To find information about products, services or out of sheer curiosity, people do online search on top engines like Google and Yahoo. Apart from generic or specific keywords, they may also type in questions to dig out data from the vast online treasure trove. There has been a steady rise in the volume of question quarries. Why the webpages on Question and Answer sites are gaining in prominence as far the search engine rankings are concerned?
Q&A sites add depth to search
Search results variety, which s Q&A sites definitely bring into play, is an obvious factor that influences engines. They prefer links from various relevant sites, populated with quality content. So for each and every query on any topic under the sun, Google throws up different kinds of sites in the organic results. This is done in order to broaden the base of its content offering for users as well as make the results more diverse.
Q&A sites impart greater depth to search experience. For example, if one searches ‘Michael Jackson’, the result pages will be comprised of links to different kinds of sites and forms of content like Wikipedia, music sites, news/ magazine, videos etc. In this context, Q&A sites have an important role to play.
Interactive nature makes Q&A sites user-friendly
Q&A sites can be considered an independent category of content offering, importantly generated by users themselves, thus prompting the search engine to rank high. The frequency of content updation in their case is higher as the content gets refreshed by default and on a constant basis thanks to greater user participation.
People visiting such sites arrive are not just passive onlookers. They like to be active participants either by raising new questions or by answering the existing ones, keen to share knowledge related to their domain of expertise with others. This is what keeps online professional communities, forums, reviews sites or Q&A sites fresh and dynamic.
Users will keep adding comments, answers and feedback to question pages. As huge quantum of content cutting across categories is generated, Google will most likely index it, prioritize it and rank it higher above static pages. Activities like commenting, voting, scoring and ranking content on them make these pages appealing for users.
Consider SEO relevancy of your content
From a site owner’s perspective, if you manage to get links from these sites, you’re inadvertently impressing upon the engines with relevance of your content for users. Links from not only blogs or directories but also with user-driven platforms like Q&A sites make your link portfolio much more dynamic. Studying the traffic pattern and user’s habits Q and A sites also give you precious insight into the kind of queries, keywords and phrases people use in regard to your domain. Further research based on these findings will lead to better optimization and higher conversions, resulting in more business.
