I read on Search Engine Land this morning that Hitwise is reporting the search queries are getting longer. Well, I have been discussing this in speeches and with clients for awhile. What I am observing as I scroll through tons of data and analytics for myself, clients and other businesses is that the queries are longer, but more importantly people are asking complete questions. I get a lot of traffic for “What is a title-tag?”. “What is an alt tag?”, “Where is Nick Hogan” (I didn’t actually try for that one). I did try for many questions and I have good placements for a variety of questions on Google and Yahoo. I have been doing the same for my clients and it works. More importantly, I am getting significant traffic for it and new clients who are pleased that I bothered to answer their questions.

My company is focusing on more than “Longer search queries”, we are focusing on questions people are asking and it works. Answering their questions in a real way creates trust and no one will hire you if they can’t trust you. There is a lot more that goes into creating trust online, but giving the searcher the info they are looking for helps significantly. Focusing on questions and answers is especially helpful for the medical field and lawyers, but has also become very useful in other businesses I work for. We all have questions and we all want answers. If Google and Yahoo are going to be nice enough to index the question than I say go for it and reap the benefits.

Melissa- SEOAware.com