smilodon
Active Member
Yahoo Answers (further YA) is a site on which people ask and answers all sorts of questions. The questions (and answers) asked on YA cover pretty much any topic and any niche one can imagine.
What makes YA so powerful for our marketing efforts are 3 things:
- the first thing that makes YA so powerful is already mentioned - all niches are represented, and people actually come to YA when they have a problem. We all know how a marketers dream is to find people with problems we can solve; Keep in mind these are VERY targeted niche questions;
- the second thing that makes YA powerful for marketing online is that we can leave a link in the source box field. This link is "no follow" link. Furthermore, we HAVE to link in this manner: http://cpafix.com in order for the link to be clickable, meaning we can't get anchor text from YA. Still, for SEO efforts I would use YA as another referring* site, which is of great importance to the search engines, AND we can link to inner pages of our site as well;
*a referring site is the site that links to ours. If we have 10 links from 10 sites, it means our website is linked to from 10 different referring sites, a much stronger value for SEO than having been linked 1000 times from 1 referring site, even though in the former case we have 10 links, and in the latter 1000 links pointing to our site.
- the third extremely powerful and important thing about YA is that answers themselves tend to rank highly in the search engines, especially in the long tail SERP results. YA are also highly regarded in the eyes of the users. They are the leaders in the Question/Answer niche. I would compare them to Facebook in this niche. Sure, there are other similar sites, more niche oriented where experts give their opinions (comparable to LinkedIn for example), or much smaller than YA (and plus, they usually don't allow a link) but YA is still the king.
Because YA is so powerful in the eyes of the search engines, our questions can have a very long lifetime, securing us traffic over a long period of time;
In order for our links to become clickable or active and not just text, we need our account to be level 2 or higher. In order to get to level 2, we need to acquire 250 points. We start off with 100 points just by registering to YA. For every question we answer we get 2 points, for our every answer that gets voted as the best answer we get additional 10! points, and for every vote we cast for a best answer we get 1 point.
All links in answers we made while our account was level 1 will become live, active links retroactively, when we hit level 2.
* to find more about points and levels, visit this link.
So enough of the introduction, lets get to the meat of this post, and find out
How to Make YA Work for our Purpose:
Our main objective is to get our answer chosen as the BEST ANSWER. This is important to because the answer that is chosen as the best answer is cemented at the top, right after the question, even if our answer was posted last. It is very distinguishable from the other answers (think of it as being top on Google results).
The topic starter can choose the best answer, the only criteria being his judgment. He is practically a host to the discussion (similar to a forum) as far as his own questions (topics) go. If the topic starter does not choose the best answer, after 4 days the question will go in voting mode, lasting a day or until the question gets the most votes if it is a tie, during which people can give one vote to an answer they liked, or give the "no best answer" vote. People get a point for voting for a best answer to any question.
There are 2 main ways we can get our answer ranked as the best answer.
- The first one is to get a feel for the person who asked the question and give the answer we think will likely be voted as the best answer. Keep in mind though, from my experience 80% of the questions end up resolved in voting mode. BUT this is a good thing, as we can VOTE FOR OUR OWN QUESTION, and more often than not, no one else gives a vote for a question. Now, if we have multiple accounts (with multiple IP's of course, we don't want to get banned), we can practically assure that our answer gets voted as the best answer.
To see which of our questions are in voting mode, simply go to "My Activity -> My Answers -> More Answers", and find the questions with the text "In Voting" next to them, and vote for our answer.
I have seen some people advise that we answer 4 questions without linking anywhere as the source, and then making one "promotional" answer, as to avoid getting reported by the community, to avoid the answer being deleted, and eventually receiving a ban. From my experience, if the answers are good, the account lasts me a very, very long time. When I get too many reports, which is bound to happen, I simply switch to another account.
Also, I would advise that we stick to answering questions from ONE category with one account. This can lead to our account being labeled as a "top contributor", further strengthening it "power" (i.e. it will be harder for us to get banned). It is a title that stands bellow our avatar, and we all know how much titles can mean to make us seem like we know what we are talking about. I am sure we all know it is not about who actually knows what he is talking about, but rather he who looks like the biggest expert is the one that gets "best answer".
To find the fresh questions we can answer, simply use the search box, and sort the questions by "newest".
When we answer enough questions in one niche, it is easy to notice the pattern: many similar questions are asked. I have a default answer for such questions. I make sure it is an answer of extreme quality, often chosen as the best answer. Of course, for each answer I rewrite it in different words.
- The second main way to get our answer to be chosen as the top answer (and we can be absolutely sure that our answer will get voted as the best one this time) is to ask AND answer the question ourselves! Of course, this would be done with 2 different accounts. We have 4 full days to vote our own answer as the top answer, so don't be hasty and vote it up in a matter of hours, or even minutes as some people do. They obviously did not think things trough, and practically label themselves as spammers. I would also advise making the answer as quality as possible, as that is the only long term solution.
