Everyone wants to do paid traffic, and for some people that works out great. Paid traffic such as PPV, Facebook, PPC, etc. can get you a lot of traffic really quick but it also can require a substantial investment of time to keep those campaigns going. I think anyone who is interested in building a long term affiliate business needs to devote some time to SEO/Free traffic sources that can generate income for years on almost autopilot, hence this post.
This technique I am going to share is not something new at all, it's not some big secret, but it has been forgotten by most fickle affiliates who jump from one traffic source to another thinking the grass is always greener. I am talking about Yahoo Answers
No…you didn't just step out of a Delorian in 2007, Yahoo answers still works. I just completed a case study that shows the potential of this traffic source. The reason affiliates fail at it is because they go about it all wrong. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most affiliates have no idea how to properly monetize social media traffic like this. See, most affiliates want to spend hours automating, scraping, etc thinking that's the way to do things. If they actually put a little quality into their work, they would reap the benefits for years down the road.
Here is how to make money from Yahoo answers;
Offers
Almost any niche is fair game but since answers can take time to rank, pick niches that will be around a while
Keywords/Questions
After you pick an offer, you need to research keywords. Use the Google keyword tool and find some good keyword phrases you could make into questions. Research your potential keywords to see what other types of sites are ranking for them, and how much competition there is.
Landing Pages
Depending on the offer, you can iframe the offer page or make a page that looks like a great resource. Forget the LP's you use for PPV or media buys…you want to make landing pages that actually offer good info or resources. If you were doing an education offer, you could have a site that listed all the colleges the user could request free information from (and you get a commission for). Don't make this look like a sales page – that's the trick.
Questions and Answers
This is going to be what separates the people who make money with this, from the people that don't. Most people want to outsource this part, or simply write some lame answer with a big ‘click here' type of sales pitch. This will not work. The outsourcing part can be done if you can find someone who can do what you would do. Don't outsource this until you find a formula that works yourself.
You will want to ask AND answer your own questions. Why? This gives you the ability to chose the best answer (all other answers are being hidden now). You can also phrase your questions in a more search engine friendly way. Obviously for this you are going to need multiple accounts. You don't want to answer your own question right away (that doesn't look natural), and you don't want to select your answer as the best answer until you get a few other responses. You won't always get your question answered by other people but give it a little time to see if you do.
Answer your questions in a conversational tone. This isn't the place to sell. Offer real, useful advice and give them a resource (your link) they can get more information. I really want to stress this point – you have to give useful answers. Not just a sentence or two. Pretend a friend just asked you this question and you are giving them real advice.
With your different accounts, answer some random questions once in a while to make your account look more ‘normal'.
Based on some campaigns I have been doing, just putting in 5 hours a month would result in thousands of dollars of income per month once you got the ball rolling. You probably aren't going to break 6 figures a month with this technique but I can guarantee you will be getting conversions for a LONG time down the road on campaigns you haven't touched in months. Give it a shot!

Shhh! Shut up already…nobody else neds to know this is still working!
Nice tip on writing your own questions. Most of the guides Ive seen just tell you to answer other people’s questions but that is ingenious.
Wow, didn’t know people were still making that much cash from Yahoo Answers!
I’d like to see some more posts related to SEO as it seems a lot of marketers neglect it and try to sell you on to their own products instead!
This is great, however, the problem is that before you can post links you need to reach a certain number of points, based upon yahoo’s point system.
@ ben – yes you do but it’s well worth it 🙂
I got banned one time for doing this. Maybe I did it too much
@ Browie – yeah one thing I want to stress with this technique is that you want to give real, useful info. You also need to ask/answer some questions that aren’t ‘promoting’ anything. Basically, make your account a helpful part of the Yahoo answers community and you’ll be fine. You’ll also convert better too
I am with the other guy that got banned. Seemed like they banned a bunch of affiliates and then made the links no-follow so I moved on.
I made money my first day with Yahoo Answers and then I got banned. I kept trying this source and I am moving on.
Wow, amazing how many people here just give up and walk away from money…
More for the rest of us 🙂
And seriously, you have to expect setbacks with any traffic source – Google changes their rules all the time, Facebook has killed off a lot of affiliates – whenever you see a site crack down, that’s when you know it’s getting good for the smart affiliates.
Im posting a few links right now but they arent showing up as hyperlinks
Any idea how many you need to post before they will show up as hyperlinks?
Great post! How long did it take you to reach $100/day in your case study?
good info everyone wants to know how to make money online. Thanks for the post keep it up
Great info and tips on using this social media to get quality traffic to your website. I definitely am looking for quality traffic so I’ll try this out.
Awesome. Any recommedation about promoting Niche?
Or just which ones accepting contextual (if I’m not wrong here) taffic type of offers ?
Hello
This seems like a great method but everytime i post a link (made it a tiny url) i get a ban (error 999) how do you get round this??
Great article,
Well as I always say – If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again; it was probably worth it.
But really the hard part is sticking to something good and not quitting – too many people want results now and are too impatient to wait.