Google Question Hub is now apparently open for US-based publishers to make use of (after registering an account)
Never heard of it? Not surprising perhaps. This is how Google describes it: “Question Hub is a tool that enables creators to create richer content by leveraging unanswered questions. Question Hub collects these unanswered user questions and surfaces them to bloggers, writers, and content creators like you.”
Yes, it sounds a lot like Answer the Public, but the tool is potentially far more useful as these are content suggestions from Google themselves.
Previously, Google launched Question Hub in 2018 for publishers in India (Hindi, English), Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia), and Nigeria (English). Google has updated its FAQs to say it is now available also in the United States.
So what does Google Question Hub really look like? I signed up and tried it out:
The first thing you need to know is that the application is NOT available for use with Google Workspace email addresses. This ruled out my Pearl Lemon email address, so I used a personal Gmail, which worked just fine.
Once the tool accepts you, it requests access to any properties you have associated with the Google Search Console account attached to that email address.
As there are no other options in that dropdown, I can confirm that the tool is location-based, as I currently live and work in the United States.
The next screen offers a variety of content topics to choose from, and the chance to input your desired search term. A very basic term ‘SEO’ produced ten questions. I’m not going to share those as they’ll be content for PL soon!
Instead, let’s take a look at the results for the term ‘Jeffree Star’, as he has been in the news a lot this week. Google suggested that the following queries were hot, but lacked content to answer them properly:
Whatever content you do create, if the property you publish it on is in your Google Analytics account, the Google Question Hub tool will be able to track its performance for you.
Should I Use the Google Question Hub Tool?
In just a short time, I could certainly see the potential that the Google Question Hub tool offers to content creators like myself. Those of us who must walk a fine line between SEO and engaging content written for humans. As the allowed search terms are very broad, it is likely that a very wide cross-section of the SEO/ content creation community will get great value out of the tool. And as it’s free, there is certainly no harm in giving it a try!
If you do remember the following:
- The Google Question Hub tool calls for a Gmail account, but you cannot make use of a Google Workspaces email.
- If you want to monitor the performance of the content you create you will need to have access to Google Search Console for the site you publish it to from the personal account you use to access the Google Question Hub Tool.