* tip: do some basic keyword research, and make sure our question AND our answer both hold the keywords in them;
* tip: combine services such as Minuteworkers and YA;
About our profile, answers and links:
(tips inside!)
- Fill our profile up a bit, add an avatar. It takes 2 minutes, and makes us seem much more legit.
- Use one IP per account. For a free, short term alternative, I would suggest the TOR browser.
- To guard ourselves as much as possible from the people who wish us banned, here is what to do:
go to My activity -> Edit my preferences -> Privacy and Communications. On Sharing and network choose to "share my Q and A with -> My contacts only", choose to "Share my Answers network with: My contacts only", untick "Allow someone from Yahoo Answers to be my fan". That way the "well wishers" won't be able to search our previous questions and flag them if they wish to do so (and they do try)!
- Treat the source box (found below the answer) just like we would treat the author bio box in the articles for guest posting or article directories. Don't just put our link there, write something to the effect of http://cpafix.com is one of the greatest forums that has users sharing ideas about performance marketing efforts.
- Do not use link shorteners, .tk domains, or even Youtube shortened links. This way, our answers will get ghosted. What this means is that we will be able to see the answer we gave, but no one else will. To check if our answer was ghosted, simply copy and paste the link of the question in another browser where we are not logged in to YA, and if the answer is visible through another browser - then it is not ghosted.
EDIT: I got asked this trough a PM, and realized it is a good questions and needs to be on here:
You can do whatever you want, but I suggest not to direct link without masking the link. I use either a php redirect or iframe an offer on my domain and put those links on YA.
I can attest to YA working well for certain products from CB, as well as being effective for CPA offers. To answer questions on YA we do not need a lot of time, but the traffic coming from it can be huge. The huge traffic can result in direct monetary gain, to visitors to our website, it can be used to build a list, so on
EDIT: Check real stats from one offer I promoted on YA for 30 days with a fresh account here:
http://www.cpafix.com/f32/generating-traffic-$$$-using-yahoo-answers-1899/index2.html#post15856
I hope I shed some light on how to be successful on YA. One final piece of advice I can offer is this: you should not take what I (or anyone else for that matter) write for granted. Sure, use this as a guideline for the beginning, but experiment and find what works best for you. And of course - report your findings!
Of course, if you have any questions, suggestions or additions, please do not be afraid to voice them. I will reply to them to the best of my knowledge and ability.
Kind Regards, and Good Luck,
IgorT
What makes YA so powerful for our marketing efforts are 3 things:
- the first thing that makes YA so powerful is already mentioned - all niches are represented, and people actually come to YA when they have a problem. We all know how a marketers dream is to find people with problems we can solve; Keep in mind these are VERY targeted niche questions;
- the second thing that makes YA powerful for marketing online is that we can leave a link in the source box field. This link is "no follow" link. Furthermore, we HAVE to link in this manner: http://cpafix.com in order for the link to be clickable, meaning we can't get anchor text from YA. Still, for SEO efforts I would use YA as another referring* site, which is of great importance to the search engines, AND we can link to inner pages of our site as well;
*a referring site is the site that links to ours. If we have 10 links from 10 sites, it means our website is linked to from 10 different referring sites, a much stronger value for SEO than having been linked 1000 times from 1 referring site, even though in the former case we have 10 links, and in the latter 1000 links pointing to our site.
- the third extremely powerful and important thing about YA is that answers themselves tend to rank highly in the search engines, especially in the long tail SERP results. YA are also highly regarded in the eyes of the users. They are the leaders in the Question/Answer niche. I would compare them to Facebook in this niche. Sure, there are other similar sites, more niche oriented where experts give their opinions (comparable to LinkedIn for example), or much smaller than YA (and plus, they usually don't allow a link) but YA is still the king.
Because YA is so powerful in the eyes of the search engines, our questions can have a very long lifetime, securing us traffic over a long period of time;
In order for our links to become clickable or active and not just text, we need our account to be level 2 or higher. In order to get to level 2, we need to acquire 250 points. We start off with 100 points just by registering to YA. For every question we answer we get 2 points, for our every answer that gets voted as the best answer we get additional 10! points, and for every vote we cast for a best answer we get 1 point.
All links in answers we made while our account was level 1 will become live, active links retroactively, when we hit level 2.
* to find more about points and levels, visit this link.
So enough of the introduction, lets get to the meat of this post, and find out
How to Make YA Work for our Purpose:
Our main objective is to get our answer chosen as the BEST ANSWER. This is important to because the answer that is chosen as the best answer is cemented at the top, right after the question, even if our answer was posted last. It is very distinguishable from the other answers (think of it as being top on Google results).
