Hi there fellow webmasters, I really would like to read your comments on this. I have several sites, from one selling some stuff and the majority sharing information and doing well with advertising. I'm passionate about my niche and that's why I enjoy it.
Lately I've been receiving a lot of emails asking me questions. I would like to hear your opinions on this.
Most of the questions being asked are already answered on the website, visible and linked. I discussed this on another thread as why people don't read as they used to in the past. My content has been there for years and I used to receive many thanks for the info posted, now nothing has changed but people only seem to use search engines, find and then write a question (lazy readers) and hit "send". I'm afraid of a change or increase of "kinda poor traffic quality".
My approach to this is to reply "
hi blah blah thanks as for your question, the answers are there on the article where you sent this message from blah blah thanks, best regards...". Sometimes I reply with the links to the content but recently I began ignoring those mails, why? from 10 emails I answer, I get 1 "thanks". I wonder how much traffic, reputation or branding could I loose from mouth to mouth.
- I built a FAQ with lots of useful information and even contact info and still I get emails about "can you send me the contact info of...#*$!" I'm ignoring those emails now, websites are useful but my webs are not the yellow pages, sad thing is that info is already there. I feel I'm wasting my time.
- For other legit questions I'm taking in count the emails and instead of answering by mail I plan to create a page with the answer "reader Sir.[hidden]@[#*$!.com] ask us how to store the widgets", then I will send a mail with the link to the answer, this way I get one more visit from the same reader and get the attention of the other people already looking for the same answer.
- I've been seeing a pattern and interest from the readers, and from there a business opportunity. I'm not really interested but I'm seeing it as an option to offer a product in the future (the widgets they are so interested in) or perhaps to find an affiliate solution. I'm not so into this, perhaps you have a site of "the history of widgets" and you enjoy working on it but not a bit interested on manufacturing widgets for sale, or selling them on your website.
What do you do with such emails? some readers find more info on my sites than any other and from there think I'm some sort of official representation or organization, I even get complains from readers about "widget quality" as if I was involved. Please share how much effort you put on those emails (if any).
PD. I have a disclaimer on the contact page "we do not send free widgets, maps for widget land or schematics to build widgets, please don't ask for them" still people ask for them
