One way to publish plenty of content on a website is to have website visitors do it for you.
Search engines love unique content. More importantly, website visitors love getting their questions answered. Most people visit websites for 1 of 2 reasons:
- Get information, and/or
- Be entertained.
One way to generate boatloads of unique content AND provide quality content for your visitors is implementing question and answer platform on your website.
Q&A websites provide information. Sometimes they’re entertaining.
What is a question and answer website?
It’s a website where visitors can ask questions and answer questions. Some Q&A sites restrict answers being provided by moderators. Others open up answering to all visitors. An example of a highly successfully Q&A website is Yahoo! Answers.
Why add Q&A functionality to a website?
- SEO – search engines love unique content. Q&A websites can generate a TON of unique content for free.
- Visitor resource: if you publish a website in a particular field/niche, you can create a Q&A portal catering to your field/niche.
- Sales tool and authority builder: build exposure as an expert by providing quality answers to questions on your business site or blog.
- Customer service / support function: create an easily searchable bank of answers to function as a customer service tool.
Answerbase Review:
Answerbase is a dedicated question and answer software platform that integrates the Q&A platform into your existing website.
What I love about the Web is no sooner does a need or want arise, a solution is provided. Answerbase is a software platform that recognized the need for some website publishers and businesses to provide an easy-to-use and inexpensive solution for creating and managing a Q&A website platform.
Answerbase is a solution for website publishers and small businesses that want to offer visitors the opportunity to:
- Ask questions and get answers
- Search for answers in an established bank of Q&As
- Provide experts a platform to demonstrate their expertise by answering questions in their field
- Provide dynamic customer service support in a public forum.
In this Answerbase review I go through the Answerbase features, templates, and compare Answerbase technology to other potential Q&A platform options such as blog commenting, forum software, and dedicated WordPress Q&A themes.
Answerbase Features
- Visitors ask and answer questions.
- Search function.
- Tag or hierarchical taxonomy set up.
- Easy set up (this is true; I set up a test Answerbase Q&A site within minutes).
- Profile options for experts (people who answer questions).
- Experts are recognized with a point system providing frequent and quality contribution.
- Customization options galore: Upload header, background and tweak the design.
- Easy integration with your existing website.
- Widget builders – you can create cool widgets for additional placement for people to ask questions and view answers.
- Social Media integration – users can sign on with social media accounts and share your Q&A content across social media platforms.
- Mobile compatibility – users can access and use your Answerbase Q&A website on mobile phone browsers.
- Web-based: your Answerbase site is hosted on the Answerbase server. This saves you server resources and easy-online-access to your Answerbase panel.
Answerbase Templates
Once you establish your Answerbase account, you’ll be given the option to choose a template. The following are the 3 Answerbase templates for fast set up. You can also customize your Q&A design a great deal (see below).
Answerbase Template 1
Answerbase Template 2
Answerbase Template 3
Answerbase Design Customization Options
Once you have a basic template chosen, you can fully customize the design using the following customization panel:
How much does Answerbase cost?
You can do a free 15 day trial (you do NOT need to provide a credit card to do the trial).
After your free Answrbase trial, pricing is as follows:
Click Here to Compare Pricing Plans in Detail
Other Q&A models include:
FAQs vs. Answerbase
FAQs are typically prewritten and answered questions by the website publisher.
The problem with FAQs are they are not dynamic. The website publisher writes both the questions and answers. The content is not user-generated. Essentially FAQs are not anywhere near similar to what question and answer software offers.
The benefit to FAQs is you don’t have to moderate any answers.
Blog Commenting vs. Answerbase
Blog commenting is not specifically a Q&A format, but many comments and responses are in the form of Q&As.
Although blog commenting can function as a Q&A option, it’s not nearly as user friendly. The questions and answers aren’t easily searched. Instead, they’re published on specific blog posts.
Moreover, blog commenting includes content other than questions and answers. If you’re looking to establish a true Q&A website, using blog commenting is not ideal.
Forum Software vs. Answerbase
Forum software also provides a solution for a Q&A function. Forum software is probably the next best choice for a Q&A function. However, forum threads and posts are not strictly Q&A. Moreover, search options in a forum are not nearly as robust as the taxonomy setup options with Answerbase.
Forums are wonderful for building a community of users, but if you want to create a true Q&A website resource, use Q&A software or script instead.
Answerbase isn’t the only question and answer website solution. You can buy Q&A website scripts and even Q&A WordPress themes or plugins.
Answerbase vs. Q&A WordPress Theme
The biggest reason to use Answerbase instead of a Q&A WordPress theme is Answerbase integrates with your existing theme / website platform.
If you’re happy with your theme or website platform, and prefer not to change themes for a Q&A site, then Answerbase is a good solution because of the integration.
Answerbase integrates with any site
In fact, Answerbase can integrate with any website platform. That’s the huge advantage it offers.
This means you don’t have to create a new website to have a Q&A section.
No script and coding knowledge needed
Answerbase is a simple and easy solution for a robust Q&A website.
Do I recommend Answerbase?
Yes, but with one caveat. If you’re going to spend the money, be serious about running a Q&A site. A question and answer site can be a huge success, get loads of traffic, create a wonderful online resource and help you customers, but if you don’t promote and moderate it, you’ll waste your money.
Click here for a free 15 day Answerbase trial.
Search engines love unique content. More importantly…
Search engines love unique content. More importantly…
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