Q&A websites are an excellent way to enhance SEO and bring in targeted traffic. The interactive nature of Q&A websites is fluid, allowing the site to grow and change over time. Nothing stays the same forever in any industry, and a Q&A platform allows for a long-term presence that can be kept up to date without a lot of effort on your part. Your users actually help keep the content on your site fresh, unique and informative.
Planning Your Q&A Site
You don’t need to create your own Q&A site from scratch – trying to do this would be an overwhelming task and the likelihood that the Average Joe could compete with Big Dogs like Yahoo Answers is slim to none. Rather, you can include a Q&A section as a sub domain/subfolder on your current website, which will help increase your site visibility and your page rank.
You must have a plan for the development of a Q&A site. The first step should be to draw up a list of targeted keywords and focus on that subject matter or niche area. The more specific and specialized the information, the more likely your Q&A website will be looked at as an authority and the more likely you are to rank for your niche. Keep your focus narrow and pertinent to your goals.
Implementing your Q&A Website
The actual implementation of a Q&A website doesn’t need to be rocket science thanks to free Open Source platforms available to use for development. Once you choose a platform, install it on your site, and customize it for use, the next step should be to develop at least 20 questions centered on your chosen keywords.
In the beginning, you may need to have some help getting answers posted on your site from friends or employees. Answers should be posted in intervals, not all at once to maintain organic growth of your Q&A section. These initial questions and answers should focus on keywords that are only moderately competitive, allowing for good growth as the page naturally expands.
You’ll also need to develop quality links to your Q&A site from other authoritative sources in your niche and you’ll want to promote, promote and promote your Q&A section as much as possible among your current users, your social network and wherever else it might make sense.
Growing your Q&A Website
Growing a good Q&A site can take a bit of time and requires patience. You can help it along in the beginning, but true organic growth doesn’t happen overnight so patience is required. As more questions are posted to your Q&A site and more answers are posted by users, your website will be viewed as an authority for relevant information. Good information and frequent updating of questions and answers will lead to even more link generation. From there, your web presence will increase and your site’s page rank will increase, making Q&A sites an excellent enhancement to your SEO and Internet Marketing strategy.