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Updated: April 11, 2022

10 Comments

Quora Sucks For Content Marketing

(3 Reasons Why)

Recently we published an 8-part series about Tai Lopez.

To drive more traffic to that content, someone suggested we try answering a few questions about Tai Lopez on Quora.

So we spent 3.4 hours doing just that.

The results sucked so much that we’ve vowed never to use Quora for content marketing again.

Quora Marketing – The Big Idea

Our interest in Quora was piqued by a 2015 article on the Wishpond blog, which explained how they had driven 9,872 quality visits to their website from Quora in a single month.

Quora sucks: Wishpond stats
Above: Wishpond’s referral traffic for one month in 2015

Their basic approach on Quora was to find popular questions they could provide good answers to, then provide those answers and link to some relevant content on their site.

Here’s the answer they posted on Quora that referred the most traffic to their website: 1

Quora sucks: Wishpond answer on Quora

Very simple, as you can see.

We were excited to try similar.

Quora Marketing – The Execution

We ended up spending 3.4 hours on Quora over a 4-week period, answering 18 questions related to Tai Lopez.

4 of those answers were deleted by the Quora moderators.

Here are our 14 answers that survived:

  1. Is Tai Lopez’ money just from selling courses or does he actually run businesses?
  2. Is there a free Tai Lopez 67 steps download link?
  3. Has anyone tried Tai Lopez’s social media marketing program? Is it worth $997?
  4. How old is Tai Lopez?
  5. How to get a refund from tai Lopez?
  6. Is Tai Lopez legit to any extent or just a scammer?
  7. What is your opinion on Tai Lopez?
  8. Can I find someone who has genuinely helped by Tai Lopez courses?
  9. Who is Tai Lopez and how did he become famous?
  10. Is Tai Lopez a liar?
  11. Why is every ad on YouTube, I get an ad of Tai Lopez?
  12. Is Tai Lopez a scam?
  13. Does Tai Lopez actually read a book a day?
  14. Do you still happen to have the Tai Lopez SMMA course?

As you can see from those, we tried to provide significant value right there on Quora, and link to any relevant / complementary material along the way.

  • Sometimes we included a lot of links (mostly to third-party sites, citing sources), sometimes we included only one (to this very website).
  • Sometimes we put a link to our site within the content, sometimes at the very end.
  • And sometimes we embedded a YouTube video we made about Tai Lopez summarizing our extensive research.

There seemed to by no rhyme or reason as to why some of our answers were deleted by the mods while others were left alone.

Here is one of our answers that was deleted within 24 hours of posting:

Quora sucks: Tai Lopez answer on Quora

It was especially frustrating to see an answer like that get deleted, because we felt it was far better than any other answer that had been posted for that question. We kept it concise, cited exact sources, and linked to our complementary article on the topic.

(You can see all the approved answers to the same question here, including one that is clearly just a massive copied-and-pasted blog post – the majority of which has nothing to do with the question asked – with a link to said post right at the beginning.)

Why Quora Sucks – The Results

Despite the moderation issues, we quickly became the “most viewed writer” for the Tai Lopez topic on Quora, and our answers received almost 10,000 views over a 3 month period. 2

Quora sucks: Quora answer views

Unfortunately, all those views translated into very little traffic to our website.

In the same 3-month period, our Google Analytics showed only 69 “new users” visiting our website from Quora.com.

Quora sucks: Quora referral traffic

9,990 views.

69 unique visitors.

Those visitors spent 60% less time on our Tai Lopez content than average, and none of them ended up joining our mailing list or clicking on an affiliate link.

We also checked our YouTube stats to see if any Quora users had watched our Tai Lopez video. As of this writing, the video has more than 33,000 total views, but not a single one of them came via Quora.

To summarize:

  • We spent 3.4 hours answering 18 questions related to Tai Lopez on Quora (almost every answer had a link back to our website).
  • 4 of our answers were deleted for no apparent reason.
  • Our answers received almost 10,000 views over a 3-month period.
  • During those 3 months, our website received only 69 unique visits from Quora.
  • None of those visitors subscribed to our email list or clicked on an affiliate link.
  • No Quora user watched the video we embedded in 3 of our answers.

In other words, our content marketing efforts on Quora were a complete waste of time.

3 reasons Quora sucks for content marketing

We’re not doubting that Quora was a great place for content marketing back in 2015, but clearly it has gone downhill in that respect since.

Today, we can confidently say that Quora sucks for content marketing, for three reasons:

  • Fickle moderation
    You can spend significant time providing the best answer to a question on Quora, only to see that answer deleted by the moderators with no explanation as to why. Meanwhile, you’ll see less valuable, more link-happy answers from other people getting posted for the same question.
  • Lots of views do not equal lots of traffic
    For every 145 people who viewed one of our answers on Quora, only one clicked through to our website, and none of them watched our video.
  • That traffic doesn’t convert
    At least it didn’t for us. (Though granted, it’s a very small sample size.)

Do you agree that Quora sucks for content marketing?

Or maybe you’ve found an approach that still works well?

Either way, let us know in the comments below.

