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Ask a Question: 10 Reasons Why Questions Work & 12 Tips on How to Ask Them [Day 25: 31DBBB]

Posted By Darren Rowse 30th of April 2009 Writing Content 0 Comments

Today’s task in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challengeis to ask your readers a question.

10 Reasons to ask Your Readers Questions

questions.jpgAsking readers questions is a fantastic way to grow you blog for a number of reasons – here are 10.

  1. It gives readers a sense of community and participation – there’s nothing like coming to a blog where readers are interacting to give a blog a sense of being alive.
  2. It increases Blog Stickiness – people are more likely to return to a blog that they’ve contributed something to
  3. Question posts don’t take a whole lot of effort to write (although can take some moderation)
  4. Question posts are fantastic for helping you to gauge where your readers are at on certain topics.
  5. Getting reader responses can fuel future post ideas for your blog
  6. They open up opportunities for followup posts as you summarize the answers, pick up conversations and even answer the question yourself etc.
  7. Well worded questions can often rank well in search engines. Pick a question that people are going to be asking when they search the web for answers and optimize your page for that question and you could rank quite well.
  8. They can be great for generating incoming links to your blog as other bloggers pick up the conversation on their own blogs.
  9. When a reader comments it gives you means to enter into conversation with that person (either by responding with a comment and/or via email). In the early days of a blog it can especially be good to do this as those few readers you have can help to spread word of your blog into their network.
  10. Reader answers can sometimes be used as actual posts. I’ve promoted the comments people have made on my blog to actual blog posts (with a few extra comments of my own and giving credit to the comment leaver of course).

Some bloggers resist writing question posts because they are scared that nobody will answer the question. This can certainly be a little disheartening – but if you construct the post well and include your own answer to the question then at least there is something there of value even if the conversation doesn’t emerge.

Remember that only around 1% of blog readers tend to leave comments – so if you don’t get a lot of responses it doesn’t mean that no one is reading your blog – keep trying.

12 Tips for Asking Your Readers Questions on Your Blog

When it comes to asking your readers questions there are no real rules as to the type of questions and how you should go about it. However, here are 12 tips that I’ve found helpful:

  1. Keep the question relevant to Your Blog’s Topic
  2. Ask a question that builds on a previous post – for example, on DPS I wrote a post about the pros and cons of shooting in RAW vs JPEG. The post was quite popular so I followed it up with a post asking readers what they shot in.
  3. Ask questions that are answerable (this might sound dumb but sometimes questions are so hard to answer that people don’t)
  4. Ask questions that readers will want to know the answer to – so ask a question on a hot topic which you think readers will want to have insight into what others think or do.
  5. Suggest to your readers some possible answers – I find that when I give some options to choose between that it can help a discussion get going.
  6. Sometimes either/or questions (where there are only two answers to choose from) can be great for generating a debate – they are easy to answer and a great way to help train your readers to comment (the RAW/JPEG question post answered above is an example of this).
  7. You may like to try using a Poll tool to give your readers a way to vote on a number of options
  8. Controversial questions can be a great way to get a conversation going – but be aware readers could get fired up.
  9. Be willing to share your own answer – but if you’re confident you’ll get people responding you might want to consider holding off on your own answer and do it in a follow up post (this means 2 posts instead of 1 but also means you won’t skew your reader’s answers)
  10. Do you have a frequently asked question that you don’t know how to answer? Ask your readers for their opinion – you might learn something. I often use ‘community workshop’ type questions where I simply pose a question and ask readers for advice on the topic – the comments section really becomes the resource (see examples below).
  11. Sometimes more personal (yet on topic) questions can be worth asking. For example don’t just ask what people ‘think’ about some sort of theoretical question – but ask them what they ‘do’ or about their own lives. For example a while back I asked readers to tell me what their favorite lens was at DPS – it was a question answered by over 200 people – at the time it was my most commented upon post.
  12. Follow up your question posts with summaries of answers – if you get a lot of responses it can be well worth your time to collate the answers in a new post. This shows your readers that you value their answers but also creates an interesting post. For example – with the question post on what readers favorite lenses were I wrote a summary of popular DSLR lenses. The response from these two posts was fantastic as many readers not only had a say on a topic but enjoyed reading what others were doing.

