Have you considered using Yahoo Answers to try and drive some traffic to your website / blog? Yahoo Answers has become a very popular network for knowledge thirsty question askers and knowledge soaked answer-meisters, and they are all potential visitors for your site. This article aims to provide a detailed look at some tips / tricks for becoming the glowing Yahoo Answers guru you've always wanted to be!
I was inspired back in January by Nathan Libbeys excellent blog post about generating traffic using Yahoo Answers. After reading Nathan's post I registered with Yahoo Answers and started answering questions, mainly in the environment category, and I quickly became semi-obsessed with "Yahanswering" (Sounds Swedish!).
Now the key to using Yahoo Answers is to actually provide some meaningful answers. Yahoo awards points for answering questions and you get a bunch of points if someone picks your answer as the best;
- Answer a question = 2 points
- Log in to Yahoo! Answers Once daily = 1 point
- Vote for an answer = 1 point
- Get voted as "Best Answer" = 10 points
You get 100 points just for registering but the holy grail of Yahanswering is to reach 250 points, at that point you can actually include live links in your answers!
OK, we can assume you have registered, answered with some great answers and reached 250 points, let's explore a few ways to improve your chances of getting those prized "Best Answers" and boost your site traffic at the same time.
A great way to improve your climb up the Yahoo Answers leader board is to take a look at your site and find a great answer. Have you written an article or a blog post which was super informative, educational and unique? Chances are that if your article provides a great answer to a common problem then there will be some unanswered questions to match it!
Yahoo Answers has an "Advanced Search" feature which allows a question slaying web ninja to find suitable questions which will be a perfect match for his/her awesome answer;
For example, my site has a great article about setting up a tumbling composter and there might be throngs of people on Yahoo Answers desperate to learn more about my tumbling composter!
This is where we can make the Advanced Search feature really work for us, for this example I have chose the keyword "compost" along with any one of the following "tumbler,tumbling,rotating,composting,bin";
You will also notice that I have selected to search only for a Keyword match in "Questions" and the Question Status of "Open Questions".
The all important final stage is to save this advanced search so that you can easily run it every time you log in to Yahoo Answers;
And there you have it, a repeatable and highly focused search that will link you to people desperate to find the answers you already possess!
In my above example the results yielded a find straight away;
I can clearly see that "Donna" needs to read my awesome article about setting up a tumbler composter and I can now click on here question and provide that answer.
I wrote my reply to Donna and can now sit back with fingers crossed and hope that I get that elusive 10 points for a "Best Answer"
Using techniques such as the saved Advanced Searches have built my Yahoo Answers portfolio into a veritable link farm. I have enjoyed the challenge of answering peoples questions and it's very rewarding to get that 10 point Best Answer from a happy question asker.
I have tracked my traffic direct from Yahoo Answers this year and it isn't huge but it's well worth the effort;
As you can see from my stats I've recently taken a break from Yahanswering, mainly to focus on writing articles like this one, but I plan to get my answering hat back on soon and keep climbing my way up that Yahoo Answers leaderboard.
So there you have it, you now have the tools and the knowledge to venture forth and become a Yahoo Answer grand master, let me know your experiences using the Advanced Search features and whether you have seen any spikes in traffic from some crafty Yahanswering!
Interesting stuff - considering I was cooking up a post on Yahoo answers, I guess I wont have to.
I was running a small biz experiment to try two things:
My premise was simple - I would only write an outline of the site, and then Yahoo Answers to find common questions asked in the last 6 months related to the site.
I ended up with 30-40 questions - the site was set up on the 1st of August, and by the 10th I had some direct content on there inspired by the questions.
I then did what you did above, find the questions that were still open and answered using links to my content as references. I decided to allow only three - four days to do that in the month - answer as many as I could.
Results?
Proof: https://explicitly.me/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Yahoo-answers-Traffic.jpg
Now I will leave you with a proviso - you do it too often, and Yahoo will ban you. Do it if you write content that genuinely has answer and use for the readers - dont become a yahoo Answers spammer :) .
Great stuff Rishil, thank you for sharing. Did your Yahoo Answers experiment generate any revenue for you? Or, maybe the links alone were worth the effort?
