Google People Also Ask: What It Is & How to Optimize for It

Ever wondered why certain questions pop up on Google search results, along with brief answers?

That’s the work of Google People Also Ask (PAA).

This SERP feature displays a list of questions related to your search query, providing quick and relevant information.

By understanding how to optimize for PAA, you can significantly boost your website’s visibility and attract more organic traffic.

Let’s dive into what Google PAA is, why it’s important for your SEO, and how to rank in it.

What Is Google People Also Ask?

Google People Also Ask (PAA) is a SERP feature that appears in organic search results. It displays a list of questions related to the search query, along with answers.

It has an accordion-like appearance, where users can expand a question to reveal the answer.

This action also generates new questions to the bottom of the list, giving users even more opportunities to discover related information.

Why Is Ranking in the Google PAA Box Important?

Ranking in the Google PAA box can significantly boost your website’s visibility for several reasons:

• Improved Visibility: PAA results are featured prominently on the SERP. Ranking in them can help more users discover your content.
• Increased Traffic: With more visibility comes more organic traffic. When users click on your answer, they’re taken directly to your website.
• Higher Rankings: The PAA box appears near the top of organic results. This means higher search engine rankings for your content.
• Stronger Authority: Being featured in PAA can establish your website as an authority on the topic. Users and search engines trust sources in the PAA box.

How to Optimize for People Also Ask

Now, let’s see how you can optimize your content to rank in PAA results.

1. Perform Keyword Research

To effectively optimize for PAA, it’s essential to understand the questions your target audience is asking.

Performing keyword research will reveal this information and help you identify ranking opportunities.

There are a couple of ways of going about it.

For a free option, go ahead and search your keyword in Google.

For example, imagine I have a pet eCommerce website, and I’m looking to optimize my dog food landing page. I may type “dog food” into the search bar.

From here, you can explore questions ranking in the PAA section for your keyword.

As you expand questions to reveal the answer, Google will continue to add new questions to the bottom of the list.

You could repeat this expansion process to get several PAA questions from a single search.

I’d recommend saving these questions to a keyword list so you can use them in your content.

While this process is free, it does come with a drawback:

You won’t know how difficult it is to rank for that question from Google alone.

If a question is too competitive, you could waste time making content that has little chance of ranking.

So, instead, you may want to consider the second option, which is to use a keyword research tool.

Keyword research tools will provide insights into the keyword difficulty of a question so you’ll know if it’s worth targeting.

LowFruits is an excellent choice for small business owners because it helps you find low-competition keywords that are easy to rank for.

To get started, head over to the KWFinder tool and perform your keyword search.

For our tutorial, I’ll use “dog food” again.

You’ll have the option to (1) access all keyword ideas or (2) access all keywords and analyze all high-intent keywords.

Since I’ve already generated this report and analyzed keywords, I’m going to select the first option.

If it’s your first time running a report for that keyword, you may want to consider the second option. (This page tells you more about the SERP Analysis feature in LowFruits.)

Here’s what my report looks like for our “dog food” search:

Here are a few things to point out about this report and how to best utilize it:

1. Pay attention to the SD column. SD stands for SERP Difficulty Score. This is a LowFruits representation of keyword difficulty, with 1 being the easiest and 3 the hardest. Aim for 1s.
2. Look for multiple icons in the Weak Spots column. Weak spots are ranking competitors with low domain authority. This means they’re easy to outrank — even for new or small websites. The more icons there are in this column, the easier it will be to rank high on the SERP.

Now, we’re going to set a filter to find questions we can use to rank in the Google PAA box.

Click on the pre-analysis filter from the top menu.

Then, you’ll scroll down to the Include filter and expand it.

Here’s where we want to enter words that trigger questions. Some examples include:

• Who
• What
• Why
• Where
• When
• How
• Do

Once you’ve added your words, go ahead and select Any word and click Apply.

Now when you look at your report, you’ll see only keywords that have these question triggers in them.

At this point, you should have a list of several question keywords that can help you rank in the PAA.

Remember to look for an SD of 1 and multiple weak spots to identify the easiest ones to rank for.

