Build a useful customer question plan

Use the words your customers use

Start with the language customers use in ordinary enquiries. Preserve the useful requirement without carrying personal details into the plan.

A question about delivery times may matter more than a broad question about your industry. Choose wording that reflects something your business actually offers.

Collect from more than one place. Enquiry forms, emails, call notes, reviews and the questions staff hear at the counter each catch different customers. Record where each question came from.

Keep the customer's own phrasing where you can, including the details they add. Someone asking about a dining chair with a broken leg is giving you the requirement as well as the service.

Look at the questions customers ask after they have bought as well. Questions about aftercare and returns show what people want settled before they buy next time.

Find real wording in Search Console

If your website is verified in Search Console, its Performance report is another source of customer wording. Google says the queries view groups the data by the search query users typed.

Those are searches, not prompts sent to an assistant. Use them as clues to the words people use, and rewrite them as full questions where that fits.

Google also notes that a query in the list may not bring up your site when you search it yourself. It says results depend on the time, place, device and recent history of the person searching.

Remove personal details if a query contains any, just as you would with an enquiry.

• Google Search Console Help, Performance report overview

Group questions by decision

Group by the decision the answer must support, such as understanding an offer or choosing between suitable options. Keep the groups understandable to the business.

Use these groups to explain your coverage. Start with a manageable question set.

Here is how the groups might look for a furniture repair business. Discovery asks who repairs chairs nearby. Comparison asks which repairer works on antique pieces. Confirmation asks how long a repair takes and whether collection is offered.

A decision with no question in the set is a gap you can explain. A decision with ten near-identical questions is noise you can trim.

Some questions sit between groups. Put each one where the customer's main concern lies, and note the choice so the next review makes the same call.

Make a grid with your main services down one side and the decision groups across the top. Add places only where geography matters.

Start with one or two prompts in each cell that matters. That gives a set small enough to read in full, which is worth more than a large set you only skim.

Some cells stay empty on purpose. If you don't offer collection, a prompt about collection belongs in the plan only if customers keep asking it.

Add relevant context

Add a place, requirement or constraint when it changes what a useful answer would be. Avoid inserting details just to make prompts look different.

Keep language and location with the saved prompt. A question asked in one country is not an equivalent check of the same service somewhere else.

Choose the level of place that matches how customers search. A town suits a local service, while a region may suit a business that travels further. Keep the same level across the set so results compare fairly.

Add a requirement only when it changes the answer. Budget, timing, access needs and the type of item can each narrow the options. A requirement that every provider meets adds nothing to the check.

If you serve customers in more than one language, keep a separate set for each. A translated prompt is a different check, not a copy of the original.

Write prompts the way people ask

Write each prompt as a full question in plain words, as a customer would type or say it. Include the details that would matter to that customer.

Keep to one question per prompt. A prompt that asks two things at once makes the answer harder to judge.

Avoid assuming a fact the customer wouldn't know. A prompt that mentions your opening hours or your awards tests your own wording, not whether the assistant knows about you.

Read each prompt aloud. If it sounds like a keyword list rather than something a person would ask, rewrite it.

Where customers use a local or technical word, try one prompt with it and one without. The pair shows whether the wording changes the answer.

Use follow-up ideas carefully

Google describes using related searches for its AI features. This can help explain why a source covers a supporting topic rather than the original question.

Your own list of possible follow-ups is a planning exercise. It is not a record of the hidden searches an assistant actually ran.

Google calls this query fan-out. It says AI Overviews may issue multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources to develop a response.

Some assistants report the searches they ran alongside their answers. Where your collection source supplies those searches, you can compare them with your planning list. Where it doesn't, keep the list labelled as ideas.

Review each suggestion against your offer. Reject questions you cannot answer accurately. Keep a note of why you chose the remaining ones.

For the repair business, one useful question might be whether a repairer can match an old wood stain. The follow-ups cover cost, time, collection and examples of past work. Each one points to a detail a page should answer.

Stop expanding when a new question no longer changes what the customer needs to know. Beyond that point, extra prompts add cost and reading time without new evidence.

• Google guidance on AI features

Remove duplicates and leading wording

Compare the decision each prompt tests before keeping another wording variation. A larger set is not automatically a more informative one.

Keep a mix of branded and unbranded questions. Label them separately so a prompt containing your business name does not inflate your interpretation of general discovery.

A prompt that names your business and asks whether it is good invites a yes. Keep that kind of wording out of the discovery set.

Comparison prompts that name a competitor have a place, but label them. They tell you how two named businesses are described, not how often either is named unprompted.

Check that each prompt in the discovery set could be asked by someone who has never heard of you. If it couldn't, move it to the branded group.

Don't build a page for every prompt

A question plan is for checking answers. It is not a list of pages to create. Several prompts can point to the same page if that page answers them well.

Google's spam policies describe doorway abuse. One example is having multiple pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page.

Google's guidance on helpful content asks whether a page is made mainly to attract visits from search engines. Write for the person making the decision instead.

If a prompt reveals a real gap, such as a service area your site never mentions, improve the existing page first. Add a new page only when the topic needs one of its own.

• Google spam policies for web search
• Google guidance on helpful content

Review the plan as your offer changes

Add a question when customers raise a new requirement or your offer changes. Keep the previous version and record when the new question entered the set.

Review the relevant website page for clarity and accuracy. Write for the person making the decision. Do not create repetitive pages just to cover slight wording changes.

Review the plan at a fixed interval as well as when something changes, such as once a quarter. Remove prompts for services you no longer offer, and record the date each one left the set.

When you reword a prompt, treat it as a new prompt and keep the old one's history. Answers to different wordings don't compare directly.

Run a small initial set, then inspect the evidence. Suggested questions are not search-volume estimates. A plausible prompt may still represent little customer demand.

Ask each prompt more than once before you treat its answer as typical. A single reply is one observation, and the next one may differ.

Write down why each prompt is in the set, in a few words. The reason helps the next person decide whether to keep it when the set is reviewed.

• Google guidance on helpful content

A worked plan for one business

The furniture repair business starts from one enquiry about repairing dining chairs at home. Here is how that becomes a small plan.

Discovery covers who repairs dining chairs in its town, with and without the word antique. Comparison covers which local repairers offer home visits, and which work at weekends. Confirmation covers how to book a visit and what it costs.

Two more prompts include the business name and are labelled branded. They ask what the business repairs and whether it visits homes.

That makes eight prompts across three decisions, each with a written reason. The owner can read each answer in one sitting, which is the point.

None of the prompts is evidence of demand. They are the business's best reading of its own enquiries, saved with a baseline so later answers have something to compare against.

Sources and method

A Carqo review method. Provider statements link to the relevant documentation.

• Google guidance on AI features Link checked 4 November 2026
• Google guidance on helpful content Link checked 4 November 2026
• Google Search Console Help, Performance report overview Link checked 4 November 2026
• Google spam policies for web search Link checked 4 November 2026

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