The first big hurdle you’ll need to overcome when facing Yahoo Answers for the first time is the harness of enough points to make your account reach that wanted Level 2. Only after achieving that category you’ll be able to empower your answers with a hyperlink – one that will lead everyone to your company website, of course. That’s a time consuming task, but a somewhat easy process. You’ll just need a bit of patience and some helpful manners. Reaching Level 2, however, doesn’t mean you can engage in Yahoo Answers Marketing at free will, with no worries. In fact, rules will only get stricter as you go along.

Just leaving your URL laying there on a question related to your services or products it’s the worst way to take on Yahoo Answers Marketing. It will get you account red flagged by the Yahoo Staff, it will make other rival marketers report your answers and, worst of all, will not in any way help out the people who posted a question searching for some knowledge trade – something you didn’t provide and, as such, will be ignored. You hyperlink will be there but no one will use it. Your account may be suspended or banned, your answers will be deleted.

So the most important rule you should follow is about respect for the community: be helpful on your answers, answer what people ask, help them. Then associate your URL to your post, preferably on the source window. That modus operandi, however, won’t be enough. It’s wise to also respond questions completely unrelated to your products and services, just to show Yahoo that you are not only there for marketing purposes. It’s time consuming, yes, not a one man job. It’s job for professionals – just like the team of questions-answers.net.

If you consider yourself a regular user of Yahoo Answers, you surely must have noticed by now that small icon on the bottom right of every post (question or answer) – “Report Abuse”, it reads .That’s a very common tool used in most of the social websites and online communities. The goal is obvious – empower every participant with the possibility to report any post that may be considered offensive to the portal guidelines. And advertisement IS one of those behaviors considered as prohibited, which means that Yahoo Answers Marketing is a smooth operation that needs to, first of all, respect the community of people seeking for information and knowledge.

Obviously, that single icon it’s far from being the only regulation tool of Yahoo Answers, but its importance rises from the fact that it can be triggered by every registered user. That means, other marketers. Rival ones. However, using the Report button isn’t free of charge – the people pressing it will also be checked upon by Yahoo Answers staff, so both of the accounts can end up being suspended (the “poster” and the “reporter”). So it’s wise to refrain from pressing that icon as weapon to diminish your opposition leverage in the battle of Yahoo Answers Marketing – there are also ethic issues involved, of course. Respect and good faith are, in the long run, the best ways to establish your products/services within the community mindset, raising a positive brand awareness and keeping those clicks nice and steady, with no harm done.

Everybody knows – or thinks that knows – what a good answer is. When talking about Yahoo Answers Marketing purposes, is common to see expressions like “helpful” or “thoughtful” to typify the post you should leave in order to promote your service/product. But what does those expressions really mean? How do you really build a “good answer”? There are some factors to have in mind:

1 – To give a good answer you’ll need a good question. When promoting your own website, the natural urge is to leave that hyperlink laying around everywhere. That’s a mistake. That behavior will gain you a red flag (and then a suspension or ban) and just won’t work. Find your niche, identify the real demands of your audience and address only to them.

2 – Yes, you do need to be helpful. That means your answer should be enough to satisfy the asker curiosity/need. Don’t just leave a hyperlink and expect people to press on it and do all the work. Respond directly and leave your URL as source, that way raising brand awareness and building a positive feeling around your services.

3 – Yes, you also do need to be thoughtful. That means you should do your homework. Don’t just answer from the top of your head – take your time to really look upon the asker issues and deliver the maximum amount of information possible. A bad answer (incomplete or incorrect) can damage the confidence in your services.

4 – Don’t spam or copy/paste previous answers. Yahoo Answers is a community of people, not robots.

5 – Pay attention to grammar. Again, an answer full of orthographic errors it’s just going to diminish the confidence built around your services. Take your time to double check your answer.

6 – Size doesn’t matter. A single line answer CAN be enough. Provide the information the asker is seeking, nothing else. People are looking for straight answers, not for advertisement. Quality always should prevail over quantity.

Yahoo Answers does a nice job in categorizing all the different thematics from which people can organize their questions and search for their answers. That’s the beginning point in the process of stratifying your audience and reaching the niche your product or service is destined to. Beyond the obvious (if you’re trying to target a pharmaceutical market, you’ll obviously need to target the Medicine Category) you can dig deeper on that evaluation by paying attention to the type of audience you’ll find browsing and participating in any given thematic. Again, there are some obvious discoveries – in Games & Recreation, for instance, the large majority is teenagers and young adult males – but some other markets can surprise you. You may even find an audience you weren´t aware of.

Knowing to whom you are selling is a fundamental aspect. That’s the only way to find the right keywords that your product/service should target and, consequently, turning your Yahoo Answers Marketing much more efficient. Different ages and genders respond differently to the same stimulations, so your message (and keywords) should be adapted to your targeted audience. Yahoo Answers can be a very effective way to discover who your potential customers are, and every answer posted with the intention to marketise your website should reflect exactly that.

Creating an appealing website and coming up with an innovative product or service it’s just part of the job. A tiny part, actually. After your URL is up and running, full of those juicy Call to Action buttons, you need to make it visible to the world. Make the world know you are there. Make the world know that it cannot live without your product. And for that, you’ve come to the right place. The trick to marketing your website is to discover creative ways of boosting your brand awareness and Yahoo Answers is one of the most creative and successful ways to market your services. Below, we’ll talk about tips for using an efficient Yahoo Answers Marketing Plan.

The formula is quite simple: a reader who searched for any given subject on google, for instance,will see a question and an answer and, if interested, will follow the link to your website (left in your answer). There, they will have the opportunity to purchase your products or services; things they’ve already been searching for online. They see that this question has been answered and that the answer has helped the asker, who was looking for the same thing they are looking for. They will automatically think, Hey, I should check that out. If your solution worked for someone else, it should work for them too, right? So, they will go to your website already prepped to check out your products and services and most likely buy them.

Ideally, you should be able to answer questions from several different accounts and leave links to your website – however, this is typically not feasible for one person to do. That’s why there are services that handle your Yahoo Answers marketing for you, so that you don’t have to worry about it. Usually, you pay a small fee for great Yahoo Answers marketing but it’s important to thoroughly evaluate the company before choosing them to help you.