No one has to tell you that running a small business is hard. But what you may wish you had every once in a while was someone who could tell you  the answers to questions that only experience can answer.  Ben Parr, the owner of Mashable.com, knows that feeling. After all, he’s a small business owner too.  When he has questions, he frequently finds himself as baffled as you probably do. But he has his sources for answers. And now he’s sharing them with you in his article “5 Online Tools for Answering Your Small Business Questions.”

Parr discusses the five sites (or tools) he finds most helpful  when he needs answers that he can’t find on his own. Here’s the list with a quick overview of each:

Quora.com – This Q&A tool is a popular site where users can find answers to virtually any technological dilemma, as well as questions relating to running a startup business.  Prominent SEO experts, such as Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz.org, regularly post and answer members’ questions on Quora.  Virtually any topic can be found on Quora, as well as divisions of those topics. For example, a search of SEO yields separate groupings for “SEO,” “SEO tools,” “On-Page SEO,”  “Are Typekit fonts SEO friendly,” “What is the best SEO podcast?” “Does Google SSL search affect SEO?” and “The effects of URL shorteners on SEO.”

OnStartups Answers – Billing itself  as the site for entrepreneurs, Onstartups.com  is overseen by Dharmesh Shah, a successful software entrepreneur. Essentially a blog, OnStartups is particularly directed at software startup companies, but Parr (and others) have found practical answers to all kinds of questions on the site’s “Answers” page.

Sample questions on a recent visit: “Can I work on my SEO and have my web site “invisible”? “What are your top 3-5 SEO tips?” and “What is the best free SEO rank checker tool?”

Hacker News Network. This is a friendly “startup-centric” community. Its members are very open to questions and frequently go out of their way to help get something answered.  The site was recently resurrected after being dormant for 10 years. It was originally started to provide informed commentary to major news organizations regarding the “underground” aspects of the internet. The site requires a free sign up in order to get your questions answered.

Twitter:  Yes, Twitter. Makes sense, too. How many questions do you have that really take more than 140 characters to ask? And while it may take more than that to answer, providing a bit.ly URL to where your answer lies is easy for more people. Plus, if you follow the right people (or they’re following you), getting the answer you need can take no time at all.

Open Forum:  The active discussion forum at American Express of all places is, Parr says, an excellent free resource.  Used by thousands of people, virtually every kind of entrepreneurial question gets asked here at one point or another. Best of all, you don’t have to be an American Express Card member to use it.

Again, these are Ben Parr’s five favorites. Add them to your own Q&A sources and who knows? You may soon have an answer to any dilemma that comes your way.