How to apply ‘They Ask, You Answer’ to SEO and AI visibility

Search behavior is now not simply folks typing key phrases into Google. It’s folks asking questions and, in some circumstances, outsourcing their considering to LLMs.

As Google evolves from a conventional search engine right into a extra question-and-answer machine, companies want a strong, time-tested means to reply to buyer questions.

AI adjustments how folks analysis and examine choices. Duties that after felt painful and time-consuming at the moment are simple. However there’s a catch. The machine solely is aware of what it may well discover about you.

If you need visibility throughout the widest doable vary of questions, it’s essential to perceive your clients’ desires, wants, and considerations in depth.

That’s the place the “they ask, you reply” framework is available in. It helps companies determine and create the various questions and solutions potential clients already take into consideration. All the time helpful, it’s a sensible, actionable means ahead within the age of AI.

A solution-first content material technique and why it issues now

“They Ask, You Reply” (TAYA) is a e-book by Marcus Sheridan. (I strongly advocate you learn it.)

The idea is easy: patrons have questions, and companies ought to reply them truthfully, clearly, and publicly — particularly those gross sales groups keep away from.

No dodging. No “contact us for a quote.” No “it relies upon” – sorry, search engine optimisation people.

TAYA isn’t simply an inbound advertising and marketing technique. It’s a sensible approach to map a customer-facing content material technique with an E-E-A-T mindset.

The framework facilities on 5 core content material classes:

• Pricing and price.
• Issues.
• Versus and comparisons.
• Evaluations.
• Greatest in school.

These classes align with the moments when a purchaser is searching for the very best resolution, lowering danger, and making a choice.

Extra of these moments now occur inside AI environments — in your smartphone, your PC, in apps like ChatGPT or Gemini, or anyplace else AI reveals up, which at this level is sort of all over the place.

At their core, these are question-and-answer machines. You ask. The machine solutions. That’s why the TAYA course of matches so nicely.

The fashionable internet is chaotic. Discovering what you want could be exhausting — dodging adverts, navigating layers of SERP options, and avoiding pop-ups on the location you lastly click on.

AI is gaining floor as a result of it feels higher. Simpler. Sooner. Cleaner. Much less chaos. Extra order.

Turning E-E-A-T right into a sensible content material technique

You could possibly argue we have already got a north star for content material creation in E-E-A-T. However have you ever ever tried to construct a content material technique round it? Nice in precept, more durable in observe.

They ask, you reply places an E-E-A-T-focused content material technique on rails:

• Pricing helps belief, expertise, and experience.
• Issues present expertise and belief.
• Versus content material builds authority and experience.
• Evaluations construct expertise and belief.
• Greatest-in-class content material builds authority and belief.

E-E-A-T could be tough to focus on as a result of there are lots of methods to construct belief, present expertise, and display authority. TAYA maps these indicators throughout a number of areas inside every class, serving to you construct a complete database of people-first content that AI readily surfaces. 

Dig deeper: How to build an effective content strategy for 2026

Learn how to combine TAYA with conventional search engine optimisation analysis

The abilities and instruments we use as SEOs already put us in a powerful place for the AI period. They will help us construct an built-in SEO, PPC, and AI strategy. 

The motion plan:

• Google Search Console: Go to Google Search Console > Efficiency. Filter queries by query modifiers resembling who, what, why, how, and price. These are your uncooked TAYA subjects.
• Google Enterprise Profile: Evaluate key phrases and queries in your Google Enterprise Profile for extra concepts.
• The semantic map: Use AnswerThePublic or Additionally Requested. Search for secondary questions. In the event you’re writing about value, you’ll usually see associated considerations resembling financing or hidden charges.
• The competitor hole: Use Semrush or Ahrefs Key phrase Hole instruments. Don’t concentrate on what opponents rank for. Search for “how-to” and “versus” key phrases the place they haven’t any significant content material. That’s your land seize.
• Methodology advertising and marketing: Immerse your self within the mindset of your ultimate buyer and begin looking out. What comes up? What does AI say? What’s lacking? Instruments just like the Value Proposition Canvas and SCAMPER will help you consider these angles in structured methods.

