What is Quora
Quora is a question-and-answer website where people can share and gain knowledge on various subjects.
Launched in 2009, it’s one of the most popular websites in the world. As of 2018, Quora has 300 million monthly users and is currently ranked as the 92nd most visited website in the world according to Alexa.com.
On Quora, anyone can ask a question, and anyone can answer it. The most popular questions are upvoted by users and appear at the top of the Quora feed. Similarly, the best and the most upvoted answers to questions appear at the top of a question thread.
Quora members ask and answer questions on a wide variety of topics, including technology, science, business, psychology, history, etc. People use Quora to ask questions related to both their personal and professional lives, to ask for recommendations for products and services, and to get other people’s opinions on various subjects.
Since Quora seems to have discussions on every topic under the sun, it can be used to promote almost any type of business.
Why you should use Quora
There are many benefits that businesses can gain from posting on Quora. It allows you to:
Establish yourself as an authority in your industry – Providing answers to questions relevant to your industry on Quora can help you establish yourself as an authority in your industry. Share your expertise with Quora users and take the time to provide them with in-depth answers to their questions.
Answer questions related to your products or services – Quora users are asking questions on a wide variety of topics every day. Search Quora for mentions of your products or services and answer your customers’ questions.
Drive traffic to your website – If used properly, Quora can be a great source of high-quality, long-term traffic. Answer questions relevant to your business and try to incorporate links to your website in the answers.
Connect with influencers and industry experts – There are plenty of Quora users who are experts or influencers in their respective fields. You can connect with these users by commenting on their answers, answering their questions or messaging them.
Learn more about your target audience – You can use Quora to research what your target audience’s problems and pain points are. Browse through their questions and make notes about what kind of issues they’re having and how you can help.
Discover content ideas – Quora is a great place to find new content ideas. You can use it to see what topics interest people and what kind of questions they have. Use this information to create your next blog post, article, or ebook.
Best practices for posting on Quora
There are a few best practices that you need to know to have the best chance of successfully promoting your business on Quora.
Don’t spam – Quora isn’t a place to spam your sales, affiliate, or referral links. It’s a place to share knowledge and provide value to others. Don’t use every answer you post as an opportunity to promote your products or services because this can get you banned.
Don’t participate in upvote groups – There are Quora upvote groups that you can join online. They work by having members upvote each other’s posts on a regular basis. Stay away from these groups because participating in them can get your Quora account banned.
Don’t copy/paste answers – Simply copying sections of your blog posts or articles and pasting them into Quora answers can appear spammy. Take the time to write a unique answer relevant to the specific question you’re answering.
Don’t answer questions if you’re not knowledgeable on the topic – Refrain from answering questions where you’re not 100% certain of the answer. Posting wrong answers can only damage your business’ reputation.
How to promote your business with Quora
Now that you understand the importance of using Quora and the recommended practices associated with it, let’s delve into the specific ways you can use Quora to promote your business.
Optimize your profile
When you leave an answer on Quora, the first 50 characters of your profile are displayed along with the answer. This usually includes your name and a part of your profile bio. You can use this to promote your business and gain exposure for your brand. Since only a part of your bio will be displayed with each answer you post, make sure to mention your brand or business as close as possible to the beginning of your bio.
Quora also allows you to have topic-specific credentials. This can be useful if you have multiple areas of expertise and you’d like your bio to highlight specific expertise related to the question you’re answering.
To set up topic-specific credentials, go to your profile page and click on the little pen icon next to Credentials & Highlights in the upper right corner of the page.
Make sure to also fill out the other sections in your profile. You can start by uploading a photo of yourself. Then, take your time and write a detailed About Me section. Here you can add any relevant information about yourself, including who you are and what you do. You can also use this section to link to your website or your social media pages.
Next, add your interests, your areas of expertise and your credentials. It’s also a good idea to connect your social media accounts to Quora.
Filling out your Quora profile completely will help Quora users find you more easily when they’re looking for an expert to help them with their questions.
Track relevant topics
You can set up Quora to send you emails and notifications about questions that people are asking about the topics of your choice. Notifications are a great way to track what kind of issues and problems people are dealing with in your industry.
