The ultimate Quora marketing guide (2024 updated)

What is Quora?

Quora is a social question-and-answer based site where anyone can ask and answer questions, edit questions, and comment on answers publicly. Founded in 2010, this site gets a lot of traffic—300 million users a month in 2020 to be exact.

How can Quora be used for marketing?

That huge amount of traffic and its search engine friendliness is why Quora can be an extremely valuable marketing channel. Think of it this way: Google is in the business of showing web pages that answer search queries.

Quora is in the business of answering questions. It makes sense then that Quora is so popular on search engine results pages (SERPs).

[Stat: Quora has 300+ million users a month.]

And Google’s love of Quora is reflected in the numbers: Quora is ranked #383 in global internet engagement worldwide. (This rank is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors to and pageviews on this site over the past three months.) And Quora is only increasing in popularity.

via Alexa

Let’s take a look at some impressive statistics:

• • Quora receives an estimated 90 million visits from search a month: It also ranks for about 65 million keywords, and an estimated 77% of users come from search engines. This means that if you can answer questions that rank well on Google in your niche, you can drive referral traffic to your website.
  • Users spend on average 4 minutes and 10 seconds on Quora: That’s impressive. While a little over four minutes might not sound like a lot, technology has shortened our attention spans, with most people spending a mere 15 seconds on a website.
• Quora users are 37% more likely to be in a management position: According to a 2018 study by Nielsen, Quora users are 37% more likely to be in management than the general adult population. This means you can get in front of the people with the real decision-making power.

[ Read: The B2B Marketing Guide on Quora]

Is it a good marketing channel for my business?

So now that you know what a powerhouse Quora can be as a marketing channel, how do you know if it’s a good channel for your business?

While Quora is especially great for B2B startups and businesses, it can really be leveraged for anyone, including B2C startups too. That’s because anyone on the site can:

• Build expertise
• Establish authority
• Gain exposure
• Create content (and precious backlinks)
• Ask targeted questions
• Search for and explore specific topics and questions related to an industry
• Learn from other users
• Get a lot of great content ideas
• And more! 

We’ll explore each of these a bit more in Part 1.

Part 1: Why should I market on Quora?

Here are the biggest perks we’ve seen from marketing on Quora.

1. It’s a great form of content marketing

Contributing to Quora is an effective form of content marketing that provides tremendous value over time. That’s because the content you contribute to Quora is evergreen, meaning it can continue to be relevant months and even years later.

You can test this by looking at Quora results from Google searches, or on Topic pages in Quora itself: Answers on the site from years ago are often returned—and still relevant.

2. It drives consistent traffic over time

In addition to allowing you an opportunity to provide real value to your audience over time, Quora can also help you drive consistent traffic back to your website.

Not only can you include a link to your site in your profile bio (more on that later), you can also include links to relevant blog posts, services and/or products on your site directly in your Quora answers—just make sure you don’t come off as spammy.

3. It builds brand awareness and reputation

By being a valuable source of information on Quora, you can build up industry authority, reputation, social influence, and ultimately, brand awareness.

Show off your industry and niche expertise by answering questions honestly and in-depth. By consistently acting as a reliable source of niche-specific information, you’ll become known as the go-to expert in that Quora Topic or Space.

4. You end up in SERPs

As we mentioned earlier, one of the biggest perks of all is that if you do Quora marketing right, you can end up in numerous search engine results pages for queries about your industry.

The more evergreen your answers—or the more often you edit and update them—the more likely Google and other search engines will be happy to display that answer in search results.

Part 2: Is my Quora profile ready?

So you want to start marketing your startup on Quora, but where do you start?

First, ensure your Quora profile is ready to rock:

1. Set up your profile

Make sure you start off your Quora adventure on the right foot. Begin by uploading your profile photo, including a tagline/headline descriptor, and writing a short bio that speaks to your industry expertise. Also, don’t forget to link to your website in your bio!

You can also add credentials in order to add credibility to your answers and other content. Choose from education, employment, location, Space, Topic, and language to get started. Make sure you include your industry as a Topic, Space, or both.

2. Answer non-promotional Quora questions

While the ultimate goal is to push Quora users to your site, products, and services, it’s important that you don’t come across as spammy. Therefore, answer non-promotional Quora questions, like those about a city you’ve lived in or a hobby you have.

These will show that you’re a more well-rounded Quora user, and not only interested in answering questions that provide an opportunity for self promotion.

3. Does account history matter?

Answering a mixture of questions both in and unrelated to your industry will help you build up a more trustworthy persona.

People will think, ‘Wow, this guy’s a fintech startup founder that’s also super into Bitcoin, Marvel, and 18th century literature? He seems like an interesting person; I’ll follow him.’ The more people who follow you and upvote your answers—no matter the Topic or Space—the more reliable a profile you will have.

Part 3: How do I market my startup on Quora?

