How To:  Use GSC & RegEx To Find Out The Questions Your Users Are Asking

When carrying out a website SEO audit with a view to carrying out keyword research then auditing and optimising content, the first place I go to is Google Search Console to find out what key pages on the site are ranking for, where opportunities lie, where the low hanging fruit is and what questions the site’s pages are appearing in search for.

The focus of this article is to show you how to find out the questions users are asking about in relation to the content on your site or the products and services you offer.

Why Focus on User Questions?

Understanding the questions your audience is asking gives you insights into their intent. If people are phrasing searches as questions, they’re usually looking for clear, helpful answers – and if your site provides them, you stand a better chance of being the one they click through to.

Optimising existing pages to address these questions, or creating new content where gaps exist, helps in two big ways:

Driving relevant traffic

By matching the exact language users are typing into Google, you position your site to capture traffic that’s highly aligned with your products, services, or expertise. That means more visitors who are genuinely interested in what you do.

Building authority through E-E-A-T

Answering questions directly and clearly is a simple way to demonstrate experience and expertise. When Google sees that your content is satisfying queries, it reinforces your authority and trustworthiness, making your site more competitive in the long run.

Questions show you what your audience actually cares about. Meeting that need doesn’t just win clicks – it builds credibility, trust, and long-term visibility.

So, how do we find out what these questions are?

Use REGEX & Google Search Console

Starting with your own site data, assuming you have a Google Search Console account in place (and if not, why not?), then do the following:

1 – Go to “Performance”

2 – Set your time period – there’s no reason not to go with the maximum of 16 months if you have that much data

3 – Then click “Add Filter”

4 – Select “Query”

5 – Select “Custom RegEx”

6 – Select “Matches RegEx”

7 – Where it says “Enter regular expression (regex), enter the following:

^(where|who|why|about|what|should|can|does|when|how|whose)\b

This is basically a filter that will return all the keywords your site has appeared in search for where a question containing one of those words has been asked.

You will then get all the relevant data back as follows:

You can then manually review for any keywords that stand out, and you can also filter by specific pages on the site.   For example, I have already optimised various blog posts in a Q&A format, so if I filter out the blog from my search, I can see what questions are being asked around the services I offer:

From here, I can see an opportunity to show my expertise around SEO audits by producing an article that addresses the following question:

• why invest in professional technical seo audit tools

this could be a guide that talks about the best free and paid tools you can use to audit a website and why you should invest in some to help you audit your site effectively

Or

• how to become an seo freelancer from home

I could create an article to provide insights into how I made the switch from working at an agency to going at it alone as a freelancer – give tips on work life balance, and pros and cons, such as being able to work from home – which all helps show I have some authority and experience as an SEO Freelancer.

Not every question needs a full blog post to answer. Some work better as a short Q&A section on an existing page, while others might fit neatly into a service page as a supporting paragraph. Think about the format that makes the most sense for the user. The more natural and helpful the answer feels, the more likely it is to earn clicks and keep readers engaged.

Another approach would be to export the data to Excel or Google Sheets, then filter the data in other ways:

1 – Export the data to your chosen spreadsheet format (I’m an excel type of a guy)

2 – Insert the data into a table

You may want to tweak existing content on terms you rank well for but aren’t getting enough traction.

It’s also worth remembering that Google often pulls direct answers into featured snippets or “People Also Ask” boxes. Structuring your content to answer questions clearly increases your chances of being showcased in these spots. Even if you’re not sitting in the #1 organic position, being visible in these features can drive a steady stream of extra clicks.

If you filter position to “less than 20” that will give you everything on and around page 1-2. 

I can see that I’ve had over 1k impressions for the question:

”how to implement local business schema through google tag manager”

This relates to this article on the benefits of local business schema, which does mention tag manager, but I can see that if I introduce a section on how to implement schema using Google Tag Manager with that specific question as the heading, then I may be able to drive more clicks, or at least move up a place or two in the SERP:

This isn’t something you do once and tick off the list. Search behaviour changes, new content gets published, and new questions pop up all the time. Making a habit of running these regex filters every quarter, or after adding new content, helps you stay aligned with what your audience is asking right now.

In fact, I know that in a few months, I will be looking at the questions that this page has started to generate impressions for, and tweak is accordingly.

Finding out what questions your audience is asking isn’t complicated – but it can be a game changer for your content strategy. Google Search Console gives you the raw data, regex helps you filter it, and from there it’s about deciding whether to optimise what you’ve already got or create something new.

Answering those questions directly brings in the right kind of traffic, builds trust, and shows both users and Google that your site knows its stuff. It’s one of the simplest, most effective steps you can take to improve content performance and authority over time.