Most small businesses assume they can’t go up against the big players online. No ad budget, no marketing team, no chance.

That’s mostly true. Except for one thing.

When someone types a question into Google or asks ChatGPT for a recommendation, the algorithm doesn’t care how big your business is. It cares whether your content answers the question. 

A small business owner who answers her customers’ real questions can show up in the same results as companies spending thousands on ads.

Most big companies aren’t doing this well. You can.

The shift is simple. Stop thinking about keywords and start thinking about questions. Your customers aren’t typing “skincare products.” They’re typing “why is my skin so dry in winter” or “what should I put on my face before bed.” Those are the questions you want to be answering.

Three free tools will show you exactly what your people are searching right now.

Answer the Public (answerthepublic.com)

Sign up for a free account and you get a handful of searches a day. Type in a topic and see the real questions people are asking. You can export the results and use them to build out your content.

Answer Socrates (answersocrates.com) 

The same idea, but it can pull different results. I really like generating questions for social media. Try both.

People Also Search 

Already inside Google. Search anything and scroll down to the related questions box. No account needed.

When you find a question your customer is actually asking, answer it completely. Write the blog post. Send the email. Then make sure it lives somewhere permanent, your website, your blog, somewhere Google and AI tools can find it. 

Email is a great way to share it, but you want this content sitting on the internet, ready to be discovered.

This is one of the few places where you have an equal shot. Use it.

Had you heard of any of these before? Hit reply and let me know. I’m curious how many of you are already using them.