Look how old this is! I post at SearchCommander.com now, and this post was published 16 years 5 months 25 days ago. This industry changes FAST, so blindly following the advice here *may not* be a good idea! If you're at all unsure, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and ask.
I get a lot of e-mails asking questions, and I frequently turn my replies into articles. That’s actually how my SEO 101 section came about long ago.
Replying can be quite time consuming, but not replying might be seen as rude, so I’ve now come up with a great compromise that adds a sort of “Web 2.0” aspect to my site, and helps me easily generate new content.
Since I had this idea, I’ve been playing with a certain plug-in for a long time, and just today decided to buckle down and make it work. If you look over to the left on my blog menu you’ll see a new link for Ask Scott.
It’s an FAQ plug-in and it’s really pretty cool. For every question that gets asked, I get an e-mail notification, along with a link to log in to my own blog and answer the question.
Upon my answering, a new page is created and added to my blog, and the FAQ question page is updated. Each new question page is created with subject specific link text, title tag, H1 tag etc. and even added to my XML site map.
The sender of the question is then notified with a copy of the answer, as well as a link to the specific page where the question is displayed, where they (and others) can give the answer a thumbs up or down.
The only recommendation I’ve got for the creators of this FAQtastic plug-in would be to allow an option for the use of a post for each new question answered, instead of a static page. This would encourage comments and further discussion on each particular question asked. Otherwise, great job guys, and thank you…
Hi Scott
You make a great point about turning replies into articles and I actually suggested a similar thing to someone on a forum today where someone gave a lot of quality replies to email questions but didn’t know how to leverage it.
My suggestion was to keep a copy of the question and answer in a MS Word document and once you have 50 or so questions, form it into an e-book or free download as an “Answers To The Most Asked Questions About….”.
Breaking those into articles also works but I think your FAQ plugin that converts each question into a web page is an absolute winner.
Best of luck
Cheers
Brad
If you sell advice for a living, not answering a question is not rude, it is a necessary part of your business. As a wife of an attorney, I know how difficult it can be to sell your knowledge. Just give a free sample and then ask people to sign a contract or prepay for more advice!
Thanks for commenting Brad, do check it out. It’s free and they’re looking for feedback. If your questions are niche enough, your idea would work well, IMO. In fact, you can even do the same with questions FROM your blog. Look at “Ask Dave Taylor” where he’s done just that!
Iphone seller –
Well yes, true enough, but by bouncing them back to the “Ask Scott” page, it will benefit me, my site, and other readers to answer there. I’m not suggesting it’ a substitute for getting paid, but it’s better than answering curtly, or not at all. Thanks though 😉
Sorry to both for my tardy reply, Akismet snagged you both!
Excellent post. What I prefer to say is – Internet marketing is the activity of both advertising and selling goods and services online. This type of business is constantly growing in popularity, with millions of people now buying things on the internet.