What Is Quora?
Quora is a platform where you can ask questions and get answers. You can use it to drive traffic to your site, build authority on topics, and even get some SEO benefits. Quora was co-founded in 2009 by Adam D Angelo and Charlie Cheever (former Facebook employees) and made public in 2010.
The Purpose Of Quora
Quora’s mission is to share and grow the world’s knowledge. Its purpose is to educate and build trust. Quora has got plenty of topics that you can choose based on your interest. The only thing you have to keep in mind is not to violate the purpose, otherwise, your account can be suspended.
As of 2020, Quora has around 300 million active users, out of which over 45 million are Indian users.
Some of the important features of Quora are:
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- Number of Views: Quora shows you an accurate number of how many times your answer is viewed. Please note, the number of views are counted from different accounts, even if it is your own. Viewing your answers more than once, will not be counted as a view.
- Upvotes: These are a measure of how popular your answer is on Quora. Users can upvote answers that they find useful.
- Adhering to guidelines: Keep away from offensive, harmful and hateful content as Quora takes immediate action upon violating the guidelines.
- Request Answers: This is a way for people with questions to connect to the people who can answer them. You can request an answer from Quora’s suggestions, or you can go straight to a person’s profile and ask your question.
Why Should You Use Quora?
- The best answers on Quora are visible for longer and can continue to drive traffic months or even years after being posted. An awesome answer that users find helpful is more likely to be upvoted and viewed by users for as long as it’s relevant.
- Google likes Quora. Because of Quora’s policies and the tendency of the most helpful answers to be higher up on the page, Google treats Quora as a high-authority site. This is why results from Quora are displayed higher on their search results.
- Establish yourself as an expert in your niche. When Quora users see that you’re posting high-quality answers to questions in your niche, then people pay attention to what you have to say, which leads them to upvote your answers and follow you.
- Showcase your expertise, blog, and social media accounts in your profile. When someone sees your high-quality answer on Quora, they’re likely to click on your Quora profile. This is thus a good place to put everything relevant to you in your profile.
How To Create a Profile on Quora?
There are two types of profiles that you can create on Quora
- Individual Profile
- Business Profile
To create an Individual Profile, follow these steps:
- Join Quora: Simply go to the Quora homepage and sign up with either your Google account, Facebook account, or your email address.
- Select Topics You Know: After signing up, you will be asked to choose at least 10 topics, this will help quora create a personalized news feed for you. Please note that you can always change these topics later.
- Optimize your profile: Once you click on next, Quora will show your personalized feed, from which you need to visit your profile page which would look something like this:
- Credentials and Highlights: Add employment, education, and location credentials here to make your profile more credible and professional.
- On the profile, optimize the following
- Profile picture: Use a high-quality professional headshot, in which you look presentable and approachable. A good practice would be to use the same image as your blogging site or social media accounts.
- Profile Credential: This is a very important aspect of your profile. It will be shown by default for every answer that you write.
- Profile Description: Your description is crucial in first impressions as the user will see this first after clicking on your profile photo from any answers. Use simple language in the description and rectify grammatical errors if any. Add social media or blog/website links at the end.
- Connect your Social Media account: From the settings option, connect your social media accounts. Quora allows you to share your answers on Twitter and Facebook.
To create a Business Profile, visit the Quora homepage and sign up using any method of your choice (mentioned above). Just like an individual profile, company accounts can ask questions, give answers, comment, or contribute as an influencer.
Companies on Quora, do not have separate brand pages, but a Topic can be created with that company name.
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Components of a Quora Feed
Quora feed shows information that is personalized to your interest. Apart from creating a profile on Quora, you can also create, share, follow and contribute to other components such as:
- Topics: In this platform, you can find all the questions and answers to a particular topic. A topic can be a company name as well, for example, a topic Web Marketing Academy(WMA), lists down all the questions and answers related to WMA.
- Spaces: These are communities on Quora where members can interact with each other. Quora invites you to the Spaces program, preferably based on how active you are on the platform, or if Quora recognizes you as a Top Writer. Once you are eligible, you can create a new Space and encourage experts to join and interact.