To start tracking a topic, type it into Quora’s search box, go to the topic’s page and click Follow. Once you do that, Quora will offer you similar or related topics that you can follow as well. You can also follow Quora blogs the same way you follow topics.
You can find additional topics by going to the Top Stories section and following the topics discussed there.
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You can customize the type and frequency of the emails that Quora will send you by going to Settings > Email & Notifications.
Create a topic for your business
Quora allows users to create topics related to anything. You can create a topic about your business so that users can ask questions about your business as well as follow any questions asked about it on Quora.
To create a topic for your business, do a search on Quora and see if it’s already listed as a topic. If it isn’t, go to the Add Question section in the right sidebar and click on Create Topic.
Having a Quora topic for your business makes it easy to monitor for any mentions of your brand and deal with any questions, issues, or complaints.
Find the best questions to answer
Thousands of questions are asked on Quora every day. Answering them all would be impossible as well as useless. Hence, you need to focus on the best questions that will help to build exposure and promote your business.
To find the best questions to answer, you’ll first need to look for questions on a topic related to your business. You might also want to do a search for your brand name and see if there are any questions related to it. Once you’ve found relevant questions, you’ll need to filter them further. You can focus on:
Questions with a large number of upvotes – These are questions that were heavily upvoted by the community which means that they’re popular and are getting a lot of views. Answering one of these questions might get you or your business a lot of attention.
New questions – Another tactic you might want to use is to focus on new questions which no one has answered yet. Being one of the first posters on a new question could make it a lot easier for your answer to end up at the top of the page.
While answering any questions related to your industry is better than answering none, you should try to focus on answering questions that your target audience would be likely to ask.
Provide value
The only way to make sure that your Quora efforts will be successful is to provide real value to the community. When writing answers, you should focus on helping the person who’s asking the question rather than on promoting your business.
Choose the questions you’re going to answer carefully and write in-depth answers that the Quora community will appreciate. Make sure to address every part of the question, rather than provide a partial answer.
If there are already a few answers to the question you’d like to answer, don’t restate what others have already said but try to add something new to the conversation instead.
Make your answers stand out
Most popular Quora questions will have hundreds of answers. Thus, providing a basic answer will not generate any interest. You need to make your answers stand out from the rest.
You should strive to provide detailed, in-depth answers with plenty of examples, useful statistics, facts, and quotes. Point readers to additional resources (e.g., your website) where they can learn more about the subject.
Make sure to back up any claims with relevant sources. It would also be a good idea to incorporate your personal experience with the subject into the answer.
Writing a high-quality answer that stands out will increase the chances of getting your answer to the top of the page, which in turn will help to lead more people to take a look at your profile, follow you or visit your website.
Suggest edits to top answers
While writing in-depth answers is the best way to get your content to the top of a question page on Quora, it isn’t the only one. Another thing you can try is to suggest edits to top answers.
Getting your suggestions accepted by the original poster can get your content in front of a lot of people quickly. When trying to suggest additional content to be added to an answer, you need to make sure that what you’re suggesting is valuable and adds to the existing conversation.
You can do this by elaborating on some of the points the original poster made, supporting their claims with additional examples or evidence, or adding new information that the poster neglected to provide.
Note that simply suggesting that the poster adds a link to your website in their answer will almost definitely get you nowhere.
Beat the competition
You can use Quora to take advantage of questions related to your competitors. Visitors who are looking for information on one of your competitors would most likely be interested in your business as well.
Try searching Quora for questions about your competition and answer them as best as you can. Mention your business as a suitable alternative and let the community know why your product or service is superior to that of your competition.
Create a Quora blog
You can create a blog for your business on Quora. You can use this blog to either post original content exclusive to Quora or repurpose your existing blog content (or both).
Repurposing your blog content on your Quora blog can help in driving Quora users to visit your website and is something that I would highly advise if you’re looking to increase your website’s traffic.
Conclusion
If your goal is to drive consistent high-quality traffic to your website, you should try to incorporate Quora into your overall marketing strategy. Share your knowledge and expertise with the Quora community on a daily basis and you’ll quickly start seeing results.
If you take the time to write in-depth answers and truly help Quora users, they will eventually turn into your website visitors, email subscribers, and even customers.