I was happy to hear the news this week that Yahoo has added a social element to its Yahoo! Answers service. As many commented during the week, it’s a step in the right direction to making the premier Q&A web destination even better for users.

Yahoo! Answers is one of my favorite time-killers, right up there with StumbleUpon. But more than that, it — like StumbleUpon — has been a terrific marketing tool for this blog.

I don’t spend a ton of time on Yahoo! Answers. One or two visits per week is typical. And if I just spend one hour answering questions in the Small Business category (or elsewhere when it’s appropriate), I’m guaranteeing myself a traffic bump over the following several days. It never fails. The key, as it is with any social site like this, is two-fold:

1. Don’t spam. Jamming your URL into every answer just pisses people off.
2. Be active. Contribute value. Help people out and you will be rewarded.

According to my blog stats, Yahoo! Answers has been the #1 referring source to this blog in each of the past four days. As the graph below shows, it’s the #2 referrer for the month so far.

What’s ironic is that the Q&A that’s sending me all this traffic this month is one in which I didn’t participate. Another user linked here when answering a question. Nice!

If you’re also a Yahoo! Answers user and want to add me to your contacts, here’s my profile. I’ll be glad to reciprocate.

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