When it comes to online marketing, it’s best to deploy the most effective platforms, so every marketing dollar is spent wisely while yielding excellent ROI (Returns on Investment).
Just like every business niche or industry, there is no particular “best” marketing platform, but there are different channels best suited for different brands, audiences, or marketing goals.
However, we will be reviewing an online platform known by many but used by few for marketing. This guide focuses on what Quora is all about, how it works, and reasons for using it. And then highlights the different ways marketers use the platform to achieve their goals.
Finally, you should be able to conclude if Quora is an effective marketing platform for your brand. Let’s kick off this guide with a basic intro on Quora.
About Quora
Quora is an online question and answer platform with the largest user-generated content. In other words, you can join Quora, ask questions on over 5,000,000 topics, and get answers from experts.
This large online Q&A platform boasts of more than 300 million active users monthly, making it one of the highest-ranking websites in terms of visitors.
On average, more than one million questions are asked, and one million answers provided monthly. Experts are advised to respond to questions that border around their fields or industries. To ensure that answers are accurate and relevant to Quora users.
Another interesting Quora fact is that the platform ranks for over 3 million keywords. That’s a whole lot of keywords for any site to rank for in search engines. Quora might seem so impressive, but is it an effective platform for marketing?
Uses of Quora
Quora is used in different ways, by different people for different purposes. Here are the most common ways that people use Quora.
I – For Research – While conducting research on an educational topic, business or hobby, Quora is a great resource. You can either post questions based on your research topic, or go through answers posted by other users.
You will find lots of answers that address all known topics, whether health, business, or artificial intelligence.
II – For Building Network – Quora is also a community where you can meet and connect with others. You can connect with others based on industry, religion, interests, ethnicity, or other criteria.
You will find a lot of experts in different niches and industries. And Quora provides the platform for building relationships with these experts.
III – Platform for Sharing Knowledge – It’s a platform where those who are experts can freely share their knowledge. Experts respond to questions asked by those who seek information in their particular fields.
You can add value to other Quora users by simply sharing from your wealth of knowledge.
IV – For Hobby – Millions of users usually visit Quora for a hobby. Probably to find out the latest questions people are asking about their areas of interest, or get the latest fad in stuff like technology, politics, or education.
V – For Marketing Purposes – Quora is a great place to drive brand awareness, engage your audience, and generate leads. That’s if you know how to use the platform for achieving your marketing goals.
For the purpose of marketing, Quora may not be suited for every industry. There are thousands, maybe millions, of other uses of Quora. However, the above listed captures the main ways in which people make use of the Q&A platform.
Reasons for Using Quora for Marketing
Marketers have been using Quora as part of their content marketing strategy. It is a platform to distribute high-quality content, build authority, and drive traffic to their websites.
Who wouldn’t when you consider the potential audience that can be reached through Quora? We’re talking about getting thousands of post views and hundreds of engagements on Quora.
Besides this, after Google launched its Question and Answer SERP, you find a lot of results from Quora, especially answers that are detailed, well-organized, and relevant to the search queries.
So how does this play out for businesses who want to use Quora for marketing?
Using Quora for Marketing
In order to use Quora for any purpose at all, you have to be a registered user. So the first step of driving your marketing goals through Quora is to sign up, which is quite easy to do while you’re on Quora.
And after sign up, it is important that you create a compelling profile, filling out areas of interests and qualifications in the process. Next is to follow topics that interest you or the ones that are in the same niche with your brand.
You are then ready to start posting relevant answers to questions asked by other users, or you could post questions of your own in order to attract answers or engagement. You can also connect with other Quora users who have expert knowledge or interest in your field.
You will have to first build some level of authority and trust in your niche. And the fastest way to achieve this is by providing accurate answers to the questions people are asking.
Then you can mention the name of your business, brand, or website URL in your answers. For this to be effective, you will have to target the audience that reads through your answers, and not just include your company details in any post you find.
The goal is to avoid any situation that will lead to Quora classifying your responses as spam.
Recent Changes
While Quora remains a platform of choice for some marketers, others have different opinions. These divergent opinions stem from the recent changes made on Quora. In order to help you decide on which part of the divide to stand, here are some changes:
I – Restrictions on Promotional Links
There are links that provide users with more information about your answer. These kinds of links are not what this is all about, but links that have promotional undertones.
In the recent past, brands have abused this privilege that Quora offers. They have instead embarked on aggressive promotions of their businesses through Quora.
So Quora has put its feet down by refusing to allow promotional links anymore. And this also includes posting of affiliate and referral links. This restriction does not in any way affect links that direct users to valuable resources.
II – Stiffer Competition
The number of marketers using Quora has increased over the years. So you find stiffer competition among brands that are competing for users’ attention.
While it is effective for some, the results aren’t encouraging for others, especially marketers who have not been able to build authority in their niches.
