Yahoo Answers
Encouraging web traffic to come to your site is always on a web designer’s mind. You can have wonderful content, great products, and a beautiful layout. If there’s no site traffic then it is all for nothing. In our talks with Internet Marketing Professionals, Yahoo Answers is a method that is used by the majority of them. However, there are also warnings about the proper ways to use it to insure it is not a complete waste of time.What is Yahoo Answers?
Yahoo Answers is a service by Yahoo (of course) that simply allows the members to ask and answer questions. Just about anything goes as far as questions, so a member can generally find questions that are relevant to their knowledge and, more importantly, their web site.
How it works
To make use of Yahoo answers an account must be created. If you already have a yahoo email account or other account then you can also use that account. Do not! You should always create a separate account as will be explained further into this article. After creating an account, the member can search or browse through various questions that are subdivided into categories. The member can choose a question to answer and their answer will be posted with all of the other answers to that same question. Other members can vote up or down on your answer and the member posing the question can pick the best answer (well it is their opinion).
How you get web site traffic
Ok that is all well and fine, but where does the web site traffic come from? There are a couple ways to do this. Many add a link in their answer that points to their web site. When posting an answer there is an area to add links to web sites that support your information – a link can be added there. Here is where we discuss the “gotchas” with this service. Yahoo is very touchy about links. They will suspend an account with very little provocation. This author spent a week posting well thought out and pertinent answers (and brilliant) and received a suspension notice with no explanation. Upon suspension, all answers are deleted making it a big waste of time. Also if you have an email account, it is suspended too. Now, keep in mind that suspend in Yahoo speak means gone, deleted, removed to the rest of us. The suspension never ends! Oh and that old email account that was also tied to your Answers account. Yeah, it’s gone too.
Why use it?
Ok so this sounds like a place to stay away from – right? Yes there are risks, but the web traffic that can be generated by this medium is worth it and the risks are manageable. First – make a new account. Don’t tie Answers to your email account you have been using for years. Second – don’t leave links in your answers. Any link risks being considered spam resulting in a suspended account. Instead find questions to which the content on your site relates. Answer the question and put your site as the reference. You can also search out popular questions and write and article or add content to your site around these questions. Go back, answer the questions and once again provide that link back to your site.
The guys down at Yahoo are touchy – sure. They also have tons of web traffic that needs to find its way to your site. The exposure you get answering questions properly can establish you within the Answers community as knowledgeable bringing more people to your site. Used properly Yahoo Answers can generate good web referrals with a small time investment.
UPDATE: August 4, 2009
It seems that the people at Yahoo are a little too touchy. At this point I have used every point described in this article with absolutely no success. It seems Yahoo has either read my article... or possibly they have a flawed system for banning users. One method used to ban users is to allow other users to report them. Unfortunately it seems that Yahoo doesn't sufficiently evaluate these user reports and may be banning directly from them. This allows your competition to eliminate you from the answers process by simply reporting your post as abuse. Due to this turn in events, unless you have a long standing Yahoo answers account, this medium looks to be useless or at the very least a possible waste of any marketer's time.
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