The topic starter can choose the best answer, the only criteria being his judgment. He is practically a host to the discussion (similar to a forum) as far as his own questions (topics) go. If the topic starter does not choose the best answer, after 4 days the question will go in voting mode, lasting a day or until the question gets the most votes if it is a tie, during which people can give one vote to an answer they liked, or give the "no best answer" vote. People get a point for voting for a best answer to any question.
There are 2 main ways we can get our answer ranked as the best answer.
- The first one is to get a feel for the person who asked the question and give the answer we think will likely be voted as the best answer. Keep in mind though, from my experience 80% of the questions end up resolved in voting mode. BUT this is a good thing, as we can VOTE FOR OUR OWN QUESTION, and more often than not, no one else gives a vote for a question. Now, if we have multiple accounts (with multiple IP's of course, we don't want to get banned), we can practically assure that our answer gets voted as the best answer.
To see which of our questions are in voting mode, simply go to "My Activity -> My Answers -> More Answers", and find the questions with the text "In Voting" next to them, and vote for our answer.
I have seen some people advise that we answer 4 questions without linking anywhere as the source, and then making one "promotional" answer, as to avoid getting reported by the community, to avoid the answer being deleted, and eventually receiving a ban. From my experience, if the answers are good, the account lasts me a very, very long time. When I get too many reports, which is bound to happen, I simply switch to another account.
Also, I would advise that we stick to answering questions from ONE category with one account. This can lead to our account being labeled as a "top contributor", further strengthening it "power" (i.e. it will be harder for us to get banned). It is a title that stands bellow our avatar, and we all know how much titles can mean to make us seem like we know what we are talking about. I am sure we all know it is not about who actually knows what he is talking about, but rather he who looks like the biggest expert is the one that gets "best answer".
To find the fresh questions we can answer, simply use the search box, and sort the questions by "newest".
When we answer enough questions in one niche, it is easy to notice the pattern: many similar questions are asked. I have a default answer for such questions. I make sure it is an answer of extreme quality, often chosen as the best answer. Of course, for each answer I rewrite it in different words.
- The second main way to get our answer to be chosen as the top answer (and we can be absolutely sure that our answer will get voted as the best one this time) is to ask AND answer the question ourselves! Of course, this would be done with 2 different accounts. We have 4 full days to vote our own answer as the top answer, so don't be hasty and vote it up in a matter of hours, or even minutes as some people do. They obviously did not think things trough, and practically label themselves as spammers. I would also advise making the answer as quality as possible, as that is the only long term solution.
* tip: do some basic keyword research, and make sure our question AND our answer both hold the keywords in them;
* tip: combine services such as Minuteworkers and YA;
About our profile, answers and links:
(tips inside!)
- Fill our profile up a bit, add an avatar. It takes 2 minutes, and makes us seem much more legit.
- Use one IP per account. For a free, short term alternative, I would suggest the TOR browser.
- To guard ourselves as much as possible from the people who wish us banned, here is what to do:
go to My activity -> Edit my preferences -> Privacy and Communications. On Sharing and network choose to "share my Q and A with -> My contacts only", choose to "Share my Answers network with: My contacts only", untick "Allow someone from Yahoo Answers to be my fan". That way the "well wishers" won't be able to search our previous questions and flag them if they wish to do so (and they do try)!
- Treat the source box (found below the answer) just like we would treat the author bio box in the articles for guest posting or article directories. Don't just put our link there, write something to the effect of http://cpafix.com is one of the greatest forums that has users sharing ideas about performance marketing efforts.
- Do not use link shorteners, .tk domains, or even Youtube shortened links. This way, our answers will get ghosted. What this means is that we will be able to see the answer we gave, but no one else will. To check if our answer was ghosted, simply copy and paste the link of the question in another browser where we are not logged in to YA, and if the answer is visible through another browser - then it is not ghosted.
EDIT: I got asked this trough a PM, and realized it is a good questions and needs to be on here:
You can do whatever you want, but I suggest not to direct link without masking the link. I use either a php redirect or iframe an offer on my domain and put those links on YA.
I can attest to YA working well for certain products from CB, as well as being effective for CPA offers. To answer questions on YA we do not need a lot of time, but the traffic coming from it can be huge. The huge traffic can result in direct monetary gain, to visitors to our website, it can be used to build a list, so on
EDIT: Check real stats from one offer I promoted on YA for 30 days with a fresh account here:
http://www.cpafix.com/f32/generating-traffic-$$$-using-yahoo-answers-1899/index2.html#post15856
I hope I shed some light on how to be successful on YA. One final piece of advice I can offer is this: you should not take what I (or anyone else for that matter) write for granted. Sure, use this as a guideline for the beginning, but experiment and find what works best for you. And of course - report your findings!
Of course, if you have any questions, suggestions or additions, please do not be afraid to voice them. I will reply to them to the best of my knowledge and ability.
Kind Regards, and Good Luck,
IgorT