I'm now pretty convinced that Yahoo Answers can drive traffic. However, I still wonder if the majority of people looking for free advice are looking for free advice because they have no budget!
I have zero evidence that my hypothesis is right or wrong, which is why I keep asking. I'd really love to hear someone say, "Yes, I used Yahoo Answers and drove a lot of traffic that converted to customers at X%."
Who doesn't love to find new channels to make money? So, does anyone have a money making case study for Yahoo Answers? Maybe Yahoo Answers' best utility is as a link generator?
Wow! Thanks Rishil, those are some great stats, gives me more inspiration to continue Yahanswering!
Depends - i was looking for quality content ideas, and thats what I got. But yes, the site ran a bit of adsense and affiliate links, and I made some change as a result, but not enough to justify spamming Yahoo.
The crux was to find engaged users, and thats what I got - I made sure I added a Facebook Fan Page and a like button, and the site now has 200 + fans and 300 friends. But I guess that depends on the nature of the site you are promoting...
Rishil both you and Martin are lucky not to have an analyst like me to supervise your work. Had you come up with that proof of yours, i would have pulled my hair. And top of that Martin calling your proof a great stats is ridiculous. Here is how i would have evaluted your or any SEO work:
Revenue generated through Yahoo Answer = No. Of goals achieved through yahoo Answers * value of each goal
(these goals don't necessarily needs to be product purchase. It can also be micro goals like certain amount of time spent on the site, certain number of pages/visit etc)
Yahoo Answers ROI= Revenue generated through Yahoo Answers – (total hours you wasted on yahoo answers * your salary per hour)
I used the word 'wasted', cos this ROI has always come -ve unless someone can prove me wrong with solid stats. Though Martin has proved me right with his screen shot. Even with -ROI i would have still appreciated your efforts had you generated some revenue for the company through Yahoo Answers. But if your revenue is also $0, then yahoo answer is a total waste of time.
Himanshu, I think this is a very simplistic (and incorrect) assessment. Although I agree that they are lucky not to have you as an analyst to supervise their work.
You wrongly assume that the “R” in ROI is always measured in $. If the “I” = Time, then the “R” can also be something a little less measurable than cash. Martin and Rishil’s investment of time has yielded a return of knowledge. They’ve used that knowledge to share with the community. Presumably you also consider the entire post a waste of “I”, and by extension you have no “R” for your own time spent demeaning their efforts. If Yahoo answers is a complete waste of time, where do you stand on SEOMOZ forums?
Using the same logic:
Where “I” = Time spent at school – Resulting education = complete waste of time.
As an ‘analyst’, you should be well aware that testing and yielding a negative result doesn’t equate to a bad outcome. Proving an exercise to be wrong or useless does not mean the experiment, the journey, is a waste of time.
I think it is you who has wrongly assumed that 'R' in ROi is always measured in $ (though google analytics do that all the time). I was simply talking about assigining a numerical value to a non-ecommerce goal so that you can calculate the monetary value of your seo efforts. If this is not evident to you, then it is not my fault.
"Martin and Rishil’s investment of time has yielded a return of knowledge. They’ve used that knowledge to share with the community. Presumably you also consider the entire post a waste of “I”, and by extension you have no “R” for your own time spent demeaning their efforts. If Yahoo answers is a complete waste of time, where do you stand on SEOMOZ forums?"
You are right here. I lost my time reading this post. When you publish your work on the world most read seo blog, then it will be scrutinized. And i am helping others by saving their time from useless tasks like Yahoo answers. If it is not then prove it. Show the world how you increased sales and conversions through yahoo answers. I will be the first to give you thumb up. By the way seomoz is a blog. Isn't it???
"Using the same logic:
Where “I” = Time spent at school – Resulting education = complete waste of time."
You need to go back to school as this logic doesn't make any sense. Have you heard of long term ROI? Have you heard of life long ROI? This is what you get through education at school.
I just sold the site for £500.
To start with, I was never trying to generate money, it was a test on the value of scaleable non search engine traffic. I proved that there is invested traffic available, depending on your intent.
