How To Get Better Traffic: Answering Questions
From our journey, we’ve discovered that answering questions people have is one great way to get traffic.
Think about this: What did you do the last time you needed to know about something that was bugging you?
Did you browse a website like Quora or Wikipedia? Or did you use Google? Then, you’re a bit like me since you want to get answers right away.
But a lot of people go another route and ask real people for help rather than simply search for the information online. It’s just more natural for a lot of us to ask someone for help. It can be in person, a status post on Facebook, or a question in a community you’re part of.
How To Do It
When trying to answer questions online, think about these things first:
1. Do I really want to help?
2. Do I know what I’m talking about?
3. Will the answer be visible to more than just the asker?
4. Can the answer lead people back to my site?
Notice what I put as Number 1 above. You really need to be of a helpful persuasion if you want to go this route or else you’ll be burnt out quickly.
Also note the last two requirements. To fulfill your goal of getting traffic, there has to be a way for people to learn about your site.
This can be done by either, a mention of your site inside your answer, putting your site name together with your name (i.e. Glenn | 199Jobs.com) ; or indicating your website in your account profile.
If you choose not to share a direct link to your site in your answer (or it’s not really allowed), then it’s important that your website is the top result when people search online for your site name.
Sites Where You Can Answer Questions
- Facebook: Pages and especially Groups
- Twitter: Follow hashtags and participate in conversations
- Reddit: Specific subreddits in your niche
- Forums: Local communities often have subforums dedicated to topics related to you
- Blogs: Comments section of blogs in your niche
- Quora
- Yahoo! Answers
What Works for Us
We’re heavily involved in social media in marketing 199Jobs, and we’ve had good conversion results from engaging other people through this “question and answer” strategy.
Among the channels above, we’ve had the most success in Facebook Groups, and participating in Twitter conversations. What we simply do is answer people’s questions thoroughly, then add a link or at least, mention 199Jobs at the end.
No Time To Answer Questions?
We have a lot of sellers who can do this for you. Give them access to your social media account and let them create conversations and answer questions in your behalf.
Other articles in this series (will be updated as more are published):
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Photo credits: kareneliot and oberazzi
