How to Find What Your Customers Are Already Searching For
Every failed content program we have seen shares the same root cause. Not bad writing, not too few posts, not the wrong platform. The topics were chosen from the inside. Someone in a meeting decided what the company wanted to say, and nobody checked whether anyone was asking.
The fix is a discipline, not a trick: before you write anything, find out what your customers are already typing into a search box. This article walks through how we do that, in the order we do it.
Start with the questions you already hear
The richest source of topics is not a tool. It is your own inbox.
Go through the last few months of sales emails, support tickets, and call notes, and write down every question a customer or prospect asked. Not the ones you wish they asked. The ones they actually asked, in their own words. "Does this work with our existing system?" "What is the lead time?" "How do you compare to the other option we are looking at?" "What happens if it fails?"
You will notice two things. The same questions repeat, and the phrasing is plainer than the language on your website. Both are useful. The repeated questions are your first ten topics. The plain phrasing is how those topics should be titled.
Ask your sales team for the objections they hear most. Ask support for the problems that take longest to explain. Each of those is an article that would have saved someone a phone call, and a search engine's job is to find exactly that article for the next person.
Check the questions against search data
Once you have a list of real questions, check whether people search for them, and how they phrase it. Google's own tools are enough to start.
Type a question into Google and look at three things: the autocomplete suggestions as you type, the "People also ask" box in the results, and the related searches at the bottom of the page. Together they show you the exact wording people use and the neighbouring questions they ask next. Write those down beside your original list.
If you have Google Search Console connected to your site, look at the queries you already appear for, especially the ones where you rank on page two or three. Those are topics where Google already thinks you are relevant, and a better article can move you onto page one faster than a brand new topic can.
A paid keyword tool will add search volume estimates, which help with prioritising, but do not let the numbers overrule the customer list. A question fifty people a month ask, every one of them a genuine buyer, is worth more than a term ten thousand people search out of curiosity.
Look at what already ranks, and find the gap
For each topic that survives, search for it and read the top five results properly. You are looking for what they cover, what they miss, and how they miss it.
Usually one of three gaps appears. The existing articles are generic, written by people who have never done the work, so they lack the specifics a buyer needs. Or they are outdated, referring to prices, rules, or products that have changed. Or they answer a slightly different question than the one being asked, because they were written for a keyword rather than a person.
Any of those gaps is your opening. Your article does not need to be longer than the ones ranking. It needs to be the one that actually answers the question, with the details only someone in your business would know.
Sort by intent, not by volume
Not every search is worth the same to you. Someone searching "what is a purchase order" is learning. Someone searching "purchase order software for manufacturers" is shopping. Both are legitimate topics, but they belong at different points in the plan.
We sort topics into three rough groups:
- Problem searches. The person has a problem and does not yet know the solution category. These bring the most traffic and the least immediate revenue, but they introduce you first.
- Solution searches. The person knows what kind of thing they need and is comparing approaches. These are the heart of a B2B content program.
- Vendor searches. The person is choosing between specific options. Fewer searches, highest intent, and worth an article each.
A healthy plan covers all three, weighted toward the middle. A plan that only covers problem searches gets traffic and no leads. A plan that only covers vendor searches has nothing to rank for.
Keep the list alive
Topic research is not a one-time exercise. Every month, new questions arrive in the inbox, Search Console shows new queries, and a competitor publishes something that changes the landscape. We keep a running list, add to it constantly, and pick the next article from the top of it rather than from a calendar written six months ago.
The list is also the best defence against the most common content mistake, which is writing what the company finds interesting. When the list is built from what customers ask, the question of what to write next answers itself.
A quick test for any topic
Before an article goes into production, it should pass three questions:
- Has a real customer or prospect asked this, in roughly these words?
- Do people search for it, and can we see how they phrase it?
- Can we answer it better than what currently ranks, because we know something the existing articles do not?
If the answer to all three is yes, write it. If any is no, put it back on the list and pick the next one. Over a year, that filter is the difference between a blog that fills space and one that fills a pipeline.
