What is Quora?
I would say that Quora is the largest ‘forum’ platform that people like you and me can ask and answer questions.
Because Quora is so frequent by many people, some of us actually consider quora as a social platform. Let’s be honest. It is far from being a social platform, but Quora is definitely a great way to build trust and traffic with the right strategy.
Ready to build trust and traffic using Quora?
Build Trust and Traffic Using Quora
1. Get your profile right
First and foremost, there are thousands of people like us on Quora. If you want to be successful on Quora, the first step is to do up a good profile.
Here’s the sample of mine.
It certainly takes some time to get it right, but it certainly worth the effort. Trust me!
There are many Quora profiles you can follow or replicate. I believe that you need to put in some effort especially in making it unique. Sure, you can follow others (I followed some parts of Matthew McConaughey’s Oscar speech) and made it unique in my own words and vision.
A good profile doesn’t only ensure that people know who you are, it allows others to get to know you better with just a hundred words (or slightly more)!
2. Choose topics that are relevant to you
The second part is understanding the topics that are relevant to you. If you want to build trust and visibility, you need to start answering questions and it starts by answering questions that you know about.
I choose quite a lot simply because I know a lot. My favorite topics are often careers and life.
The trick here is to be an influencer for that specific topic and the real challenge begins because there are many others who could have a higher influence level than you.
However, you need to start from somewhere and defy the odds. Seriously.
Important note: Following too many niches or topics could cluster up your Quora feed (and gets really annoying too). So, consider being more specific to ensure that you are getting the right suggestions from Quora.
3. Be active
The next step is being active. What is being active?
Being active means that you are starting to answering questions (duh!). Now, there are two ways to do this.
The first one is by typing a question or keyword in the top bar and click on search. Usually, entering a keyword will display the top three most relevant questions asked recently, as well as topics that are related.
One of the biggest problems with many Quora members is that they try to answer as short as possible, hoping for magic to happen.
Sadly, that isn’t the case. At times, you need to provide more details to get upvotes and positive comments.
On average, an answer that has 1,000 words or more generally performs 5 times better than other posts. Seriously.
Before this, I often write answers that are around 300 words and not putting everything into the answering process. This resulted in me in writing subpar answers which aren’t getting enough traction.
Last month (April 2017), I decided to do something different. Sharing information that is more specific, and there are some answers that I wrote that has over 3,000 words. Those are time-consuming, taking over an hour to complete with coding and images, but they worth it.
Here are my stats.
On a daily basis, I get around 150 – 200 views a day. Not bad at all since I spend less than an hour, answering 10 or more questions.
But, I changed my strategy and spend less than two hours now, answering anywhere between 1 to 5 questions. The catch is to answer super long answers, as much as I’m writing a blog post!
Now, see what happened on end of April. On a single day, I got over 14,700 on just ONE post that I’ve answered. The answer was shared multiple times on social media and it is still growing today!
Was that lucky?
Certainly not. It was not planned, but certainly, I did have a strategy to explore my views.
The trick here is simple, you don’t have to answer 100 answers a day. All you need is answer a few that matters, and with super duper answers.
4. Do not afraid of criticism
I get criticized sometimes on Quora and that sucks. Let’s face it, who likes it, right?
The latest comment I got was pretty bad. The user said that I knew NOTHING about the topic I was saying and was urging me to quit Quora. I replied back politely stating that he might not know me but I have over a decade of experience in that topic and, I shared more on why I did that and HOW that helped me in my life.
The results from my action?
- The commenter went ‘missing in action’ immediately
- I get more upvotes on that one post in just a few hours
- And I get more followers simply from that
You see, there are haters everywhere and there’s nothing much you can do about it. However, do not let those sink in into you because you are just trying to help out and the intention is good.
5. Share answers on social media platforms
Last but not least, share your answers on social media platforms and that could easily widen your reach. For me, I share on Facebook and Twitter via syndication, LinkedIn via published articles and on Medium.
Why so?
There are times where blogging on your own blog isn’t enough anymore. What you need is to get out of your comfort zone and start focusing on things that matter most to you!
For me, building an authority level on Quora (as well as getting traffic) is always too easy using Quora as it is way less competitive there.
If you are overthinking, stop doing that! Try yourself on Quora and tell me what you think. Of course, feel free to visit my profile on Quora and ask me any questions!
Would be glad to answer them if I have the knowledge 🙂
See also: 10 Useful Ways to Promote Your Latest Blog Post
