Yahoo Answers is the knowledge sharing Q&A based social network with over 90 million users worldwide with around 18 million users in the United States.
Becoming the pinnacle Social Media offering online because of its ease of use and community feel, Yahoo Answers is a vibrant web neighborhood of information sharing and a fresh alternative to traditional web search.
Internet marketers and web publishers who want to position themselves as experts in their respected industries should begin to take notice, as Yahoo Answers has developed an incredible outlet to do so.
By utilizing the categories in Yahoo Answers, a site owner can use the content and knowledge available via their site or research to actively answer questions which are being asked within Yahoo Answers and not only will such participation build that expert recognition, but also possible traffic, links and sales.
Each Yahoo Answers form comes with a section for listing web sites as references to the answer. These direct links do include a NoFollow attribute, which makes it more difficult for search engines to use those links as part of their link popularity ranking algorithms, but that does not stop people from following these links.
In fact, these links are shown to result in referring traffic to the sites of those users who answer with in depth and accurate answers. And if an answer is chosen or starred as a quality answer by the Yahoo Answers community, this may show Yahoo Search that the site referenced is a quality and resourceful site, marking it as an authority and helping its Yahoo ranking.
Matt McGee of Small Business SEM gives some tips on using Yahoo Answers for traffic generation:
I don’t spend a ton of time on Yahoo! Answers. One or two visits per week is typical. And if I just spend one hour answering questions in the Small Business category (or elsewhere when it’s appropriate), I’m guaranteeing myself a traffic bump over the following several days. It never fails.
The key, as it is with any social site like this, is two-fold:
- Don’t spam. Jamming your URL into every answer just pisses people off.
- Be active. Contribute value. Help people out and you will be rewarded.
According to my blog stats, Yahoo! Answers has been the #1 referring source to this blog in each of the past four days.
So, here’s a rundown of how to build your reputation and market your site, business and services on Yahoo Answers.
- Become a member of Yahoo Answers, upload avatar and fill in your profile with general and accurate information.
- Pick the category most relevant to your business or site.
- Check that category daily for questions that you can answer accurately and informatively.
- Perform searches in Yahoo for your top keywords or keyphrases. Answer the questions supplied by Yahoo Answers in the normal Yahoo Search results, these will get the most web search eyes and possibly clicks on your links.
- Use the Yahoo Answers social network to make friends with every person asking or answering questions within that category. Yahoo Answers uses a one click Ajax tool for adding friends (contacts) which is very efficient.
- Answer the questions that you can and link to your site as a reference when best suited.
- Link to other sites as references so your participation is not mistaken as spamming.
- If others are answering questions more accurately than you, star or vote for their answers, this is a good way to make friends.
- Take two or three hours a week to perform this simple yet effective social media participation, then check your log files or stats to see if this is building traffic and conversions. If it is, rinse and repeat.
- Also take into account that Yahoo Answers information will be indexed by Yahoo for a long time, this is not just a quick marketing fix. Yahoo Answers info is also integrated into Yahoo Local, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Brand Channels and other Yahoo content channels, so the audience is growing significantly.