Secondly, keep your pompousness out of comments please, I don't need you to supervise me - I found that an extremely rude comment.
Understand what the premise of the post and comments are.
Edit: I took out my obviously rude comments. Realising that seriously don't need to speak in that low tone. It's unfair of me telling someone not to do it while I do it myself.
I was just making a point. Sorry if you found it rude.
I find SEO Himanshu's posts worthwhile most of the time. Just saying
Sweet Martin. Thanks for such a clear and easy to follow explanation of Yahoo Answers and how to use it to your SEO advantage. While it's technically neither social networking or straight altruism perhaps it could be called Altruistic Marketing.
And I was so looking for something else to do in addition to LinkedIn/twitter/SEOmoz commenting...oh yeah and my work ;-)
Lol, time is precious indeed, I've started using Twuffer to schedule Tweets so that I can actually have some free time...
I like the article, it's a great idea. Initially though I got a little too excited because by live links I thought you meant links that weren't nofollowed with such an easy way to obtain them. Regardless I have some clients that this will work great for.
Thanks!
I was excited because I thought the same thing! Say it ain't so!
First, thank you for the very well done, concise explanation of Yahoo answers. It looks like the links are nofollow, is that your understanding too?
Nofollow links can still be very valuable, but your Google Analytics report has also caught my eye. An 82% bounce rate is pretty steep, and those that did not bounce averaged only 2.63 pages per visit. Have you gained any clients from Yahoo answers traffic?
Your experience alone is not a statistically significant sample, but I'm wondering what is your opinion of the quality and profitability of Yahoo Answers traffic?
Thanks for reading, I'm glad you enjoyed the article. I noticed the very low performing bounce rate stats too. I took a deeper look at the stats;
I have answered 92 questions and 43 of those were chosen as the "Best Answer".
Those 43 best answers are likely the source of the 227 visits so thats an average of approx 5 visits per best answer, however....
The tallest peak was during a period around Jan 17th where I received 75 visits in 6 days and ironically the source was from a question / answer where I did not get picked as the "Best Answer", it was answering a topic regarding the demand for growing corn due to increased use of flex fuels;
I got the most traffic from this Yahoo Answer:
https://yhoo.it/9Cva7a
Which linked to the following page on my site:
https://www.oureverydayearth.com/2009/03/18/e85-flex-fuel-gas-station-locations-in-texas-usa/
The 75 visitors to this page averaged 03:36 mins with a 77% bounce rate... I think that with persisent answering I would find more of these gold nuggets of traffic.
I had to Ctrl-F with the word "bounce rate" because i knew i wasn't the only person to notice this.
Yahooanswerfail.com or what is now artoftrolling.com is the reason i refuse to even give YA a second thought.
There might be a bit of traffic from these but the main benefit for me would have been the outbound links (as most Yahoo Answer pages are a PR8). I was disappointed to reach the 250 point mark only to check the source and realize that the links had . Oh well at least I was able to help a bunch of people out!
Thank you for writing this! Good post. I kept meaning to do something similar as a follow-up to my original post, but never found the time. I am really glad to see this here.
Another note is that once you do the custom search, you can also subscribe to the results in an RSS reader (such as Google Reader) and have it send the questions to you that way.
It works great for me.
One other thing. If I look and see that there is already an answer there that is amazing, I usually just say it's the right answer. No use trying to make perfect better. But If I can in some way provide a more accurate answer, that is a great thing.
Hi Nathan,
Thanks again for your inspiring article, it sounds like many people were switched onto Yahoo Answers by your original post. Proof that reading SeoMoz on a daily basis can generate some great actionable activities.
Great article...and an interesting way to re-leverage existing content.
How many hours did you invest in answering questions? (How many hours of work for 250 visitors per year)
Hi Sebes,
I don't invest too much time to be honest, maybe an hour a week at most, and the saved search feature makes it very quick to find those groovy questions that fit my existing answers :)
There is also some level of personal gratification in helping someone answer their questions...
