Best AnswerThePublic Alternative 2024
The idea behind AnswerThePublic is to use the Google Search Autocomplete feature to source different query suggestions. It does so by appending and prepending a query with different word modifiers. For example, if we search for “link building”, AnswerThePublic will automatically translate it to multiple queries like “what link building”, “which link building”, or “can link building” etc. Then it automatically gathers all suggestions and displays them as a wheel or a graph.
As you can see, it sources some relevant questions but this approach has some serious limitations. Each question should contain the phrase “link building” in itself, which makes the tool less useful for longer queries. Additionally, not all suggestions are equally relevant or formulated the way it would normally be by people. For example, at the time of writing, AnswerThePublic produces a “link building o que é” suggestion for the English language.
For the ease of use AnswerThePublic shows you the data in a graphical format, as a list, or as a table. Not all the data is available for free and you need to sign up and create a free account to use 3 daily searches.
In 2023, AnswerThePublic was acquired by NP Digital (owned by Neil Patel) which immediately sparked a lot of negative reactions on social media as people were unhappy to see a big photo of his face on the homepage.
On the contrary, a much more powerful alternative to AnswerThePublic is a tool called KeywordsPeopleUse.
KeywordsPeopleUse allows you to get the same Google Autocomplete suggestions as AnswerThePublic, but it’s just the tip of an iceberg.
In addition to just viewing the data as a chart or a list, when utilizing KeywordsPeopleUse you can add all suggestions to a keyword list with the click of a mouse, and easily organize all your keyword research activities.
Another search type that KeywordsPeopleUse provides is Google’s People Also Ask questions. This data can be much more valuable and powerful compared to isolated search queries from Autocomplete as it reflects real questions people ask online, and all this data is delivered to you in real time.
On top of that, there is also Reddit and Quora search. This also sources real questions but these questions are usually asked on forums when people aren’t able to find answers on Google. It may indicate a content gap in the topic and better inform your SEO strategy. For example, as a result you may get a question like “Can someone describe how to actually perform link building?”.
The truly unique and innovative feature of KeywordsPeopleUse is Semantic Search. If you try it for the “link building” query, you may get related keywords like “backlinks”, “anchor text”, “off page seo”, “guest posting”, or “digital pr” which no other SEO tool is able to provide for you.
But the extensive functionality of KeywordsPeopleUse doesn’t stop there. You can do both keyword research and keyword clustering in one go. These keyword clusters help you to better structure your content and avoid keyword cannibalization.
KeywordsPeopleUse also provides you with a complete Topical Overview. This includes who is the authority on the topic, which urls are ranking, what keywords do your competitors use, etc.
In conclusion, while AnswerThePublic is a little nice utility to get some insights into Google Search queries used by Autocomplete, KeywordsPeopleUse is a much more powerful fully fledged SEO tool for anyone trying to dig deeper into the topic and find unique content opportunities.