Question Answering
A Search Engine uses Question Answering (QA) to construct human-like answers to search queries with relevant information. Question answering (QA) is a form of machine learning that provides a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) within the natural language processing and information retrieval fields; building systems that answer questions posed in a natural language by humans.
Natural language processing (NLP) is a branch of artificial intelligence that designs algorithms to process natural language data.
Question and answering programs can construct answers through the query of a knowledge base (a structured database of knowledge) or an unstructured collection of documents in a natural language.
Question and answering systems are either closed domain (answering questions from a specific domain) or open domain (relying on general ontologies and widespread knowledge). IBM’s Watson is an example of the latter type of QA systems.
Open domain question answering systems take natural language questions and transform them into a structured query. Keyword extraction is used to determine the question type (what is, who, where, how many, how do I). Part of speech tagging, and syntactic parsing techniques can be used to determine the answer type (person, location, number). Then an information retrieval system is used to find data containing the keywords. Parsing is then used to translate the answer into meaningful text.
How Question Answering Impacts User Experience
Every search starts with a question, or perhaps several questions. Your expertise as a content writer to answer those questions within your article influences the success of your content marketing.
From the perspective of user intent, the search bar is used for keywords and specific question phrases such as “How do I…” “Where do I find…” “What is…” Users expect to get an answer that will satisfy their query.
If, while searching for an answer we click on an article that doesn’t satisfy, we hit the back button to return to the SERPs. If the article we click on is well written, engaging, and answers our question we’ll spend time on the page. The more detailed the question and answer, the longer the time we spend on the page.
All of this is tracked and analyzed with care, by search engines. The performance of our content in these metrics can impact rankings positively or negatively.
Answering User Questions
User questions can be answered in several different ways. Using the question and answer method can quickly build site authority, especially if you don’t require content that’s thousands of words long. Of course, this assumes that you’re still producing quality content and that the questions you answer are relevant to your site’s main topic.
A complex question may be answered with a full article written about the topic, while a simple question can have precise answers contained within a paragraph or two. Questions can also be used as headings within a longer blog, to quickly point readers to the relevant content they’re searching for.
You can also create FAQ pages for common user questions, with links to in depth articles on the topics. It is always a wise plan to construct your data around the search intent of the user, and create topic clusters to thoroughly answer their questions. This enables you to fulfill their question with accurate answers, guide them on a continued journey through your content, and improve domain authority for the search engines.