What I love about your tactic is that it saves time, provides more SEO value for you AND provides value to Yahoo Answers users. Instead of filtering through dozens of questions, you go looking for the people who need your help. Great approach, and I'd imagine it would work for LinkedIn Q&A and other similar services as well.
Hi Dr. Pete, thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed the post :@)
I wasn't sure how the article would be received because my visitor stats from Yahoo Answers aren't great but I think it provides a glimpse of the possibilities.
Martin,
Don't ever worry about posting an article with some "bad numbers". Sharing information on the potential weaknesses of a method is just as valuable as highlighting its strengths. Just look at Dr. Pete's recent aptly named "Catastrophic Canonical" post with horrendous numbers for a case in point. I agree that Yahoo Answers has potential.
It's worth mentioning, please read the ToS carefully for Yahoo's Answers pages.
After months of posting responses to SEO and web-based business questions on Answers, my account was suspended for posting a reply to the ""Investor" category. Apparently Yahoo took offense, though I wasn't hanging spam (really). Funny, a lot of those answers still show up in SERPs but I'm banned.
Tread cautiously.
Wish I could take advantage of some of the suggestions in this post (without creating a new account).
Good info.
Thanks,
Paul
Posting to YA with commercial intent is, I believe, considered a violation of their TOS.
Note that "commercial intent" includes "linking to free content on my website."
In 2007-2008, a company with which I am affiliated hired a contractor to pursue exactly the technique you describe. The site had thousands of articles of great, original content written by real people with real expertise in a field. The contractor spent a day a week searching YA for relevant questions, and posting individualized, original answers that both answered the question AND linked to the website for more info.
Many of these answers were selected as "best."
Then one day Yahoo staff erased them all. The whole lot, gone, including our contractor's profile. The reason: "Community Guidelines and/or Terms Of Service Violation"
So, while the method you describe is likely to drive some traffic and goodwill, IME it does not scale. If one of Yahoo's staff finds hundreds, maybe even dozens of answers that all link to the same website, chances are that profile will be taken down, whether or not all the answers were upvoted or even rated "best."
That is certainly a good warning, I will make sure I go read through the latest YA Terms of Service.
Whenever answering a question I always try to ensure I am following the Community Guidelines, one of which is; "Cite your sources"
I try to make sure that my answer contains enough substance that it can stand alone without the user needing to follow the link. Any link provided simply serves as a legitimate source for the answer I provided.
Great article Martin :-) Using YA as you described works. If Y finds answers spammy or feels they are being 'used' they may react, but i suspect if (as in all cases) one is prudent, Yahoo would be happy to have their user's questions answered in an effective manner... including appropriate links :-)
Thanks Andy - Definitely agree, I think the same Community Guidelines apply to any open forum and I always try to keep any spamminess in my answers to an absolute minimum, same applies when leaving simple blog comments etc.
Yo dude! Congrats on getting promoted to the main blog Martin!
Many thanks! I'm truly grateful for the promotion to the main blog. It's awesome to see the number of views and comments generated. Only question is... What on Earth do I write about next? :0)
You have not to worry now about what will you write about. That "thing" will simply pop up naturally from your daily thoughts and experience. Just beware to not have put the pop up blocker on ;).
Thanks for sharing. Its too bad that Yahoo doesnt have a member level where those members can start posting follow links. Can you customize the anchor text of the links you are including?
Looks like this is mostly an exercise in finding traffic sources rather then improving your site's SEO. You may find that the most valuable thing (SEO wise) from this whole exercise is from the link to your site included in your post, which will likely turn into a nice PR4-5 link from a great stie.
Hey Brandon! Good to see you're back! Where've ya been? It's been a coon's age* since you've commented.
* Coon's age is an expression Casey Henry (caseyhen) taught me
I don't know if I taught that to you. I wasn't even born yet the first time you most likely used that term.
You are so modest Casey. Especially since I've learned every old guy expression I know from you!
Haha, thanks for noticing. I have been here, just reading mostly. I've been staying busy!
Wow, nice post and good idea! I've noticed before that Y! answers rank way high in Google. Will try this, looks promising.
Thanks for the article.
I've been periodically answering questions in Yahoo, but had gotten away from it.
