Quora and (formerly) Yahoo! Answers are two examples of Q&A-based websites that are extremely popular with web searchers. They provide relevant information about basically any topic in an accessible format. Also, they feature user-generated content. This keeps it fresh and relevant, and also makes it more authentic.
Benefits
Social answers websites provide content that’s more accurate and more convenient than the SEO content in article writing directories. A lot of the questions sound like questions two friends would ask each other. The tone is conversational, even friendly. So it’s not at all surprising that Quora has become so popular and that more Q&A sites are constantly launched, sometimes to fill a niche (such as Stack Overflow and programming).
The people who answer questions on these sites tend to be experts on the topic, or at least knowledgeable about it. Quora’s long list of users includes doctors, lawyers, or engineers.
What’s more, because of the answer voting and rating system that most Q&A sites use, there’s always a friendly competition between respondents. This encourages them to provide answers that are as exact as possible.
Social answers websites enable web searchers to find more intelligent answers to their search queries. Also, the answers tend to be more direct and authentic, like they are coming from a friend.
By contrast, an article or blog post may take 300 words or more to cover a topic and provide more information than needed to satisfy SEO requirements. And in the end, it may not even provide a practical answer to the question.
Impact on Business and Marketing
For online business owners and marketers, the rise of social answers sites means that they should try to implement a Q&A section on their site. This section could contain content from their community.
Also, employees who are experts on a topic could provide answers to questions consumers ask on social answers sites. This could boost not only their company’s SEO ranking but also improve its reputation online.