Finding people who are asking what your site already answers
Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow and GitHub issues are full of people asking questions you have already written 1,800 words about. Answering them well is the only link-building most small sites ever need — and the only kind that does not get you banned.
The standard advice for a new site is "build backlinks", which in practice means emailing strangers to ask for a favour you cannot return. The response rate is somewhere near two percent and the links you do get are usually worthless.
Meanwhile, somewhere on Reddit, four people this week asked exactly the question your best post answers, and nobody gave them a good reply.
Why this beats outreach
Three reasons, and only the first is about links.
- The traffic is immediate and real. A good answer in an active thread sends people to your page the same day, and keeps sending them for years, because these threads rank.
- The links are mostly nofollow, and that is fine. Google has said for years that nofollow is a hint rather than an instruction. More importantly, a nofollow link from a thread that ranks on page one for your keyword still sends humans.
- You find out what people actually ask. The exact wording in a Reddit question is the exact wording somebody types into Google. This is free keyword research with intent attached.
Where to look
Different places, different rules.
- Reddit — the biggest source and the strictest. Subreddit rules vary enormously; some ban links outright, some only ban self-promotion from new accounts. Read the sidebar before you post, every time.
- Quora — built for exactly this. Answers rank in Google for years, and links are expected rather than tolerated. Less traffic per answer than Reddit, more durable.
- Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange — brutal about self-promotion, but a genuinely good technical answer is permanent and gets found forever. Disclose that it is your site.
- GitHub issues and discussions — wildly underused if you write about anything developers touch. Someone hitting the exact error your post explains will find that thread for years.
- X, Mastodon, Bluesky — fast-moving, low durability, useful mainly for relationships rather than links.
- Niche forums and Discord servers — smaller audience, far higher conversion, usually the friendliest to genuine experts.
Finding the threads worth answering
The manual version: search Google, not the site's own search, because Google indexes these places far better than they index themselves.
site:reddit.com "your keyword"
site:quora.com "your keyword"
site:github.com "the exact error message"Add &tbs=qdr:m to the Google URL to restrict to the last month — a question from 2019 is a museum piece, not an opportunity.
Sort what you find by two things: is the thread recent enough that the asker still cares, and is the existing top answer weak? A thread with one good answer already is not worth your time. A thread with three bad answers and forty upvotes on the question is.
Doing this by hand takes half an hour a week per platform, which is why most people do it once and stop. Automating the search part — our tool runs these queries twice a day and matches what it finds against pages you have already published — is mostly about removing the excuse.
How to answer without getting removed
The rule that covers every platform: your answer has to be worth reading even if the link is deleted.
Practically:
- Answer the actual question first, in full, in the comment. Not a summary. Not "I wrote about this here". The specific answer, in the thread, in your own words.
- Then, if there is genuinely more to say, link. "I went through the whole process here if you want the longer version" is fine after a real answer. It is spam before one.
- Say it is your site. Every time. "I wrote this" costs you nothing and is the difference between a helpful expert and a drive-by marketer.
- Answer the follow-up questions. This is where the reputation is actually built, and it is where almost everyone gives up.
- Have a history. An account whose only activity is dropping links gets removed whatever the quality. Be a normal participant in the places you post.
When to link and when not to
Do not link when: the question is fully answered by two sentences you already typed; the subreddit bans links; your page only partially covers what they asked; or you are the fourth person to answer and the top reply is already good.
Do link when: the full answer genuinely needs more room than a comment; your page has something specific the thread lacks — real numbers, a screenshot of the actual error, a step-by-step; or somebody explicitly asks for a resource.
A useful filter: if you had no website at all, would you still post this comment? If yes, post it. If no, do not.
The second benefit nobody mentions
These threads rank. A Reddit thread about your niche frequently outranks every small site writing about the same thing, and Quora answers sit on page one for years.
That means a good answer is not just a link — it is a second listing on a search results page you are already trying to win. Somebody searching your keyword can find your site directly, or find a thread where the top answer is yours. Both lead to you.
A sustainable weekly routine
Thirty minutes, once a week, is enough:
- Run your searches (or read what was collected for you) and pick the three best threads.
- Write one proper answer for each. Ten minutes apiece.
- Come back mid-week to reply to anything that came back.
- Note any question you could not answer well — that is your next post, pre-validated.
Three answers a week is 150 a year. Even if only one in ten lands properly, that is fifteen threads sending people to your site indefinitely, built out of work that also told you what to write next. Compare that with a year of outreach emails.
One warning worth repeating: this is the fastest route to a reputation, in either direction. A dozen thoughtful answers make you the person people tag when the question comes up again. A dozen link drops get your domain added to a spam filter, and that is very hard to undo.
I run a content site, got tired of paying four subscriptions to find out what to write, and built this instead. Everything here is tested on my own traffic first.
Want this done for you?
Fix My SERP does everything in this guide automatically — finds the pages, ranks them by what you would gain, and gives you the list in order. Free, and it runs on your own hosting.
Start free What it does