Typically, you gained’t go fallacious by merely trying to find your personal services. AI instruments and search outcomes will floor a variety of questions, solutions, and views that may feed straight into your AI and search engine optimisation content material technique. 

Additionally think about the inner sources obtainable to you:

• Gross sales calls and gross sales groups.
• Reside chat transcripts.
• Emails.
• Customer support tickets.
• Proposal suggestions.
• Complaints.

All of this helps you perceive the query panorama. From there, you may start organizing these insights throughout the 5 TAYA classes.

TAYA and your AI-era content material advertising and marketing technique

The framework facilities on 5 core classes, reinterpreted for an answer-driven setting the place Google, Gemini, and ChatGPT-like techniques anticipate consumer wants.

For every, right here’s what it’s, why it issues now, and examples to get you began.

1. Pricing and price: Why we should speak about cash

Consumers need value readability early. Companies keep away from it as a result of “it relies upon.” Each are true, however just one is beneficial.

AI techniques will readily summarize typical prices, utilizing another person’s numbers should you don’t publish your personal. In the event you fail to supply a reputable vary with context, you’re successfully handing the narrative to opponents, directories, or a generic weblog with a inventory photograph handshake.

Learn how to do it

• Publish ranges, not unrealistic single costs.
• Clarify what drives prices up or down.
• Embrace instance packages, such pretty much as good, higher, and finest.
• Be express about what’s included and excluded.
• Add country-specific variables the place related, resembling tax or VAT within the UK.

Content material examples

• How a lot does [service] value within the UK? Embrace worth ranges and what influences them.
• X vs. Y pricing: what you get at every stage.
• The hidden prices of [solution] and the best way to keep away from them.
• Price range guidelines: what to organize before you purchase
  .

Probably the most cited examples within the TAYA world is Yale Equipment. The corporate embraced clear, buyer-focused content material and noticed inbound turn into its largest gross sales channel, alongside vital reported development.

The takeaway isn’t “go promote fridges.” It’s to reply cash questions extra clearly and truthfully than anybody else. Try this, and also you construct belief at scale.

2. Issues: Turning issues into strengths

This class focuses on being trustworthy about drawbacks, limitations, dangers, and who a services or products isn’t for. You need to assume past pure search engine optimisation or GEO. 

A core communication technique is taking a perceived weak point, resembling being a small enterprise, and reframing it as a power, like a extra personalised method.

Personal the areas that could possibly be seen as issues. Current them clearly and constructively so clients perceive the trade-offs and context.

The reply layer goals to supply balanced steerage. Pages that focus solely on advantages learn like advertising and marketing. Pages that acknowledge trade-offs learn like recommendation.

Folks can spot spin rapidly. Be direct. Personal your limitations. Once you do, credibility will increase.

Learn how to do it

• Create problem-and-solution guides.
• Embrace “keep away from if …” sections.
• Handle frequent failure modes and misuses.
• Be express about conditions, resembling price range, timeline, ability, or entry.

Content material examples

• The most important issues with [solution] and the best way to mitigate them.
• Is
  price it? When it’s a fantastic alternative and when it isn’t.
• Widespread errors when shopping for or implementing [solution].
• What can go fallacious with [approach] and the best way to cut back danger.

That is the place your “expertise” in E-E-A-T turns into tangible. “We’ve seen this go fallacious when …” carries much more weight than “we’re obsessed with excellence.”

3. Versus and comparisons

Folks depend on comparisons to scale back cognitive load. They need readability. What’s the distinction?

Comparability queries are perfect for reply engines as a result of they lend themselves to structured summaries, tables, and suggestions. In the event you don’t publish the clearest comparability, you gained’t be the supply used to generate the clearest reply.