Now that your Quora profile is set up and you’ve started to engage and interact with the community, how do you begin to leverage your Quora marketing strategy?

There are a variety of ways, but we’ve found that two are most successful: 1. Direct-to-brand, and 2. Using Quora as a part of your overall content strategy.

If you are not sure how to do Quora marketing properly, leave it to our Quora marketing experts to help you market your startup. 

Now, let’s dive into each:

Method 1: Direct-to-brand

Start by finding Quora answers that are relevant to your industry. You can start your search by asking yourself: What questions would my customers ask? 

Once you’ve identified Quora questions relevant to your industry, create a Google Sheet or Excel Spreadsheet and list them there. Add fields for how many views and impressions these questions have had, as well as how many answers there currently are. With this information, you’ll be able to prioritize questions based on quality and difficulty. 

If you really want to go above and beyond, you can also analyze the answers to each question: How many words do they have? About what length would your answer need to be in order to be truly valuable?

Once you’re ready to start composing answers to your chosen questions, make sure to include a personal introduction, a few images, and an explanation of your own authority before diving into your detailed, valuable answer. When it comes time to publish, do so from an already-established Quora account.

Rand Fishkin plugs his then-company Moz in his Quora answer.

Method 2: Quora as a part of your content strategy

Another way you can use Quora in your marketing strategy is to use it to promote your own content (in a non-spammy way, of course).

For each blog post you publish, research relevant questions on Quora that your post answers. Next, use the relevant information in your post to answer the Quora question while linking back to the original content on your website for more information.

Neil Patel provides additional information via links to his site directly in his Quora answer.

Marketing via Topics vs. Spaces

What’s the difference between marketing in Quora Topics versus Spaces?

Whereas Topics are a round up of questions and answers on a more general, broadly-defined area, Spaces are—according to Quora Product Designer Abhinav Sharma—“a place for people with shared goals, interests, values and clear norms to share content, and the norms are defined by those people.” Essentially, Spaces would be the equivalent of a Facebook or LinkedIn group.

If you market via Topics, you’ll be responding to the more general Quora population. Whereas if you market to a Space, you’ll be answering a query in a specific community.

Therefore, it’s always a good idea to engage with the community first (by commenting, sharing useful links, upvoting, and providing relevant answers) before engaging in any type of self promotion or even linking to your site.

Part 4: Quora paid advertising: Should I use it?

Quora isn’t only great for generating organic traffic to your startup’s website, it can also be a great place to invest your advertising dollars. 

That’s because Quora for Business allows you the flexibility to:

1. Select an objective (conversions, traffic, awareness, app installs, and lead gen) 
2. Define your budget, audience, and bid 
3. Create your ad (with only two lines of text and a landing page)
4. Add payment details
5. Launch your campaign

And all of this can be done within minutes.

But why should you invest in paid advertising on Quora? Because, according to Siteefy:

• In 2018, Quora’s 690 million unique visitors generated $8 million in revenue.
• Ads on Quora get four times the conversions compared to other platforms.
• The click-through rate (CTR) and the cost per click (CPC) on Quora are significantly better compared to other platforms. On average, an ad budget of $1000 on Quora will give a 0.91% CTR and a CPC of $0.26.
• In 2020, 27% more marketers invested in Quora Ads.

Furthermore, Quora offers a low barrier entry, with a minimum daily budget of $5. This way you can switch up ads to:

• Target people based on location, interests, behavior, what they’re reading, etc.
• Optimize for clicks, conversions, or impressions
• Choose Quora Promoted Answers, Questions Targeting or Questions Retargeting

…all without breaking the bank.

Part 5: What else should I keep in mind?

Tell stories

Don’t be afraid to tell your story. Some of the most popular answers on Quora are long explanations of how one person’s journey led them to giving you the answer they’re now providing on the site.

Not only does this reinforce that you are a multi-faceted person and not simply a face for a business or a spam bot, it provides you—and all the other content you contribute—with more credibility and relatability.  

Use other languages

If you’re lucky enough to speak multiple languages—or your customers do—try to translate your answers into the other languages you serve. Quora is rapidly expanding its site into other languages, so you can add value and reach new audiences by:

1. Repurposing translated content from your own site by posting it to Quora
2. Translating your own Quora answers into another language

[Read: Quora is now available in 24 Languages! from The Quora Blog]

Conclusion

Quora is a great way to:

• Reach more people
• Learn about your audience
• Conduct market research
• Hear directly from your customers
• Bolster your marketing strategy
• Improve lead generation and conversions
• And more!

There is so much potential on Quora—and a very low barrier to entry—that it’s well worth incorporating into your existing startup marketing strategy to start seeing results while increasing brand awareness across the web.

Not ready to launch your Quora marketing strategy by yourself? We can help. Schedule a call to find out how we can help you. We’re the #1 quora marketing agency for a reason!

The consultation is free of charge 😉