Spent about an hour in it this morning, using the "advanced" search and a few other tactics. We'll see how well it works for traffic, but it was a nice change from the nitty gritty searching for link request options, etc.
You're right though, it does feel good to offer up real answers to people's questions.
Assuming you spent an hour a week on this, over the duration of your experiment, you spent a total of over 40 hours (an entire work week) answering submitting answers, with a little more than 200 visitors to your site. I can easily get 200 visitors in a couple days by spending an hour or so writing a good quality article and submitting it to an article site. Multiple that by 40, and then look at the number of visitors that it could generate over 10 months, and it's a no-brainer that your time might be better suited elsewhere.
Thanks for your interest in the article, I took a harder look at the time I spent answering questions and I typically spend less than 5 mins per answer, so over the 92 questions I answered the time is prob more like 8 hours total. I think that works out to roughly 2.5 mins of work per visit. This is still high but I feel it is time well spent as I am establishing a degree of authority in my chosen Answers field.
thanks for sharing it. i used to run yahoo answers account in my previous workplace and i was able to drive not great but considerable traffic to my website. and now i work in some other company and i m surprised no one here uses yahoo answers and other answering communities to drive traffic. i tried a lot to convince my team lead that it can be a great way to drive traffic to our websties but he was less convinced. but thanks for writing on it (especially on rand's blog) now i m gonna refer this post to my team lead and hopefully he will be convinced.
Some people just aren't willing to listen to good ideas unless they are their own.
Anything that increases the quality of answers at yahoo answers is a worthy cause. ;-)
I was inspired after the original post you cited to start using Yahoo! Answers on a couple of cliens and this has now become a definite part of our link building strategy. If you're implementing it on a local level, you can get some interesting traffic. This is highly useful, even when the links in your answer are no-followed - which of course also makes them look part of a natural pattern.#
Nattural-looking links that drive traffic - a very good subject to post on!
It's a good and a different way to get some traffic.
The same strategy could probably works too for some specific help forums.
Thanks for sharing !
Thanks Martin,
Equipped with the information provided by you, I went to Yahoo Answers today, found a question related to one of my blog posts, and answered it. Hope I get a 10 :-)
One of my bugbears with Yahoo answers is that the window to actually answer a question is very small. I wish questions were open for a longer period of time, because you really have to keep on top of it to get in there with your answer.
I'm interested to know if anyone has experimented on a commercial level with LinkedIn and Facebook questions as my guess is the traffic is more targeted and valuable, although probably much lower-volume.
Great post, gave me food for thought!
- Jenni
I've used LinkedIn a bit. One nice feature they have is that you can publicly answer the question and also privately submit a comment to the person asking. It's kind of a spammer's paradise and you'll find a lot of bad answers wrapped inside sales pitches, like "Your site is in trouble because your page rank is 3 and you should hire me to get it to page rank 6...." Although, sometimes the bad answers help the good answers standout.
I only played with it for a couple weeks. I received some "best answers" and "good answers" and met a handful of very nice and appreciative people who were asking the questions. However, it was not a revenue generator. Although, in fairness, a couple weeks is probably not a long enough test.
Thanks for replying, sounds interesting. It's quite difficult to know when to jump in as well as these things are developing all the time but at the same time it's such an advantage to be ahead of the competition!
- Jenni
I use Yahoo Answers in lots of SEO projects I work on, and I'm satisfied with results. Except link, there you can get real targeted traffic, of course if you target right questions.
I didn't use daily mail notification, thought, that's nice tip, too. I'll try with that, too.
Thanks
I heard there is a level you can achieve in yahoo answers where they remove the no follow tag? Is this true and if so, what level needs to be reached. Nothing mentioned on their page about this:
LevelPointsQuestionsAnswersCommentsStarsRatingsVotes725,000+* unlimited *100unlimited200610,000 - 24,999* unlimited *100unlimited15055,000 - 9,999* unlimited *100unlimited12542,500 - 4,999208040100unlimited10031,000 - 2,499156030100unlimited752250 - 999104020100unlimited5011 - 2495201010025
What a cool post Martin (including my first reply on this forum).