Learn how to do it

• Evaluate by use case, not simply options.
• Use a constant framework, resembling worth, setup, outcomes, dangers, and who it fits.
• Embrace clear steerage, resembling “In the event you’re X, select Y.”

Content material examples

• X vs. Y: which is healthier for [specific scenario]?
• In-house vs. outsourced for [service]: value, danger, and outcomes.
• Device A vs. Device B vs. Device C: an trustworthy comparability for UK groups.
• Options to [popular option]: when to decide on every.

search engine optimisation bonus: These items are inclined to earn hyperlinks as a result of they’re genuinely helpful and since many opponents hesitate to call options straight.

Dig deeper: Chunk, cite, clarify, build: A content framework for AI search

4. Evaluations, case research, and credibility

This isn’t about asking for a five-star evaluate. It’s about creating review-style content material that helps patrons consider their choices.

AI summaries usually depend on review-style pages as a result of they’re structured round analysis. However generic affiliate opinions could be, at finest, inconsistent in sincerity. Your benefit is first-hand expertise and contextual reality.

Learn how to do it

• Evaluate your personal companies truthfully, together with what shoppers worth and the place they battle.
• Evaluate the instruments you employ with clear execs and cons.
• Publish “what we’d select and why” for various purchaser sorts.

Content material examples

• Is [solution] price it? Our trustworthy take after implementing it for X shoppers.
• Greatest AI search engine optimisation instruments for [persona], together with limitations.
• The highest inquiries to ask earlier than selecting a [provider].
• What attractiveness like: a guidelines to guage [service].

If you wish to be cited in AI solutions, it’s important to sound like a supply, not an advert.

5. Greatest in school – and the braveness to advocate others

Sheridan’s view, and it’s a daring one, is that you need to generally publish “finest in school” suggestions even when the best choice isn’t you. That’s how belief is constructed.

The reply layer rewards utility. In case your web page genuinely helps customers select nicely, it turns into the form of useful resource techniques usually tend to reference.

Learn how to do it

• Construct “finest for” lists primarily based on clear standards, not hype.
• Clarify the way you evaluated the choices.
• Embrace eventualities the place every possibility wins or loses.

Content material examples

• Greatest [solutions] for [use case] in 2026, together with standards and picks.
• Greatest [service] suppliers for [industry] and what to search for.
• Greatest price range, finest premium, finest for velocity, finest for compliance.
• If I have been shopping for this as we speak: the choice framework I’d use.

The objective is in your model to turn into a trusted educator, not only a vendor.

TAYA because the playbook for answer-first visibility

Strategic content material advertising and marketing within the age of AI facilities on middle-of-the-funnel content material, the place AI helps prospects make knowledgeable selections. The content material you publish and set up in your website remains the foundation, and SEO remains the backbone of AI visibility. 

When leveraged successfully, TAYA is a strong approach to map what you need to be addressing and to construct a content material technique that ensures you’re represented throughout the AI panorama.

In observe, meaning constructing an editorial program the place:

• Each piece begins with an actual purchaser query.
• The 5 core classes prioritize decision-stage content material, not simply consciousness content material.
• Conventional search engine optimisation analysis validates language and demand.
• Content material is written to fulfill each the human, by means of readability and confidence, and the machine, by means of construction, specificity, proof, and balanced trade-offs.

This shift additionally adjustments how success is measured.

In traditional search engine optimisation, the win was rank, click on, convert.

Within the AI period, the win is commonly be the supply, earn belief, be chosen, with or with out the clicking.

In case your content material is the clearest, most in-depth, most trustworthy, and most experience-backed rationalization obtainable for the questions patrons are already asking, then whether or not somebody discovers it by means of Google, Gemini, ChatGPT, or elsewhere, you’ve constructed one thing sturdy.

Which is what sturdy search engine optimisation has at all times been about. The window has modified. The rules haven’t.

Dig deeper: Mentions, citations, and clicks: Your 2026 content strategy