How to Create a Quora Marketing Strategy for Your Business

For marketers looking to grow their company’s exposure and reach a larger audience, there’s no shortage of platforms on which to do so. The challenge is deciding which platforms present the best opportunities for your brand. But regardless of which industry your business falls into, one of the best platforms today for expanding your reach is Quora.

And, it works. Josh Fetcher spent four months building 7,000 followers on Quora. It earned him 2k new members to his Facebook Group, and 3k leads to his email list. I mean, why do you think Neil Patel writes 2500+ word long answers on Quora? Because it works.

Keep reading to learn why it has the potential to be a valuable marketing tool for your business, as well as seven tips you can use to jump-start your Quora marketing strategy.

Why Should You Have a Quora Marketing Strategy?

By this point, you’ve likely at least heard of Quora, even if you’re not an active user. That’s because it’s now one of the most-visited sites in the world.

While the site doesn’t share updated information about its user base, it had 190 million monthly users as of April 2017 — up from 100 million in 2016.

But in case that potential audience alone doesn’t sell you on Quora’s value, these are three of the most significant benefits of using it as part of your marketing strategy.

1. Position Your Brand as a Leader in Your Industry

Quora’s basic premise is simple. Users ask questions, and other users answer them.

Topics on the site range from parenting to computer programming to just about anything else you can think of — and the users who answer these questions are often extremely qualified in the subject matter. As a result, the site has become a go-to source for users who want their questions addressed by experts. For example, take a look at the qualifications listed for this user who answered a question about artificial intelligence.

His education and experience make him uniquely qualified to write about the subject — and this is the level of credibility Quora’s users have come to expect.

So when users search for information related to your industry and find answers from your company, they’ll see your brand as an authority. This is especially true if you’re able to achieve “top writer” status. This distinction is given to the writers with the most views on any given topic.

As Mario Peshev explains, he was able to earn top writer status in the WordPress category and over 1 million answer views within a year. Earning this spot helped him gain credibility on the site, and continue to increase his views on the platform.

Although becoming a top writer is a challenging goal, particularly for popular subjects, it could be a worthy one to pursue once you’re comfortable with the platform. This way, you not only grow your exposure among consumers interested in your industry but also position your company as a leader at the same time.

With the right approach, this can also translate into leads and sales for your business. By answering a question that was highly relevant to this target audience, he was able to establish himself as an authority — then translate that authority into leads.

2. Drive Traffic to Your Site

When you answer questions on Quora, you can include links to your sources and other relevant content. For example, take a look at this answer to the question, “What is the best way to learn about stocks?”

This user is the founder of a stock analysis company, so he’s certainly qualified to answer. His response clocks in at just over 1,000 words, and provides a comprehensive overview of what a consumer should know about the subject.

At the end, he includes a link to his company, with an explanation of how it could be helpful to a reader who wants to learn more.

If users found his answer helpful and are interested in using the exact methods he recommends, there’s a chance they’ll click. And if you’re wondering if this approach is effective, take a look at This Online World’s referral traffic report after using Quora for three months.

That’s over 2,000 sessions — after just a few months of answering questions on the platform.

3. Earn Mentions in Other Publications

If you’re lucky, your reach with Quora marketing can extend beyond the site’s user base. That’s because an increasing number of sites now source their content from Quora. For example, a site search of Forbes.com shows a ton of articles that originally appeared on the site.

To illustrate why this is so valuable, let’s take a look at the second result from the screenshot above. Here, Forbes republished author Howard Yu’s full answer to the question, “What are some business trends you predict for the coming decade?”

As you can see in the screenshot above, that answer included a link to his book’s website. To be clear, it is a nofollow link. Still, this is free exposure on a major site. When you consider how much it would typically cost to advertise on a site like Forbes, that’s a huge return for writing an answer on Quora.

But as top writer Nicolas Cole explains, the only way to achieve this kind of success is to write on the platform consistently. Back in 2013, he decided to write one answer per day for the entire year. Two weeks into this endeavor, he had an answer get over 10,000 views for the first time.

Within that same year, he’d been published in Inc Magazine, HuffPost, PopSugar, TIME, Forbes, and Fortune, and landed on the front page of Reddit. In less than a year, he also earned top writer status and racked up several million views on his answers.