About The Author
Niall Doherty – Founder and Lead Editor of eBiz Facts Born and raised in Ireland, Niall has been making a living from his laptop since quitting his office job in 2010. He's fond of basketball, once spent 44 months traveling around the world without flying, and has been featured in such publications as The Irish Times and Huffington Post. Read more...

10 thoughts on “Quora Sucks For Content Marketing”

  1. I totally agree with you!
    This: “You can spend significant time providing the best answer to a question on Quora, only to see that answer deleted by the moderators with no explanation as to why. Meanwhile, you’ll see less valuable, more link-happy answers from other people getting posted for the same question.” is THE exact reason I deleted my account a few minutes ago.

    Too much frustration after spending time on an honest and informed answer and see it deleted by moderation without any explanation what-so-ever.

    Reply
    • Hey Joep,

      Yeah, totally frustrating. Since I wrote this article I’ve seen a couple of others saying that Quora is a great source of traffic and it always leaves me scratching my head.

      Reply
  2. I agree that Quora sucks. I was one of the active Quora users with almost 2000 answers, but I eventually I decided to delete my Quora account due to their hypocritical & simply mad moderation and censorship. On Quora, you can’t express your opinion freely. Your answer might be collapsed and your comment might be deleted even if you do not violate their “BNBR” policy. They clearly abuse it and censor certain opinions. My last straw was when I reported a comment that clearly violated their policy (asking to nuke the country, calling citizens of that country retards, freely expressing hatred) and they didn’t remove it, however they were deleting and collapsing answers that didn’t violate their policy. I simply couldn’t endure such hypocrisy anymore and left that totalitarian, hypocrite website and I suggest others to do the same.

    Reply
  3. I’ve been on Quora so much more, thanks to the Quora Partner Program, but honestly, I see so many diminishing returns from using this platform that I’m questioning whether I should even continue for a while. I’ve also answered over 200 questions on the site, but wow, it’s been a huge time suck in the end for me.

    Sometimes it’s been enjoyable, but I don’t think it’s translating as much for the SEO on my site as I thought it would. The few high authority backlinks I’ve gotten recently have made much more of a difference by far. Like you, I’ve had traffic from Quora, but no conversions whatsoever. Put a lot of time and effort into my answers, but I’m lucky to get even 10-20 upvotes and a couple of thousand views for the ones I’ve left on popular questions.

    Plus the headache you have to deal with some of the vilest people you’ll ever see posting replies to your questions and having to block them is another matter that I’m quickly growing tired of. They rival the kinds of scum you’d find on Reddit to me. I’m earning okay money on there, certainly more than the first month I started with the program, but since last month total, it’s only been like $30 or something and after asking over 600+ questions.

    Maybe I’ll stick around just to try to get Top Writer status, but I don’t even think that might be worth as much as I believe.

    Reply
    • Hey Roberto,

      Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment.

      I’ve been on Quora so much more, thanks to the Quora Partner Program

      I wasn’t aware of this program but just read up about it. Sounds like a tough way to make money. $30 total after asking 600+ questions = wow!

      Do you get paid just for asking questions and stimulating conversation, or can you get paid for answering questions on there as well?

      The few high authority backlinks I’ve gotten recently have made much more of a difference by far.

      To be clear, those are backlinks from sites other than Quora, right?

      Reply
      • Yes. Quora by itself is really just a general writing tool for me. I’m on it still but now in smaller doses. Digital questions on there don’t get as many views so I just now speak my mind on a wide range of topics when I feel like it.

        Right now, I got so much going on at work, and with my clients and organizations I help that I’m limiting my time on Quora more and more. It’s taken a substantial backseat once I realized I wasn’t going that far with all the effort I put into it.

        For the QPP, they pay you to ask questions, but you don’t get paid to answer questions itself, a common complaint many have had on there. I do know some people that make enough from the program to travel though and quit their day jobs, but they are far, and few in between and have been the ones to ask over 1000+ questions and more. Look up a fresh user by the name of Jenna Ravenstone. She’s been able to figure it all out and writes about this stuff on her blog Tips for Quora Partners.

        I just treated it like a bit of extra passive income. Wasn’t even expecting to make more than to buy a cup of coffee, but this month, I earned several dollars more than last month.

        Would I recommend it to the average person who wants quick returns? Not at all, but if you compare the returns to an ordinary savings account, it’s about as good as it can get.

        As for backlinks, thankfully not. All from very high authority sites that give do follow links out. Thank you so much for yours as well. I have a few others I am waiting on soon. I’ve been experimenting with HARO queries too but can always appreciate some other better alternatives. The good thing is that they are free.

        Reply
      • As part of the Quora Partner Program, I’ve been able to accumulate about $2000 a month, sure I’ve asked over 5000 questions, but there’s some tricks involving researching and auto-suggest to easily come up with highly relevant questions that generate millions of views per week combined.

        It might not be for you if you already have a job, since the initial buildup will take a few weeks of asking, but I found a great source of income from this and as long as it keeps going, will probably never have to work a day in my life, since the tools for asking questions easily generate a good number of questions a day with minimal effort.

        Reply
  4. I JUST finished reading a Quora article about crowdfunding consultants, before reading your email! The post was from a couple of years ago, and gave three recommendations, of which one page/site had been deleted, and the other two had scam complaints. So total waste of time, that. Lesson learned.

    Reply

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