your site (though it’s not the answer to everything – someone needs to be actively looking at / responding to it) – great if you have Help Scout https://www.helpscout.net/. There is a feature called Beacon that can help lead people to answers and if they aren’t found, will direct them to chat to get help from a person!

Also Crisp Chat https://crisp.chat/en/ – allows you to chat with your website visitors

Slack https://slack.com/  is great too!  You can keep conversations organized in channels.

Franz https://meetfranz.com/ Organize all your social messaging in one place!

Show notes contributed by:
Cheryl LaPrade @YayCheryl

Sherie LaPrade @HeySherie

Weekly Watercooler Discussions about WordPress and it’s community.

10 responses to “WPblab EP112 – WordPress Marketing: Turning Support FAQ into Content Marketing”

  1. Tonight on @WPblab#WordPressMarketing: Turning Support FAQ into Content Marketingwpwatercooler.com/video/wpblab-e…
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  3. Join @YouTooCanBeGuru and me @jasontucker on WPblab EP112 – WordPress Marketing: Turning Support FAQ into Content Marketing
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