And this was all due to one thing: Consistency. So if you’re looking for a “quick win,” or a “hack” that will help you land in Forbes, there isn’t one. Your best bet is to start writing and stick with it — and you just might see the kind of success Cole has achieved on the platform.

7 Quora Marketing Tips

Quora has the potential to be a powerful marketing tool for your business. When done correctly, it can be one of your best sources of traffic and leads. And if you don’t believe me, check out this Social Network Referrals report from Wishpond.

With 9,872 sessions in just one month, Quora delivers the second-highest amount of social traffic — beaten only by Facebook. And the first step to achieving these kinds of results is simply getting started.

Fortunately, that doesn’t need to be difficult. As long as you’re comfortable writing about your industry and the subjects on which you have experience, you’re ready to start answering questions. But if you want to make the most of your efforts on the platform, these seven Quora marketing tips can help.

1. Make the Most of Your Profile
2. Add Relevant “Knows About” Topics
3. Use Quora’s Ad Platform to Find Questions
4. Select Questions That Are Relevant to Your Target Audience
5. Write Valuable Content
6. Incorporate Links Where They Make Sense
7. Suggest Edits to Top Answers

1. Make the Most of Your Profile

Before you answer any questions, take the time to fully complete your profile. As you do this, keep in mind that Quora includes the first 50 characters of your profile with each of your answers. So if you’re looking to grow your brand exposure, make sure to include your company’s name near the top.

For example, Bob Ruffolo of IMPACT uses his profile headline to mention both the company’s name and what they do.

Whenever one of his answers appears in users’ feeds, they’ll immediately know he’s the CEO of an inbound marketing agency. This way, they’ll associate any value they receive in the answer with the IMPACT brand — and potentially seek more information about it.

Beyond that, you’ll want to take advantage of the fact that Quora allows users to include links in their profiles. Author John Green does a nice job of this on his profile.

This brief paragraph explains who he is and why readers should care, then links to all of the projects he’s involved with online. So as you write your bio, remember to include links to your company’s site, your social accounts, and anywhere else you want to drive traffic.

Finally, fill out the “Credentials & Highlights” section.

This section doesn’t need to be a complete resume of your accomplishments but should include any education or experience that’s relevant to the types of questions you’ll be answering.

2. Add Relevant “Knows About” Topics

Although completing the “Knows About” section is technically part of filling out your profile, it serves a purpose beyond illustrating your qualifications. As the name implies, this section shows all of the topics you’re familiar with on your profile.

The topics you include here can also help you find relevant questions to answer. When you edit this section, you can start by searching for keywords and topics related to your industry. Then, you’ll see how many users subscribe to each of those topics.

For example, take a look at the following results for the term “content marketing.”

In this case, just under 150,000 users subscribe to the topic. This means that if you were able to write a popular answer in this category, you could expect a fairly large reach.

So, let’s say you opt to add this to your Knows About section. When you’re ready to write answers, you’ll see a list of popular questions directly related to the topic.

This makes it easy to find questions in need of answers. And while you don’t necessarily need to focus solely on topics with lots of subscribers, writing a few answers on popular topics can help you gain exposure on the site.

Keep this in mind as you complete this section of your profile, and you’ll be able to spend less time hunting for relevant questions — and more time crafting helpful answers for other users.

3. Use Quora’s Ad Platform to Find Questions

If you’re willing to invest the time it takes to write useful answers, Quora can be a great way to drive traffic to your site. That said, it isn’t always easy to truly know how much traffic you can expect to generate by answering a question.

Fortunately, the platform offers a few tools that can assist you in making accurate estimations. It should come as no surprise that as one of the most-visited sites online, Quora offers advertising options. These options can be extremely helpful for driving traffic from the platform.

As Aaron Doherty, WordStream’s Director of Lead Acquisition, explains:

I like Quora a lot. It’s a new source of intent. While AdWords is still the best source of high-intent leads, Quora is in the same ballpark. The fact that the content is user-generated, with answers occurring in real time makes it an exciting place for marketers.

And even if you’re not ready to launch a paid campaign, you can still use the site’s ad platform to find new questions and get a rough estimate of their potential.

First, you’ll need to create a Quora ad account and set up a dummy campaign. Quora’s advertising platform lets companies target their ads in a few different ways. For research purposes, the most helpful of these is Question Targeting.

