Welcome to Day 8 of the Substack SEO Challenge.
Here’ what we covered so far:
As promised in the last post, today I’ll share with you a specific content strategy to create a clear question > answer structure that serves your readers and helps your content get discovered in AI search.
And it’s pretty simple, so I think you’ll like it. I’m talking about adding one section at the end of your posts - an FAQ section.
How It Works
I’m talking about including some of the most common questions people have on the topic (and using their words, thus targeting many keywords at once) and the answers.
It doesn’t matter how many questions you add in that section, and each answer can be just 1 paragraph. If you want a word count for the FAQ section so you have an idea of how much content to prepare, you can go for 500 words (that’s just my opinion).
And the best part? You can not only use AI tools for this, but they can actually do a better job than us.
See, their job is to check all the available results online and decide which of these questions are most commonly asked, as well as gather the right answers for them. It’s aways better to write the answers yourself, though,
You can also include keywords and synonyms of keywords you want to target.
Example:
I updated an article on my blog some time ago. It’s well-optimized and has already been ranking very well in the past and did great on Pinterest as well. It’s on self-healing. But I wanted to make it extra helpful to readers by adding questions and answers at the end.
Here’s what I asked ChatGPT:
‘Write an FAQ section for an article on ‘how to heal yourself’ that’s targeting people who want to embrace self-love and are on a healing and spiritual growth journey.’
I loved the questions it came up with and think it did a better job than what I would have done.
Here they are:
What does it mean to “heal yourself”?
How can I start my healing journey?
What role does self-love play in healing?
Can spiritual practices aid in the healing process?
How do I deal with setbacks on my healing journey?
Is forgiveness important in the healing process?
How can I integrate self-love into my daily life?
Can healing yourself positively impact relationships with others?
How do I know if I need professional help on my healing journey?
Is there a timeline for healing, or is it a lifelong journey?
More benefits of adding an FAQ section to your post:
It makes the whole piece more valuable;
It’s the place where you can cover a few additional things or sub-topics that didn’t make it to the main part of the text;
It’s a great way to satisfy user intent - meaning that you give people exactly what they’re looking for. Sometimes, you might not consider some of these questions in the FAQ section important, but your readers do;
It increases your chances of ranking higher - one of the questions and its answer might be the reason why a new visitor lands on your publication. Google might show them this part of your article if they ask the exact same question;
It’s an easy way to make your articles longer when you can’t come up with more content on the topic.
💡 Quick tip: You can add an FAQ not just to new posts, but also go back to old ones and update them with it.
🎯 ACTION ITEMS
#1: Choose one existing post.
One that targets an important topic for your publication.
#2: Add a 5–10 question FAQ section using the strategy above.
Use ChatGPT or Claude to brainstorm questions, then fact-check and write the answers yourself.
So, what do you think about this content hack? Is it something you’re willing to try?
If you do, let me know how it goes in the comments below, share the prompts you used in ChatGPT/Claude for your first FAQ section, and link to the post you added it to so we can all check it out :)
And remember, you don’t need to add an FAQ section to every post. Use your judgment and be intentional. Add one when it genuinely provides extra value and can help improve your visibility in search engines and AI search.
Want to work work with me?
The Substack Growth Audit is the best place to start.
I’ll take a look at your publication and give you personalized recommendations to help you grow, improve your positioning, and monetize your content.
Founding members get the audit as a bonus 🎁
That's really great advice. I was doing it in my earlier posts and kinda lost that part in recent articles, probably rushing to publish. Taking your advice and adding!
Wow this is really helpful and it makes total sense! Thank you! My life would be easier if I had one single focus but because I am multidisciplinary and have integrated several modalities sometimes I struggle with the obvious because I'm too busy creating something unique and boisterous and powerful to help people with this very issue of healing and spirituality!