Having all that in mind – your homework for today is to go back to your blog/s and ask a question of your readers.

Once you’ve done that, come back to this post and share the link with us so we can check it out and see how you’ve approached it.

PS – Some Examples of Question Posts I use ‘reader questions’ regularly on my photography site. In fact they are among the most popular posts on the blog in terms of page views and in terms of generating comments.

Following are a few ‘reader question’ posts that I’ve run on DPS – I hope that in sharing them you’ll get some ideas for different types of questions to ask:

  • Which Digital Camera Manufacturer is Best? – a question that there really is no one answer to and which caused some real debate. I followed it up with a summary post – Best Digital Camera Manufacturers.
  • Win a Prize By Telling us About Your Digital Camera – in this instance I offered a prize for people to answer the question (they answered in the DPS forum).
  • What Digital Camera Do You Use? – another question aimed at getting readers to share their own experiences of gear that they use. This gave me valuable data on the type of reader I had but also provided me with great data for a follow up post.
  • What Shooting Mode do you Shoot in Most? – asking this question then gave me an opportunity to link to posts that I’d previously written on the topic at the bottom of the post. I also followed it up with some posts on the same topic as the question itself really opened up a topic that some of my readers hadn’t explored much before.
  • How Would You Photograph a Funeral? – this is a ‘community workshop’ type post where I posed a question from a reader and let my readers give their advice and tips. I find these question posts particularly effective as they not only answer a reader’s question but the answers from the community become a fantastic resource. Other examples of this include ‘How to Photograph Grandma‘ and ‘How do I Photograph Kids?
  • Share Your Best Shot Ever – this post simply asked readers to share a link to their best photograph. It gave readers a chance to show off their work a little – it was very popular.

Want More?

This task is a sample of one of the tasks in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook – a downloadable resource designed to reinvigorate and revitalize blogs.

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About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. The best part about questioning I like is that it gives the readers a sense of community. People love to be in community. Asking questions or even running contests based on some questions can be really fruitful.

  2. Darren have you ever asked a question that led to a flame war? If so, how did you handle the resulting comments?

  3. You read my thoughts, Darren. That is my greatest fear that no one would respond to my question. But I will try to rise up to the challenge and hopefully there will be people who will respond.

  4. I’ve had some awesome respond from asking questions like this. I really wasn’t aware of what I was doing until reading this article. For me, it’s just a natural way to get people involved.

    I have a decent amount of titles that are based around a question. One thing I always try to do, regardless of title, is to ask questions at the very end to help to try stimulate comments. I really do think it has helped make people more comfortable contributing.

    I’d also like to say that I’ve networked with a lot of other bloggers through this challenge. Whether they came to my blog first or I discovered them, it’s such an awesome experience. Thanks for the opportunity to network with so many cool people!

  5. I love the responses I get when I ask readers questions. Often times I find out some very interesting things when I do, and I find that it helps me to connect with them more. It also helps me in getting comments with more depth to them, instead of just “Great post!”

  6. I actually asked my readers a question just last Friday! Unfortunately, I only got one response and I had to chase down a friend for that. :(
    I think that maybe I asked too hard of a question (item number 3), or two many questions in one post.

    What do you think?
    http://adventure-some.com/personal/dear-readers/

  7. Now, that comes handy and solves my problem:

    With the growing popularity of TheTrimTab, I receive inquiries from readers that would like to participate in our conference call (The Bucky Call) that studies Bucky Fuller’s Critical Path for one hour every week.

    Point in case is how can we open what is now a small discussion group of 15 persons from 8 countries to a larger audience of maybe hundreds?

    Obviously, it will have to become something else – what is less obvious, is what will it become?

