Do Q&A 's work for SEO

[mark_baird]

If I create a good community in my particular field on my SEO site and have a quality Q&A section like this etc (ripping of MOZ's idea here sorry, I hope it's ok) will the long term returns be worth the effort of creating and man ageing this. Is the user created content of as much use as I think it will be?

[Chris.Menke]

As an early member of Moz, I can tell you that what brought me back to the site everyday was the blog and the comments on the blog. However I rarely commented on posts,  I didn't didn't answer or ask any Q&A, and I  didn't use the tools very much (although I used free tools at other sites pretty often) but I thought they provided a lot of credibility.  The content was very high quality and taught me to do my job better. You could tell that quite an investment was being made in the content and that there was a dedication to it and the community.

It's my feeling that it was the content and the tools that developed nurtured a community Q&A section--it didn't just spring out of nowhere.  A lot of work first went into building a community where a Q&A section could flourish. I think the long term rewards will be worth it as long as you're in it for sake of building a community and not for the sake of any SEO value the community can provide.

[DougRoberts]

Do you think you'd be able to attract authority figures in your industry to support your Q&A sectrion?

[mark_baird]

im in the equestrian industry and there is a number of thriving fourums out there however like all forums the quality of info is dubious and as yet the Q&A style of community has not yet been made. I feel this is an opertunity I could work with.

I realise that its a long game and will take lots of work. My main worry is that we are a retailer and that people may not trust our Q&A as we are retailers and no matter how much we separate our sales hat from our community element I feel it may not work. The fact that it has not been done make me think it is worth a try.

Any examples of an ecommerce site with a thriving community attached that would be a good model to emulate?

[DougRoberts]

User Generated content can work amazingly well, even just being able to entice people to leave great comments on your articles can pretty awesome.

You do have some challenges through:

1. Cultivating a community.

Lots of website/webmasters have the thought - "Wouldn't it be good if I had a forum" and after getting things up and running are surprised to find that nobody's participating and the forums are dead.

It's a bit like organising a party, getting in the cheese and wine only, to find you've over estimated your popularity and end up drinking alone with the brie.

Do you have an audience in mind. What are their goals and needs. Would they expect to satisfy those goals by coming to you?

I think you'll find it a little harder than you imaging to "create a good community".

2. Differentiating yourself from others

If you're "just like the next guy" then why should anyone use your Q&A? How can you stand apart and offer something different and valuable to everyone else? There's little point just trying to copy someone else - they're already off and running and you're likely to be playing catch-up.

Unless you have something unique and valuable to offer (and be honest about this!). What's your value proposition. What's in it for your audience?

One tactic would be to cater to a very specific niche. One that is super-targetted to your own business offerings. This has pros and cons of course. The smaller the niche, the smaller the potential income. However, you'll be better able to specialise and become relevant to that niche.

3. Moderating and feeding

User-generated content sounds fantastic - just sit back and watch all this awesome content being created before your very eyes.

It's not quite as easy as that. Moderating and maintaining your community will take time and effort. So you'll need to make sure you have the resources available and the desire to do so. Managing people can be unpredictable and difficult so don't consider user generated content in any form as a quick win.

As well as moderating, you need to keep your audience focused and engaged. It's not going to be quick either.

All this can take you away from free earning work, and your business goals so do keep the opportunity cost in mind.

[DarinPirkey]

I think it's a great way to develop future content.  If you have good analytics tracking on your Q&A (or FAQ section for some sites) you can take the questions that get a ton of traffic and make posts out of them for your main site.  Also, if you have a particular section/topic that gets a ton of questions about it (ie panda, penguin, hummingbird, etc) you could develop a webinar for the people that come to your site.

As you develop your site and the Q&A section becomes widely used, you'll start to see questions show in Google searches.  In general, as long as you develop that section for your USERS and not for Google specifically, you'll get the traffic you want and more sales (assuming that's the goal).