- Sessions: These are events in which writers/influencers answer questions taken in advance. Before a Session begins, writers open up to take questions on the Session page and you can post new questions or follow existing questions. Quora invites you to host a session if you are an expert in a topic, Top content Writer, most active/followed account.
- Digest: Quora Digest is a weekly email sent by Quora which contains answers which Quora thinks you might like to see. If you are an expert in your topic and your answers cross a good amount of views and upvotes, Quora will feature your answers on Digest
How to Write a Good Answer on Quora?
In order to write a good answer on Quora, you must first understand the type of question that you are answering. If your purpose is to get more views to your answers, then skip the questions that don’t have a lot of followers.
Here are some tips to write the perfect answer on Quora:
- Choose the question/topic that you are interested in and can write good answers for. Research well before answering
- Have a well-structured answer. Use words that would catch the reader’s attention. Have a good opening sentence.
- Always aim to write lengthy answers. A good answer should add value, like a blog. Keep your answers anywhere between 500-1000 words.
- Format your answers well and pay attention to detail. If you are using technical terms, cite your sources. Listicles are a must if you are explaining steps. Use bold and italics wherever necessary.
- A good way to support your answers is by using relevant images or videos. Provide links too, in case you want your readers to know more about your answer.
- Make your answers keyword-rich for SEO. As mentioned above, Google likes Quora and if your answers add value, Google can rank them on the SERP as well.
- Share your personal experience or write your answer as a story. This will help the readers connect with your answer instantly and also increase views/upvotes.
- Repurpose your answers on Social media. Quora lets you share your answers on Facebook, Twitter directly.
Here are some links to help you understand How to write a good answer on Quora
Advertising on Quora
Quora Ads is a self-service platform that enables users to create an ad account and begin running ads on Quora. Any advertiser can run ads, provided the company meets the Quora advertising policy guidelines.
Things to keep in mind:
- The ads should blend with the Q&A so that it reaches a mass audience.
- Identify the questions/ answers that you want to run ads for.
- Look for trending topics on Google.
- Come up with answers based on the trending topics.
- Strategically use your products /services with the answers.
- You can promote someone else’s answer as well. Target the influencers in the respective field.
How to Run Ads on Quora
- Create an Ad Account from your profile by clicking on the Create Ad option and fill in the required details. Or if you already have Ads Profile then go to Ads manager from your profile.
- After adding the details, click on Create campaign, under which you can choose the objective and define what kind of audience you want to target.
- You have 4 types of objectives, Conversions, App Installs, Traffic, and Awareness. Choose these based on what you want to achieve with your Ad. For Conversion tracking, use the Pixel Tracking code. Set up your daily budget and schedule and click on Continue.
- Now, Create an Ad set, where you choose your Targeting Audience. The primary targeting is based on what kind of audience you want to reach out to with your answers
- There are 4 types of targeting options.
- Contextual targeting – Show ads that are relevant to topics, keywords, or questions based on the content.
- Audience Targeting – Show your ads to an audience that matches Website traffic, lookalike audience or that matches your list of audiences.
- Behavioral Targeting – Show ads based on user’s interest, keyword history, or based on the questions that they have asked or interacted with.
- Broad Targeting – Show ads widely across the location or based on demographics to maximize impressions.
Once you choose the targeting options, choose a location where you want to show your ads, and to which Age group or gender (demographics) set up email targeting for Quora digest and finally set up a bid based on Clicks or Impressions and click Next.
- Now, create an ad format, this is the final stage where you choose what type of ad you want to show to your audience
- In this section, you can select three types of Ad Formats:
- Image Ad: An ad that contains text, an image, and your company logo.
- Text Ad: An ad that contains primarily text and no images.
- Promote an Answer: An ad that promotes an existing answer so that it appears more prominently for users on Quora.
- Once you select the Ad type and fill in the required details such as Headlines, Url, Body text, and Call to Action, click Continue and set up billing. Currently, Quora accepts only Debit or Credit card billing.
- Once the campaign is set up, you can Track and Measure its performance from the Manage Ads option.
Below are a few links and resources to help you understand Quora and also the information on how to get the verified badge.
- Here are some of the verified profiles in India