    I intend to open the discussion by outlining several directions we could take and ask readers to help enrich the possibilities and possibly contribute to what technology could be used to make this call accessible to all.

    Thank you Darren, this “ask a question” suggestion come just at the right moment for me.

  8. I asked a question on Twitter last night for the specific purpose of collecting the responses and posting them. So I did a follow-up post on my blog this morning.

    Why Do You Teach: In 140 Characters

  9. Wow – easiest post I have ever written. Now I need to make sure I get some responses. I plan to directly ask for feedback from some of my Twitter network to get the ball rolling.

    My question post is – Do You Have a Salesperson? – http://digg.com/u126Oc

    If you have a business, I would love it if you came and commented.

  10. Another great task for the day! We’ve definitely been busy with the homework this month. But you’ve found just the right size “chunk” of work for each day – a doable task. I really like, in this post, that you’ve asked us to do something, given us suggestions about how to do it, and then given us examples. It’s clear that this is a good thing to do – and clear how to go about it.

    Asking questions on my blog forces me to think about what my readers may want to know – and what they already know that they can share. It helps me put the focus back on the readers – not only what I know. Getting them engaged is so key to success.

    Guess I’d better get to work!

  11. I love asking questions on my blog as I really love the discussions. The only thing that makes me hesitate is the possibility that a question goes unanswered and makes my blog look like it has no active readers. :)

    I’m now getting a number of comments each day so I shall definitely give this a whirl. :)

    Thanks,
    Sam

  12. Lee – have had a few ‘robust’ discussions on my blogs but nothing too bad. I think the main thing is just to be on top of it and to model the way you want your readers to interact with each other. If you write in a polite and useful way you tend to attract that kind of comment.

  13. My post for today: Have you or would you move in relatives.

    http://newlifeasnewwife.blogspot.com/2009/04/uncle-jesse-vs-uncle-scott.html

    I try to ask question regularly. Sometimes I get responses, other times I don’t. For me, it’s a matter of finding better questions to ask that relate to my readers.

    Thanks for the post today Darren

  14. @Darren

    The most successful post I ever had asked a polite question and started well.

    However, after a hundred or so comments it became very personal between the readers so I ended up deleting the entire post, such was my annoyance with the situation.

    I guess in future the best advice would probably be to lock the comments down if it happens again?

  15. I have tried this a couple of times, but often find that I get more response to opinion pieces. Anyway, here’s mine: Has Recession Been Good For Your Writing Business?

    Sorry, please delete previous version – link was faulty.

  16. What a coincidence.I posted a discussion topic on how technologies affected our dating/relationship habits and ask my readers questions.

    http://www.tipsgoda.com/2009/04/technologies-keep-you-close-with-one.html

    Personally i like post that involve me to ask questions because it gives me a lot of interactions with my readers

  17. Never asked a question before on the blog. Started now with a question about, what else, swine flu:
    http://bit.ly/dR3mz

  18. I always ask questions on every poist but people rarely answer… any suggestions?

  19. Hi Darren,

    I also had a question post on my blog few days ago talking about “Stress” (http://visablogging.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-you-do-when-you-stress.html), but no people answer my post yet!

    May be the post is not interested by the readers or what wrong with it?

    Should I continue writing question posts more?

  20. I asked a question on mine a few months ago: “Is there anything you would like to see here?”

    I did add that I wasn’t out of ideas because I didn’t want to give the impression that I was running out of steam (and so was the blog.)

    But I got no replies. My blog doesn’t get a lot of comments anyway. I suspect that my readers are a passive lot.

  21. Do you recommend asking questions even if you don’t have a lot of readers/reader participation yet?

    I don’t want to look stupid asking a question and getting like 2 responses.

    I think lots of people come to my blog for the information but just don’t feel the need to comment.