III – Less Professional, More Promotional Content
It’s as if all brands are in the race to outperform one another on Quora. They proffer answers that are less professional, and more focused on promoting their brands. This situation doesn’t go unnoticed by users who have obviously seen the shift in focus.
What You Can Achieve From Quora Marketing
Depending on a brand’s need, there are 3 different Quora marketing goals:
- Brand awareness
- Link Building
- Website Traffic
And marketing on Quora can help achieve each of these goals or all of them.
1 – Brand Awareness
Using Quora to build brand awareness and recognition feels like a long-term strategy. It’s an action plan that requires time to produce results for your brand. But how do you get over all those promotional links that try to sell their brands?
You should focus on the consistent posting of high-quality content on Quora. Create content that answers the questions in the minds of your target audience. And one great benefit of using Quora is that there is an infinite supply of questions for you to answer.
Quora has millions of monthly visitors who see the platform as a resource. And even if they don’t immediately recognize your brand, there’s still time for that. What is expected of you is to remain consistent in producing relevant answers on Quora.
One of the traps to avoid is making your answers seem promotional. But rather make a conscious effort to add to the knowledge base of Quora. And as your efforts get noticed, you will find the awareness of your brand increasing.
2 – Link Building
Using Quora for link building may not be successful due to a number of reasons. The reason marketers, or anyone for that matter, build links is to boost their search engine rankings.
Backlinks are important metrics that search engines use for ranking websites. They are a token of authority that other websites assign to a particular website.
So if a website gets a lot of backlinks from authority sites, it’s a vote of trust on the website. And the higher the number of authority backlinks to a website, the higher the receiving website is likely to rank!
But you see, the links from Quora do not add any value to your backlinks portfolio. Because all links that originate from Quora carry the no-follow tag.
Even if you have thousands of Quora links pointing to your website, there is no single backlinks value. Rather, the links serve other purposes that are different from backlinks building.
Quora links are more effective for raising brand awareness than they are for link building. If your marketing goal is link building, Quora isn’t the best platform for this.
Come to think of it, if the links from Quora were effective for backlinks, the platform would look messy. Because you will find every Tom, Dick, and Harry posting thousands of links back to their sites.
3 – Website Traffic
Naturally, Quora is an ideal platform to use for driving traffic to your website. But not every business seems to enjoy this benefit that Quora presents.
Readers come to the platform to access questions typed in search queries. They either visit Quora directly or come through any of the search engines.
As a subject matter or industry expert, your role is to provide the right answers which do not have to be a high-quality piece of content before users are attracted to your website.
You just have to prove, through your answers, that you’re an authority. And also provide an incentive that would make anyone want to click your link. Another Quora strategy for driving website traffic is answering questions on your site.
First, search on Quora for questions around your domain with high responses and views. And then produce comprehensive answers to them on your company website or blog.
Finally, visit Quora and provide snippets of the post, and then paste the link to the post. That way, users can navigate to your website if they want to get the full answer to their questions.
That said, Quora might not be the best for link building, but if well-used, you can drive traffic through it.
Pros and Cons of Using Quora for Marketing
Let’s consider the pros and cons of using Quora as a marketing platform.
Pros
- Quora provides an organic means of driving traffic to your business website or blog. You don’t need to spend money on running paid ads for your marketing. All you need to do is produce high-quality responses and remain consistent while at it
- Easily target your content marketing at the right audience for your brand. Questions are grouped into different topics which make it easy to reach your target audience
- Quora is one of the best platforms where brands can build trust and authority. Brands will find it much easier to also drive awareness and recognition on Quora.
Cons
- The shift in focus from professional to promotional answers reduces user experience because high-quality answers are being relegated to the background by users, who instead want to use Quora to market their brands
- Quora is not the best of places to use for building your backlink portfolio.
Conclusion
Is Quora an overrated platform for marketing your business?
Ideally, I would say it is a very relevant channel to drive business growth. I am, however, aware of limited results that some marketers have experienced while using Quora. But this doesn’t mean that the largest question and answer platform has zero marketing value.
Some of the top marketing goals include brand awareness, link building, and website traffic. While Quora is ideal for brand awareness and boosting website traffic, the same can’t be said for link building.
And even for those who used it to boost traffic, there are successes and failures. To make the most out of your brand’s presence on Quora, follow these tips:
Sign up on Quora and create a compelling profile for your brand
Follow topics that are related to your brand or the ones you have interest in
Contribute by providing accurate answers to questions asked, and also ask relevant questions. With consistency in this, you will be able to build trust and authority on Quora
Include more information about your brand and products in the answers you provide. And while at this try to avoid any semblance of spamming, so you don’t get penalized.
Do you want to learn more about building organic traffic for your website? Don’t hesitate to check out the Wealthy Affiliate certification training today.