When you get to the targeting section of your campaign, select this option from the Primary Targeting tab.

From here, you’ll see a dialog box in which you can enter a list of keywords. Add a few keywords related to questions you’d like to answer. Then, you’ll see a list of questions on Quora, along with their average weekly views.

For example, take a look at the results for the keywords “finance” and “personal finance.”

If any of these questions were relevant to your experience and had a relatively high volume of weekly views, it would be a prime opportunity to write a new answer. In this case, you could click the link to go directly to that question — then either save it to a list for future use or get to work writing your answer immediately.

4. Select Questions That Are Relevant to Your Target Audience

As you select questions to answer, it’s easy to get caught up in which are most closely related to your expertise and interests. And if these characteristics are directly in line with your audience’s questions and needs, that’s great!

But selecting the right questions often requires a bit more thought. That’s because when it comes down to it, the primary goal of any content marketing strategy is lead generation.

Writing a helpful, in-depth answer takes time. And to make that time worth it, your strategy needs to generate leads for your business. That can only happen if you’re answering the questions your target demographic is interested in. Of course, this might sound obvious. But it’s important to keep in mind that your potential customers and clients likely ask different questions from other experts in your industry.

For example, let’s say you’re an accountant. You’re likely qualified to answer complex questions about changes to tax regulations, accounting technology, and issues facing the industry. While your industry peers might find those answers interesting, you need to consider whether your potential clients would, too. After all, Quora isn’t about impressing your competitors.

Sure, answering a few in-depth questions can help you establish your reputation within your industry on the platform. But unless you’re also answering the kinds of questions your audience is asking, that’s unlikely to provide real value to your business. So, sticking with the accountant example, this means your time would likely be better spent answering simpler questions on subjects like taxes and payroll.

While these answers may not do as much to highlight your expertise, they’ll be much more effective at getting your company in front of potential clients. And that will ultimately have a much more significant impact on moving you closer to your digital marketing goals like lead generation. So before you spend time writing an answer, make sure that the question has the potential to drive the kinds of results you want.

That’s why you should look for the following six attributes when evaluating questions:

• 7:1 ratio of followers to the number of answers provided.
• A lot of followers, but many bad answers.
• A question that you can provide a personal image to complement.
• An emotional pull. This pull makes it easier to write more genuine answers with thought-provoking stories.
• Relevant to your bio offer.
• A question with poorly-written answers making yours more likely to stand out.

Then, as you identify questions with these qualities, you can save them by selecting “Answer Later.”

When you select this option, the question will appear under the “Answer” tab on Quora’s site. Alternatively, if you want to track additional information related to the attributes above, you can do what Fetcher does and save your questions in a custom spreadsheet.

This way, when you’re ready to answer questions, you’ll be able to quickly and efficiently select the ones that have the potential to deliver the best results.

5. Write Valuable Content

Much like with content marketing in general, you’ll only be successful on Quora if you provide value to your readers. So as you browse and use the site, remember that quality is much more important than quantity. Given the vast number of questions users have already asked, it can be tempting to write as many answers as you possibly can.

This is especially true if you approach it with the mindset that each new answer is a new opportunity to link to your site. But when it comes down to it, there’s already a lot of content on Quora. Unless you’re an expert in a niche industry, there’s likely a wealth of answers to all of the most popular questions related to the topics you want to write about.

So with that in mind, it’s simply not worth your time to write surface-level content. Instead, focus on one question at a time, and start by taking a look at the existing answers. Your goal here should always be to add something new to the conversation. If you merely re-state the points other users have already made, you aren’t providing value — and your answer is likely to be ignored. But once you’ve found a question that has few answers, or a new angle on a popular question, it’s time to start writing.

If you’re new to Quora, this might be intimidating. So if you’re not sure where to get started, it’s a good idea to spend some time browsing popular answers related to the topics you want to write about. This will give you an idea of the style and formatting other users like. And while you’re by no means obligated to use the same approach as other writers, having a general sense of what’s expected can make it easier to get started.

Then, once you’re comfortable with the overall tone, make it your goal to fully answer the question. This way, you can be confident that you’re providing value to your audience — and not just wasting your time on shallow content.

