What Does Quora's Move to a Paid Model Mean?

This was bound to happen. It seems as if every platform is offering some form of financial incentive. Several platforms have revenue sharing and Quora has added itself to the list.

In case you're not familiar with Quora, it's like the legitimate version of Yahoo Answers. People can ask any question they want, but on Quora, it's more likely to be answered by an expert.

On the site, there are highly qualified people in every range of expertise. Whether you want to know more about your favorite movie - or nuclear physics - you can find proper answers.

It's a great platform to get exposure for yourself, your business, website, services, etc. Quora is also a terrific way to build authority in your space. 

How Can Quora Work For Businesses and Marketers?

I've been using Quora for a few years and found it to be a great way to get people back to my blog and podcast. You have a profile that includes your area of expertise and credentials.

From there, it's as simple as seeking out questions to answer. When your following gets bigger, you'll often be requested to answer specific questions related to your field. I work in fitness and health - with a little pop culture thrown in for good mix - so I search for questions relevant to those areas.

The easiest way I've found to use it is to copy and paste specific portions of text from my original Google Doc blog to post in the answer. Then, I format it with subheadings and add an image or two. Finally, I add a link to the original blog post if people want to learn more.

It's important to give in-depth detailed answers, and not just provide quick responses followed by a link, as that may get you flagged. I look for questions that have at least 500–1000 views as I know there is interest in that question. 

This worked well when I first launched my websites, and brought a lot of traffic. Today, I'm at over two million views.

The Move to a Paid Model

As mentioned, it seems as if many platforms are trying to entice more users by offering a paid model. Quora had something similar in place already, but it was to encourage people to ask more questions. If your question received a lot of engagement, you could earn money.

Now, they've adopted a whole new model. This time, they want to reward creators for their content - like many other websites are now doing. There are two models for reward:

1. Revenue sharing

2. Offering a paid Space subscription

The Space subscription is used to create your own following and write regularly to them. The Space is based around one common theme: usually your area of expertise. The more you publish, the more followers you can attract; and the more money you can make.

The other model - which appeals more to me - is revenue sharing. With this, you get paid when Quora users read or engage with your content. I like this model as it can reward past work. It also rewards anything that goes viral. 

You never know what's going to hit and I've had a few answers that blew up getting hundreds of thousands of views. These created big spikes on my website - and website ad earnings - and I just wish Quora had a paid model then, too. 

Revenue sharing is set up through Stripe, and you have to earn a minimum of $10 before you get paid out. The setup was extremely easy and only took a few minutes. 

Wrapping it Up

You should definitely check out Quora. I don't use any social media, and Quora was one of the major ways I got traffic to my website. I even got 30,000 visitors to one of my sites within 8 months of launch. 

As a marketer and entrepreneur, one of the best ways to generate income is through multiple revenue streams. Fortunately, there are now many options to make this possible. Adding Quora to the mix just presents another opportunity.

I'm interested to see how this plays out. Since it's new, I don't know if I have very high expectations, but I'm encouraged to use Quora more regularly. I'm also hoping my back catalog will account for something as I still get about 1,000 views a day. 

Every bit helps, and having another platform that rewards creators can only be a good thing.