This Little-Known Website Is Great for Traffic, Brand Awareness, and More. Here’s How To Use It.

Whether you're building a traditional brand for your business, or you're cultivating a personal brand for yourself, you've probably caught on to the fact that answering your customers' questions is a great way to get yourself out there.

There's a great way to do that, which most people generally overlook: Quora.

It's not one of those sites that's a household name, like Twitter or even Reddit.

But it is an active platform that people use.

Basically, it's like an infinitely better, much higher quality version of something like Yahoo! Answers.

You'll find a lot of high quality responses from people who are genuinely experts in their field. Part of this is because Quora requires users to sign up with their real name and identity — no disposable throwaways or pseudo-anonymity.

For a lot of people, that's kind of a turnoff.

But for others, it's a great opportunity to build trust and authority.

In a recent post, Neil Patel explains how to use Quora as a potent branding tool, by answering questions in your area of expertise.

Pimp your profile

Your first order of business is to take some time setting up your profile so that it drips with awesomeness.

Here’s a quick look at mine:

[image source: Quicksprout]
You’ll want to cover your “Credentials and Highlights,” beef up your “Knows About” section and provide a thorough explanation of your bio.

And don’t forget to include a professional headshot for your profile image.

If you need a little help getting set up, check out this post I wrote on NeilPatel.com.

The bottom line is, the more information you provide on your profile, the better.

Offer insanely helpful answers

Typically, on different platforms, you can employ hacks to build your audience quickly, boost your reputation, etc.

But on Quora, you don’t have any shortcuts.

You create buzz by providing helpful answers and exceeding expectations.

This approach is a lot like the skyscraper technique: find great content and make it even better.

As I mentioned in another article, the way to do this is to:

Finding questions to answer

Now that you know the level of depth to shoot for, let’s discuss how to find good questions to answer.

Since you’ll be putting a considerable amount of time and energy into it, you want to answer questions that will give you maximum visibility.

One way to find questions is to click on “Answer” from your dashboard.

Many times, you’ll be able to find several questions right in your wheelhouse.

Another way to go about it is to search for a particular topic directly.

For example, I might search for “content marketing.”

Key metrics

You may be wondering which specific metrics translate into authority/credibility.

It’s simple.

There are three main metrics:

Views

Upvotes

Comments

Conclusion

Quora is a potential goldmine.

It’s one of the best sites for building trust and authority and ultimately being viewed as an expert in your industry.