How can you find popular questions in a specific field?

To find popular questions in a specific field, start by defining your topic and readers’ needs. Then collect real questions from forums and communities and use keyword tools to assess search demand. The key is to separate “finding questions” from “determining popularity”: community posts provide context, while search volume helps you compare how often people search for different queries. AI-generated questions should initially be treated only as inspiration, not as evidence of popularity.

Narrow the field to find popular questions relevant to your readers

When looking for topics, do not settle for a broad category. First, clarify who your website serves, what it covers, and what decisions readers are making. Then choose relevant keywords. This is a way to define your research scope, not a platform rule.

An Ahrefs article offers a concrete example: if you run a movie review website, you can search for Netflix and then filter for queries containing review. This helps you identify the shows people want to read reviews of, rather than treating every Netflix-related search as a potential topic. Even within the same field, readers’ needs can differ, so your filters should match your content’s purpose.

Learn from real discussions, not just sentences phrased as questions

A 2026 article by awoo recommends exploring users’ questions on Reddit, Quora, Dcard, PTT, and Facebook groups, among other places. When organizing questions, keep their original context and group them by shared themes and search intent. There is no need to turn every question into a separate article.

• Identify the underlying need: Is the reader trying to understand a concept, compare options, or find recommendations?
• Preserve different ways of expressing a need: “Recommend SEO tools suitable for beginners” is not phrased as a question, but it still expresses a clear need.
• Distinguish real questions from AI simulations: Keep questions generated through AI role-playing in a separate list of ideas to validate, rather than mixing them with original community posts.

At Procrustes, our content service turns questions that customers genuinely care about into articles, with ongoing planning, writing, and updates.

Use keyword reports to compare search demand

A 2026 Ahrefs article describes how to find question-based queries: enter relevant keywords in Keywords Explorer, open the Matching terms report, and switch to Questions. To look beyond queries phrased as questions, you can also apply word filters in the keyword ideas reports.

To assess popularity, you can use the report’s results ranked by monthly search volume. Start by comparing queries that match your field and search intent. The article uses coffee to demonstrate how to find many questions, but finding many questions does not mean that each one has a high search volume.

Label popular searches and community questions separately

When organizing your list, use separate labels for “actual forum questions,” “results ranked by search volume,” and “AI-simulated questions” so you do not treat them as the same measure of popularity. Search reports help you compare search demand, while community posts help you understand how readers describe their difficulties. The sources cited in this article do not provide a universal threshold for popularity across platforms, so they alone should not be used to claim that a particular question attracts the most attention in the entire field.