Encouraging visitor interaction is one of the keys to creating a community atmosphere on any website. Answerbase is a platform that helps publishers do just that, by making it possible to quickly set up question and answer forums that can increase the amount of engagement and participation while driving traffic from search engines at the same time.

If you’re a web publisher, then you can try out Answerbase for free without any credit card required. Just enter your site name, choose a unique subdomain URL, and begin customizing your Q&A site. Answerbase provides the tools to integrate your new Q&A page with your existing website without having to worry about managing servers or setting up a complicated system. Within minutes, your visitors can begin asking questions that are relevant to the topics your website covers. Fellow users who answer those questions are tracked, and standout participants who contribute valuable content on a regular basis are recognized as experts on your site. Questions can be organized and tagged in a number of ways, which prevents forums from becoming unruly and makes it easier for people to search for topics related to their area of interest. You can also add custom widgets to various pages across your existing website to drive traffic to your Q&A page.

Answerbase has a number of administration features that make it easy to moderate content and ensure inappropriate messages are not being posted online. Visitors can also play a role in moderating the Q&A site, thanks to a number of flagging and reporting tools. Q&A platforms created with Answerbase include full integration with Facebook, Twitter, and a number of other social media sites, and they include mobile adapted versions that visitors can check out and interact with from their iPhones, Androids, and iPads.

Practical Uses:

• Create a Q&A section of your site to increase visitor engagement
• Make a place where readers can find answers to questions they have about content on your site
• Help website subscribers connect with each other through your site
• Increase the amount of time that readers spend on your website

Insider Tips:

• Publishers can customize their Q&A sites in a number of ways
• Administrators can add multiple moderators to a single site
• Widget builder can be used to create widgets for other sites
• Answerbase provides a mobile version of all Q&A sites

What we liked:

• Helpful contributors are recognized as experts
• Q&A sites help increase search engine traffic
• Flagging features help readers moderate content on their own
• Users can ask and read questions from their mobile phones

What we didn’t like:

• Nothing

Alternatives:

• Invision Power – http://www.invisionpower.com
• Qhub – http://qhub.com
• Vanilla Forums – http://www.vanillaforums.com

Company Info:

• Launched: January 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Barcelona, Spain
• Founded by: Lumin Creative
• Web site: http://answerbase.com

Costs:

• Basic plan is $15/month
• Professional plan is $45/month
• Business plan is $200/month
• Enterprise plans with custom prices