  22. Wuz UP everyone!

    Still behind but trying to catch up as I’m also going through final exams this week. After today’s exam, I’ll be ready for the next day! Excellent work everyone, I’ve seen a number of sites and interaction in the forums. You guys are really being helpful. Continue on and all the best!

    -Mig

  23. I just asked a “very simple” question: What would you like to do today?

    I’m really curious.

    Here’s the post: http://mario-live.com/blog/2009/04/today/

  24. This is something I do frequently,, and you’re right, it can be very scary waiting to see if people will respond! http://budurl.com/8yd4

  25. Great tip again, thanks Darren.

    My question is based on a question I read in a forum, disagreed with and wanted to know what others thought regarding what’s been happening to the range and usage of good vocabulary today that everyone’s using twitter and facebook:

    http://kalinago.blogspot.com/2009/04/in-age-of-twitter-and-facebook-whats.html

  26. @Andi,

    You don’t have to be scared because you have one!

  27. Brilliant and so timely Darren; thank you – I put up a question on my blog this morning about recycling. I asked people to complete the following sentence

    “The one thing from holding me back from recycling more is…”

    I would love it please, if some of you would come along and leave your answer :)

    You can find it here:

    http://myzerowaste.com/2009/04/just-thirty-seconds-of-your-time/

    Matthew – I took a look at your question and your site. You’ve asked a VERY open ended question for a relatively new site and I think it’s too broad.

    Your question isn’t even a question if you take it literally – you’ve asked “where do you want this site to go?” Well, I’d like it to go to Hawaii please, if I’m going to answer literally – see what I mean?

    i would narrow it down to give choices or would ask what the most helpful / interesting post on the site has been or would you like to see more ….. and then give choices

    You’ve then gone to ask 4 more questions after your original non-question and have completely lost the theme of what you were originally (not) asking.

    Confused?

    So are your readers LOL!

    Not being picky; just trying to help …

    Try it again, with one very simple question and see how you get on :)

  28. I love the tips for asking readers a question.. thanks for sharing Darren and hopefully I can implement it right away.

  29. Darren:
    I was totally inspired by this tip. I immediately dashed off a post about a question that’s been bugging me – why is President Obama threatening to increase in-school hours; will this really benefit children? I posted it to both my regular WordPress blog

    http://siobhancurious.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/will-more-school-make-us-better-people/#comment-1317

    and my blog at OpenSalon.

    http://open.salon.com/blog/siobhan_curious/2009/04/30/the_most_important_skill_we_learn_in_school#post_comments

    The WordPress blog has been quiet, but the post immediately popped up on the OpenSalon cover and the discussion has been very lively! So thanks for the inspiration. I will do this question thing more regularly from now on.

  30. Ok,

    So I mixed a list with a question.

    http://arthub.ca/2009/04/30/my-top-4-favorite-blogs-that-help-artists-and-illustrators/

    Its my favorite blogs. And I am sure most of you have the same list. But I want to share the love.

  31. Last month I wrote a “Places to Think” article on my blog. If this lesson was earlier I would have titled it –

    Where do you do your most productive thinking?

    http://terrysthinking.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/places-to-think/

    Thanks for making me think about this!

    So Darren, where do you do your most productive thinking?

  32. Well, coincidentally we did a post last night for today that is filled with questions. However, the responses aren’t exactly what we had hoped. Either our readers aren’t getting the point that we truly do want their input on the topics or they don’t really care. To be fair, we may have asked too many questions – but the meme for which the post was created is structured for that length. I would love to know what all of you think.
    http://thebumblesblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/on-blogging-suggestion-box.html

  33. Here’s my post. A question or probably a few questions that everyone can answer:

    http://trendycellular.com/blog/do-you-text-and-drive/

  34. This type of posts always lead to lot of reader involvement. Everyone is excited to answer. However we need some traffic to ask a question.

  35. Awesome Idea to encourage dialog. Just posted my question: “What startup would you start today?”

    http://www.johnmurch.com/2009/04/30/what-startup-would-you-start-today/

  36. @Mrs Green
    Thanks for the response, that wasn’t too harsh (indeed, it was what I suspected). I will go back and re-frame the question in a more direct/answerable form.

