People Also Ask (PAA) is a box in Google’s search results that lists questions related to the search, each of which expands to show a short answer taken from a web page, with a link to that page. Opening one question usually loads more questions underneath, so the box can grow as you explore.
How People Also Ask works
Google builds the questions from what it knows other people searched for around the same topic. For a search such as “how much does a loft conversion cost”, the box might include questions about planning permission, building regulations sign-off or whether a conversion adds value to a house. The questions shift with wording, location and device, and they change over time as Google tests different sets.
Each answer is a short extract, often a paragraph, list or table, chosen from a page Google judges to answer that exact question well. The selection works much like a featured snippet: Google looks for a passage that responds directly and clearly, near a heading or sentence that matches the question. You cannot submit content to PAA or mark it up for inclusion. It is one of several SERP features Google decides to show, and it appears on many informational searches as well as some commercial ones.
Why it matters for a UK business
PAA is a free view of what your customers are asking. A heating engineer in Bristol, an immigration solicitor in Birmingham or a Shopify retailer selling school uniforms can type their main service into Google and read the questions people pose before they buy. Those questions are excellent raw material for service-page FAQs, blog posts and guides, and they show the order in which people think about a problem.
It is also a visibility opportunity. A PAA answer carries your page name and link high up the results page, sometimes above the first organic listing. The honest caveat is that many people read the answer and never click, a pattern known as zero-click search. PAA is often better for being seen as the source of a good answer than for raw traffic, which still has value for a business people need to trust.
The same answer-first writing also makes a page easier to quote accurately in AI Overviews and other AI-generated answers.
Common mistakes
- Adding FAQ schema and expecting PAA placements. FAQPage schema is a separate feature, which Google restricted in 2023 to well-known government and health sites, and it does not decide PAA answers.
- Copying PAA questions straight onto a page with thin one-line answers. Google still picks the best answer, not the page that repeats the question.
- Answering a question at the end of a long paragraph instead of in its first sentence.
- Chasing every question in the box, including ones that belong on a different page, which muddles the page’s purpose.
- Treating PAA traffic as the only measure of success when the box may still be building your reputation.
How to act on it
Start with the searches that matter to your business. Run them in a private browser window, open several questions to see how the box expands, and note the questions that come up repeatedly. Tools such as AlsoAsked, Semrush and Ahrefs can gather them at scale, but reading the live results yourself keeps you close to how real customers phrase things.
Sort the questions by which page should answer them. Questions about cost and process often belong on a service page; questions about how something works suit a guide; very narrow questions may belong in a glossary entry. Use the question, or a natural version of it, as a heading, give a direct two or three sentence answer straight underneath, then add the detail. Check question keywords in Search Console to see which ones already bring impressions. If you want help turning these questions into a content plan where each page has one clear job, that is what my content SEO service is built around.