Cheers
A
I've been using this same technique for the past 3-4 years, definitely proven to work.
However, unfortunately you do have to deceive a bit in your choice of wording, had my account deleted for being 100% honest.
Even after reading the terms/guidelines it stated that you could share a personal link if it truly is helpful and informative. The problem of course lies in human beings abusing the flagging system. Even if you provide a great answer and a link to a tutorial you've written, just because someone knows that it's your article they just might get mad and give you a thumbs down or flag you.
Not to mention "competition" or people that just flag because they don't like your answer, truly absurd. I've probably had 4-5 accounts deleted and now I keep answers simple and short to stay off the radar, and I word them along the lines of:
"Here's an article I found that might help: link
Hope it helps.
Thanks"
And then I just mark Google as the resource for which I found the article. So far so good.
Thanks, Bryan
I have used Yahoo Answers many times as a person seeking an answer and it wasn't until recently that I relized I could use Answers as a way to increase traffic. But as I was answersing questions I fumbled around trying to do so. Thanks for the great informative post, I leared a lot and now know more of what I am doing.
Yes, i also do yahoo answers for my site and it really increased the traffic but not so much. After reading this article i will again start to submit answers in yahoo answers. Thanks for very useful post.
Great article.
James Platteborze
As a local business owner of a one person personal injury law firm I can only work with individuals in Georgia. So, I think that posting answers to Georgia related law questions could provide me with clients. So, for my type of business, this could work. But, if I answered some dude's question from California, it would be a waste of my time. Therefore, this article for me can provide ROI and an opportunity to help with Branding. I also didn't know about the point system. Thanks teaching.
From my personal experience, I have found YA to be useful for research. I find it helps with learning the questions people are asking and the terminology they use. I sometimes find it useful to practice answering questions about a topic and then evaluating how the answers stack up the against what others provide. It may also provide an ego boost and/or a reality check, there could be value in that.
I have not found any measurable benefit in convertible traffic or links (other’s mileage may vary). I believe this is by design. This is the way Yahoo! wants it to be. And, they work hard to keep it that way.
Sounds like a lot of work for 200 visits
It's a lot of work but if you answer questions in your field of expertise then it can actually be very interesting and rewarding so the time flies by! Makes a nice break from the regular link building methods.
Thanks for the follow-up. Not surprisingly, I suspect the key to making this work well is to answer relevant questions and match those answers with compelling content (which you've done).
I'm still skeptical of Yahoo Answers' profitiability. I have experience with one client that receives a ton of traffic from Wikipedia. Bounce rates are low and they spend some time on site, but revenue from Wikipedia traffic is significantly lower than other sources. In fairness, there are a dozen different potential reasons to explain this. Yahoo Answers definitely seems worth a test. Like most things, it probably works for some markets and not others and depends greatly on quality of execution.
Thanks for the article.
i am alredy use yahoo answer but advance search is a new thing for me thank you
Im not saying yahoo answers and similar yet also popupar Q&A sites dont work because ive seen first hand the power of dozens of daily visitors clicking through from yahoo answers.
What i want people to understand is that we live in an age of serious competition and the sneaky people that come with it.
I built up dozens of daily visitiors only to have some greedy fools open multiple accounts on YA and report my answers so that they would be removed.
Their tactic works and i gave up trying
But what goes around comes around and im sure they have had it done back to them and they gave up
Some niches arnt worth the hastle on YA
I have been trying Yahoo Answer for 2 week right now before this post and this post is true. It drive traffic to your site! Not much, but sweet enough...
I never used the advanced search though... I could use that...
Did you know you can actually vote on your own answer? Just look at your activity page, where there is a list of your answers, and click on the ones that say "in voting". You can then go and vote for your own answer. This is a great way to get your best answer percentage up, as not that many people really vote, and in many questions the asker does not choose a best answer. But shhhhhh!!!
Has SEOmoz gone Black Hat?
Thanks for sharing Martin,
I was not all using Yahoo answers to drive traffic to my websites.After reading to your post and comments on them now I want to start answering Yahoo.
I am a new to Yahoo answers so i will ask your help in near future.
Regards,
Alish