2. Use Question-Based Headers

Now that you know the questions your audience is asking, it’s’ time to optimize your content for them.

One of the most effective on-page optimizations you can make is to use your question keywords in your content’s headers.

Take your earlier keyword list and find the most appropriate questions for the piece you’re working on.

For example, let’s revisit the idea of a dog food landing page. Some questions we might include on this page are:

• What makes dog food hypoallergenic?
• How much dog food is in a cup?
• How to wet dog food?
• Do you need to add supplements to dog food?

All these question keywords have an SD of 1 in LowFruits and multiple weak spots, meaning they’re easy to rank for.

Your landing page could use an H2 or H3 for each of these questions.

This makes it easy for users and search engines to understand what your page is about and aligns with the question format of PAA results.

Finally, to show another example of question subheadings, here’s a screenshot of one of our LowFruits’ blogs about competitor keyword research. You’ll see that the H3s use question keywords that lend themselves naturally to PAA rankings.

Note: The above screenshot was taken using the All in One SEO Analyzer by AIOSEO. This free Chrome Extension helps you analyze your website and those of competitors.

3. Provide a Brief Answer Immediately

After writing a question subheading, answer the question just below.

Keep it concise and accurate. PAA results have limited space on the SERP, so it’s important to provide users with the main answer quickly.

You can always develop the idea in more detail in the following paragraph.

Or, if you’re using FAQs, the answer should fit in one paragraph.

Here’s what the earlier example of competitor keyword research FAQs looks like on our blog:

Notice how the answers are clear and to the point. They don’t have any “fluff” before providing users with the information they’re seeking.

They also fit within a single paragraph, making them ideal for search engines to pull and use in the Google PAA section.

4. Write High-Quality Content

This step extends beyond your FAQs and should guide your entire content creation process.

Focus your efforts on people first, search engines second.

Think of how you can provide comprehensive coverage of a topic while keeping users engaged and informed.

FAQs help you break up the text and provide a quick snapshot of helpful information.

Google also provides guidelines for creating helpful content. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Ask “who, how, and why” about your content. These questions will help you stay focused as you write about a topic. Keep your users and goal in mind at all times.
• Provide a great user experience. Is your website secure? Does it load quickly? Is it mobile-friendly? Google has several page experience recommendations to ensure your content delivers a positive user experience.
• Self-assess your content using the following questions: Does my content provide original information? Is it the sort of page you’d want to bookmark or share with a friend? After reading your content, will someone feel like they’ve learned enough about a topic?

5. Implement FAQ Schema

Since FAQs are often used by search engines in PAA results, you want to make sure they can easily find and understand them.

Schema markup is a type of structured data that is easy for search engines to understand.

It lives within the HTML code of your web page and provides essential details about your content.

There are several schema types, each serving a different purpose.

However, FAQ schema is by far the most common for PAA rankings.

Here’s an example of it in HTML from Google:

As you would expect, FAQ schema tells search engines that you have FAQs on your web page.

It’s written in a way that’s simple for search engines to identify the questions and answers.

Search engines can use this information to generate SERP features like PAA rankings.

As for how to add it to your website, you can use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to generate the code.

Or, if you’re a WordPress user, you can use an FAQ plugin like All in One SEO (AIOSEO). It has a Schema Generator tool where you can select your desired schema, and the plugin will implement the markup for you.

Google People Also Ask: Your FAQs Answered

A People Also Ask blog post wouldn’t be complete without a few FAQs. Here are answers to some of your most popular PAA-related questions.

Final Thoughts

Google People Also Ask is a valuable SERP feature that can help your website stand out in search results.

By implementing the strategies outlined in this article, you can increase your chances of ranking in PAA boxes and drive more traffic to your site.

Plus, PAA rankings help you provide a positive experience for users, allowing them to access quick and easy information on related ideas.

For more resources on how to improve your online visibility and SEO performance, check out the following articles:

• Search Intent Explained: What It Is, 4 Types, & Why It Matters
• How to Increase Organic Traffic [10 Proven Methods]
• 7 Tips to Improve Your Organic Clickthrough Rate (CTR)
• 7 Best Rank Tracker Tools (And Why You Should Use One)