One of the main things I do to run successful campaigns online is always look offline. As I was watching television tonight, a Yahoo! Answers commercial came on and BOOM…It’s time to really jump on it.
If you’re in the social media craze or doing SMO (social media optimization), give Yahoo! Answers a shot.
Yahoo recently announced a new mission statement, which is to “connect people”. That’s exactly what we’re seeing with Yahoo taking a prime time spot on national television promoting this feature.
Yahoo Answers can basically do what the social bookmarking sites or network sites do which is branding, link juice (Answers does use No Follow), and drive traffic to your website.
By helping your target customer base answer questions about their purchasing decisions, Yahoo Answers is an excellent opportunity for building trust and recognition amongst your target market.
In March, Loren gave a rundown on How to Market Your Site on Yahoo Answers. Here is a snippet :
- 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.
Yahoo announced on May 7th, it has reached 10 million registered US users, with over 90 million worldwide and growing at a steady pace.
We will probably see more and more Yahoo Answers being surfaced within search results (that’s just speculation on my part) as Yahoo Shortcuts or premier listings. Now is the time to take advantage of Yahoo Answers as a marketing platform.