  37. My question to my readers today is: is it ok to take a blogging break?

    http://www.ribeezie.com/ribeezie/2009/04/is-it-ok-to-take-a-blogging-break.html

    It’s been my experience that sometimes it’s easier to elicit a response from readers when you place a poll into your post. In my case I’ve been using Polldaddy.com which has been great so far.

    Other times, it’s a matter of asking the right/relevant question. I take questions that readers ask me via Twitter, email or anywhere else and turn that into a post.

  38. Another great post, Darren. Helped me come up with today’s post on a newsy event here in Tampa Bay: IKEA’s grand opening next week. I asked why would you camp out to shop for furniture (as people typically do before IKEA openings).
    http://blogs.tampabay.com/talk/2009/04/what-makes-you-an-ikea-fanatic-or-hater.html

  39. Terrific post Darren. These pointers will surely get me into putting new stuff on my blog; maybe starting this question posts would really be interesting.

    thank you very much.

  40. Funny, I needed something simple to do as a task and this fit the bill!

    Although I am waiting on the comments now. Yesterday, I did manage to get some good ones in conjunction with a rant I did.

    Most of my posts I felt are opinion pieces but I vented and found others jumped in to share their opinions as well.

    Interesting…

  41. I just want to say, WOW where does the time go? It’s already 25 days on this 31 DBBB post and it seems just like yesterday Darren just started this. A friend of mine told me about Pro Blogger a few months ago, I have and still will keep getting my tips and stuff from pro blogger. Darren as usual keep up the good work!! I wish I was as good as you.

    Tony

  42. I really like this one. It has many possibilities and could be used as a tool to make your blog more effective as well as more interactive and therefore more popular.

  43. @Tony

    Totally agree with you. I wish I was as good as Darren also.

    I consider to stop blogging.

  44. I am going to have to come up with some questions to ask my viewers, but I do not really know what kind of questions do you ask for a freebies blog?

    http://www.ezfreesamples.com

    any ideas?

  45. As I posted above, I posted a question on Twitter and my blog about Why Do You Teach?

    After I got home and wrapped everything up tonight, I posted the results:

    Why I Teach: Twitter Poll

    You may notice that I closed comments on the original post and sent readers to the results post so that they can continue the discussion there.

    By the way, thanks to all of you who came from this post and added your comments or tweets!

  46. Oh yeah, to those of you who are starting to get traffic on your blog and yet still aren’t getting comments, I think we’ve all been there.

    Just hang in there, respond to the comments you do get, and email those who comment thanking them for it. You might also want to suggest another post of yours that you’d like to hear their thoughts on.

    Especially in the early days, establishing a relationship with the readers is key. If you can get a few hardcore fans, make them famous on your blog, some of their readers will come on over. Start small, and remember most blogs don’t start out getting dozens of comments a day for over a year of miserable existence.

    Use the small time to really capitalize on what you can do, find your blogging voice, and start to build an incredible resource!

  47. I am so busy that I’m actually only up to Day 8 so far and I’m only reading each email/post as I have time to do it. I had to skip ahead and read this one though because I just asked a question on my blog yesterday. It was more of an “invitation to dscuss” but the same concept.

    There are 33 comments on it so far, which is very gratifying!

    “Let’s talk about the benefits to ourselves, our families and society that we have personally experienced from having our pets in our lives.”

    http://jennaandsnickers.com/2009/04/benefit-companion-animals-society/

  48. I asked, “What is Your Biggest Leadership Challenge in This Economy?”

    I wonder what other leaders are facing and what they are doing to deal with the added distractions.

    I don’t have a lot of readers or people who comment, so I’m curious to see what level of response I get.

    http://blog.beckitrue.com/http:/blog.beckitrue.com/2009/04/30/what-is-your-biggest-leadership-challenge-in-this-economy/

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