Get More Traffic With Social Answer Sites

by Sean Rasmussen on July 29, 2009

in Social Media

Social Answer SitesThere’s no doubt that social media can help you get more traffic and consequently more sales when you’re selling something online.

While spamming won’t get you far at all, there are some techniques you can use that enable you to be helpful and promote your product at the same time.

Using Social Answer Sites

There are answer-based websites by companies like Yahoo Answers that you can utilise to get more traffic to your website. You need to do this the right way, otherwise you won’t get very far and you will probably get banned by those sites.

Social Answer Sites let members ask questions and other members can make helpful suggestions. Some of these sites are very active. By answering questions related to your product niche, you could sell more products. At the very least, you could get some more traffic to your website.

Answer Site Tips

1. Build a reputation on the site by answering plenty of questions without being self serving. You might answer several questions without self promotion before you slip in a self promotional link.

2. Follow the terms of service to avoid getting banned. Don’t put affiliate links into answers, etc. Some of these sites allow a resource section and it would be perfectly acceptable for you to point the inquirer to a helpful link. This link might be a pre-selling article, blog post, or web page as an example.

3. Don’t engage in flame wars. Flame wars happen in public places when people argue over a subject. When you’re trying to do self-promotion and establish yourself as a helpful expert, avoid conflict like the plague!

4. Be creative! Some sites allow you to open several profiles. This can help you ask and answer questions strategically but be careful not to get banned. Overdoing this practice could be dangerous for your credibility on a site. You could also work with a group of friends to ask and answer one another’s questions.

Community forums and special interest lists are constantly joined by people that need and want help. If you were promoting a technical product online, you might want to join (or even start) a forum that helps people with their technical issues.

Your helpful answers could help you build a reputation and most of these sites let you put a clickable link into your signature. Those clickable links will give you search engine optimisation results because every post you submit will show that link and each link will count as a backlink to your site. Many of these sites also allow RSS feeds into your profile that you can use to link to blogs and articles as well.

Some Social Answer Sites, groups, and forums actually index the questions and answers in search engines so optimising your questions and answers for good keyword use can be very helpful. Someone could type a question about a product or problem covered by your specialty in Google and an answer marked as a ‘Best’ answer could pop up with a direct link to a page that sells a product you’ll receive a commission on.

Building an online presence can do a lot for your marketing efforts. Once you’ve built a rapport with some online friends you can also ask them to bookmark a site for you on occasion and comment on blog posts if they find them interesting.

If you are a helpful online citizen and point someone to a helpful web post or website when you answer their question they might also vote for you on a social bookmarking site, or leave a tip in a donation jar to thank you for your help.

Have a most outstanding day.

Sean Rasmussen
Aussie Internet Marketing
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008 - 2010

 

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Gee March 22, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Hi Sean

The more you cover on social media the more I am hooked. There is just a great array of information and communities.

The social answer sites are a great example of helping others which will assist in building my profile on line

Reply

2 Jazz Salinger March 23, 2010 at 6:30 am

Hi Sean,

I am using Yahoo Answers and a couple of forums for this purpose. I have been working at trying to be a good online community member. I think it’s the same as it is in the offline world.

I think it’s about building relationships and giving before you get. I’m hoping that the more I am a contributing member and adding value; the more I will get traffic to my site.

Reply

3 Elly July 13, 2010 at 11:42 am

Hi Sean

It’s mind bloggling what you know! (that’s not a typo). I think it is a great idea to join the Yahoo answers forum (for instance) and be helpful to others. I like to build relationships with people and I can see how this would work nicely if I take it slowly. I know I can help in many ways.

I also like the prospect of networking with interesting and like minded people and eventually building another wing of traffic, guest bloggers and back links.

Reply

4 Peter Damien Ryan July 13, 2010 at 12:28 pm

I have been using Yahoo Answers for a while now – mainly on gardening questions – it’s fun and also testing both your knowledge and ability to express that clearly and to the point.

It’s also good to hear when your answer gets picked as the best.

And this reminds me that I havn’t been there for a week now!

Warning: it can be a wee bit addictive LOL

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5 Jody Chambers July 13, 2010 at 2:51 pm

By answering alot of questions on your topic in a social media site would put you in a position of “expertise” in your field..so it would make sense that people would look you up further or purchase from you as a result. I have seen a flame war on a forum and it looked ugly and only dicredited all parties involved, the entire thread was actually deleted by the moderator and one member was removed,

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