Adam Melson

SEER has an ever expanding linking process. Sometimes we deviate from this process when we see certain things ranking for keywords we’re targeting. It can be frustrating not ranking well for keywords, but if the opportunity is there to get a link or a mention from a site ranking better than our client, we’ll try to land it. So, how did Yahoo Answers drive 40% of the site traffic last week?

Yahoo Answers started showing up in Google results. It’s not uncommon to find Answer sites, Mixx, Squidoo, Digg and other similar sites showing up in the top 100, but we took special notice when it came up 5th. While there is little if any link value in the nofollow link you can almost infinitely drop into Yahoo Answers, the visibility factor pulled Yahoo Answers back from our 2005 radar.

Taken from Yahoo Answers Community Guidelines:

“Yahoo! Answers is a place to gain knowledge, not customers, page views, or dates. If you have years of experience in something, have a special hobby, own your own business, or if you are a knowledge partner, it’s OK to accompany a good, on-topic answer with a link to your website, blog, or email to offer more information.”

We have some experience in this industry and I’m answering on behalf of the owner of the business. Spamming Yahoo Answers is one thing and will get your account flagged. Answering targeted questions with an informative link that provides exactly what the user is looking for is spot on.

We’ve mentioned setting up RSS feeds as a part of previous posts and it’s a huge time saver. Plop a query for my client’s product and see what people are asking. I’ll answer if I think the client has a great product/solution and could get selected as the best answer. Also mentioned is doing something. Something is always better than nothing.

So, a new product was launched last week and my client picked it up. Below is a graph from Google Trends for the highest search term.

Volume from a few answers that weren’t selected as best answer trickled in. Then very suddenly the trickle increased 2000%. Then increased another 200% from that level. At the end of the business week, Yahoo Answers drove 3x more visitors than direct traffic to the site. Total site traffic increased 300% that week. Why? Our answer was selected as best answer. Yahoo Answers was graciously placed at position 5 in Google for the term graphed above.

Right timing? Yep. Unusual circumstances? Maybe, although could we have received even more traffic if we acted sooner?

Lesson learned is that no matter how unimportant a site may seem, no matter if the links are nofollowed, if the site is showing up in rankings, working to get that link on there could be a goldmine for your client.