6. Incorporate Links Where They Make Sense

One of the biggest benefits of Quora is the ability to include links in your answers. For marketers looking to drive traffic to their sites, this presents a huge opportunity. But to get users to visit your site, you need to be strategic with link placement. You can’t simply drop links into your answers and expect readers to click.

Instead, you’ll need to explain how the linked content is relevant, and what readers can expect to find if they click. For example, take a look at this answer to the question, “How do you keep track and follow up on emails?”

If you’re interested in the full answer, you can click the link above to read it for yourself. But to summarize it, this user includes three strategies for creating a follow-up strategy, as well as instructions for writing five different types of emails. This fully answers the question and is likely enough information for readers to begin creating their own follow-up strategy.

But at the bottom of the answer, this writer also links to an article on his company’s site with 12 email templates.

It’s important to note that he’s not taking an overly sales-y approach or telling readers that they need his company. Instead, he directs them to another highly relevant resource. This way, interested readers can continue to learn about this subject on his site — and decide from there whether they’re interested in learning about this company’s products.

So as you look for ways to add links to your answers, it’s a good idea to think beyond your homepage or conversion-focused pages. After all, Quora’s users come to the site looking for information — and not necessarily for new products and services.

So in most cases, they won’t just click a link to your company’s website if you’re not offering additional content related to their interests. This means that you’re likely to see more traffic from the platform if you focus on linking to informational pages.

Select resources on your site that are most closely related to the question at hand, and consider how they might be beneficial to readers. Then, explain that benefit before including your link. This way, readers know exactly what they stand to gain when they click. The clearer you make the advantages of visiting your site, the more inclined they’ll be to do just that.

As you add links, it’s also a good idea to include UTM parameters to monitor your results. If you use Google Analytics to track and measure campaign success, you’re likely already familiar with these URL parameters — and using them to track your results with Quora is simple. Google Analytics will already show you Quora as the network referral, but if you want to narrow this down further you can use UTM parameters.

Taking a few extra seconds to add these to the links in your answers will make it easy to determine whether your answers are driving traffic to your site — and whether it’s making an impact on your marketing goals.

7. Suggest Edits to Top Answers

In addition to writing your answers, you can also suggest edits to other users’ answers. Simply scroll to the bottom of an existing answer, and click the “Suggest Edits” button.

This will open the answer in a text editor, giving you the ability to edit it however you see fit. It’s important to note, though, that you can’t simply change another user’s answer without their permission — so any edits you make will first get sent to them for approval.

In theory, the advantage of this approach isn’t difficult to see. Top answers to popular questions tend to attract lots of views, so getting a link to your site in one of them would be an easy way to attract traffic.

But as you can imagine, getting another writer to accept your edits (and include your link) can be challenging. After all, if their answer is already popular on its own, there’s little incentive to update or change it — especially if the only reason for the change is so that another user can benefit from their work.

So if you attempt to use this strategy, make sure that your edits genuinely add value to the user’s answer. Elaborate on a point, support their claim, or fill an information gap in a way that makes their response more convincing or compelling. Then, if you intend to add a link, use it as a source for the content you’ve added.

But again, only do this if the link actually contains supporting information. Most Quora writers will see right through any attempts to add irrelevant links — and doing this too many times won’t do your reputation on the platform any favors.

Summary

Quora can be a valuable addition to any company’s marketing strategy. And though there are many tips and tricks you can use to improve your results, the key to success is staying in line with the platform’s primary goal to serve as a helpful resource.

Don’t just go spamming Quora or you could get permanently banned, like Dave Hamrick. It’s important to find a good balance when contributing content on third-party platforms versus your own website. Remember, you no longer own the content when you post it to Quora.

As with many digital marketing strategies today, you need to approach Quora with the goal of providing real value to your audience. To do this, you’ll need to:

• Aim to help your audience better understand your industry, learn more about the topics they’re interested in, and accomplish their goals.
• Write consistently.
• Fully utilize your profile to tell users who you are and why they should trust you.
• Spend time choosing questions that have the potential to reach the right audience and drive traffic to your site.
• Incorporate links where they make sense, and with a context that tells readers why they should click.

With this approach, you’ll be more effective at establishing the type of reputation you want on the site — and more likely to generate real results with your efforts. So with that in mind, it’s time to get started! And if there are any other tactics or strategies you’ve found particularly effective on Quora, let us know in the comments below!