Writing articles with The Army Ants Method is a great way to answer smaller questions that would otherwise not be able to fill out their own article alone.
All these smaller questions that work within one overarching topic is like small army ants working together to support one large tree branch!
What is the Army Ant Method?
The Army Ants Method is a specific type of blog post that lets you combine a set of topically related tiny topics into an article. On their own, these topics are too small for a blog post but with this formula, you can create an article that can get a lot of traffic from Google.
That is the short and concise answer.
Now, let’s dive deeper into the details.
More into video? Watch this
Here’s the same information from this article as a YouTube video:
Why would you want to do this?
Well, readers tend to stay longer on an article that answers multiple questions for them so that they do not have to click around to many different articles.
They also get exposed to more ads the longer they are on that article.
Furthermore, finding and answering underserved topics within your article removes your competition against larger blogs who typically will skip or ignore those very small questions entirely.
Not only are readers coming to you for answers but will stay on your site longer to binge all the different questions they may not have considered!
Tiny things working together can accomplish big things, so let’s dive into how to use the Army Ants Method for article writing!
Picking Your Underserved Keywords
The Army Ants Method benefits from using underserved keywords that otherwise go unnoticed or do not get much screen time on larger blogs.
These keywords are broad and usually would encompass a lot of different, smaller questions that we can turn into a longer article.
For example, let us use “spam emails” as our keyword or phrase.
There are a lot of different questions a reader might have about spam emails, but most of those questions will not have long, article-length answers.
This makes this keyword perfect for an Army Ants Method article!
Collecting Small Questions That Are All Topic-Related:
The first step in the Army Ants Method is to find many small questions all surrounding one topic.
These are questions that many readers want answered, but writers would find difficult turning into a full-length article.
The Army Ants Method takes all these smaller questions, surrounding an example topic of “Spam Emails” and turns them into a full-length article.
Let us look at a few questions that fall under the “Spam Emails” topic:
- Do Spam Emails Delete Themselves?
- Why Do Spam Emails Have Many Spelling Errors?
- Why Am I Getting Spam Emails About Dating?
- Is it Safe to Delete Spam Emails?
Every single question in this list relates to spam emails, which is our overarching topic.
However, it would be difficult to write an entire article on any single one of them, because the answer is usually a pretty short explanation.
For example, if you tried to write an article on whether spam emails delete themselves, you would find that most spam boxes delete emails after 30 days to keep your email tidy.
Because the answer is so simple, it works better as a subheading within a larger, overarching article about spam emails than within its own article which would be filled with unnecessary fluff.
By answering all these smaller questions in one article, we are creating a great resource for any readers looking to learn about spam emails.
Creating the Overarching Article:
Now that you have many small questions to include within your article, you can create an overarching article, or an article that encompasses all the subheadings.
This would be an article titled something like:
“Spam Emails: 13 Things You Should Know.”
If your reader wants to learn more about spam emails, they can now get most of their questions answered all in one place!
When searching for answers about this topic, they are also more likely to click on, and stay on, your article which promises them 13 answers that they might be looking for.
This is not a step-by-step post, but rather a guide on the topic that you have chosen which includes plenty of answers to smaller questions.
For a great example of how the Army Ant Method works, check out our Godownsize.com article: “Boats & Flags: 11 Things You Should Know!”
How the Army Ants Method Benefits You:
The Army Ants Method helps keep readers on your site longer than other articles.
This is because your article not only answers their initial searched-for question, but also many more that they didn’t expect!
This is when readers fall down the “rabbit hole,” reading and learning as much as possible about the topic they are interested in.
Because your article has many different answers all in one place, your readers are more likely to read through the whole thing, saving them from having to click around to multiple articles instead.
Furthermore, the longer that your readers stay on your article, the longer screen time that your ads will have. This benefits you if you have ads that only need to be viewed and not clicked on in order to pay out monetary benefits from ads revenue.
If your readers are having fun looking through all the topics that you have provided for them within one article, those ads are more likely to be on-screen for a few minutes instead of just a few seconds!
Finally, your article is more likely to have multiple pageviews because it is more like a helpful guide, not just a quick answer article.
Guides are something that readers tend to come back to or to share with others, leading to more pageviews.
Removing Competition with the Army Ants Method:
Most blogs will skip turning these smaller questions into full-length articles for the same reason we mentioned above:
There just isn’t enough information there to make a full-length article worth it.
Using the Army Ants Method allows us to get ahead of the competition by grabbing these small topics which would otherwise have been skipped or ignored by other major blogs.
Even though the answers you give for each of those smaller “spam email” questions aren’t very lengthy, the fact that your article answers many questions within that topic category is crucial to readers who really want more information.
In essence, this means that readers will find answers on your site instead of someone else’s and will stay longer to thoroughly read and educate themselves on the topic that you chose!
Now, not only are they getting a lot of great information, but they also only have to click on your one article, rather than many, to get their multiple questions answered.
Final Thoughts:
The Army Ants Method is the perfect way to give your readers the answers they are looking for while also beating the competition on underserved keywords.
Not only are your readers staying on your site longer, but you are providing them a great resource into their topic of choice.
Furthermore, your article is more likely to be viewed or referenced multiple times as a helpful guide, encompassing many different answers all in one place.
The Army Ants method prevents readers from clicking away to multiple articles, and gives your website more screen time.