Simply put, Quora is a web app where one member can ask a question and the other members would be able to answer. This means one question can get several answers from different members showing their unique experiences and knowledge. Apart from that the members can comment, arrange the answers, and suggest edits to further improve the quality of contribution.
Quora has a quite simple and intuitive user interface. The onboarding process is great in terms of capturing the interest of the user and provides the right prompts to the members to begin using. Members can simply click on the “Answer” button on the top navigation or open the category that interests them from the left side navigation to answer the questions.
There is a section called “Spaces” that are the sub-communities or groups for members who share some common interests. People can follow these spaces and connect with other members and answer questions. Finally, the “Notifications” keeps the members updated with important activities related to their accounts.
Community engagement drives member retention and improves the lifetime value of the users. Highly engaged users spend more time of the website, refer other users to join the platform, and work towards creating high-quality content. In case your business model is based on advertising, this can be pivotal -- more users, more traffic, more time spent on the site, and more revenue.
Some of the common tactics to keep users engaged is to provide high-quality and interesting content based on the user profile whenever the user logs in. Topics, spaces, members followed are all great signals. Leverage related questions to further engage users and use gamification techniques (reputation scores, leaderboards, and badges) to keep the members motivated to contribute to your website.
You should be able to reach your members with relevant information to bring them back to your website. One simple technique is to send content digest whenever a relevant content emerges in your website. For instance, if a member is interested in stock trading, you could send a digest with content from this topic with a high number of upvotes and answers. Of course, when someone comments, posts answer, or suggests improvements the notification should be able to get the user back to the site.
You should be able to send push notifications and message them via messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Slack, etc. if they have connected their profiles. This ensures that regardless of the channel of which the member is available, your platform is accessible for interaction and content contribution.
Quora has created a robust platform to allow businesses to run ads that naturally assimilates into the overall content structure. Advertisers can create ads based on topics, questions, and keyword history, promote existing answers, and retarget the visitors.
Although Quora doesn’t offer premium profiles, Reddit and YouTube have created this model for monetization. For example, the premium profile can benefit from an ad-free experience, gain access to powerful analytics, showcase a premium profile badge like LinkedIn premium profiles.
When your members are getting immense value from your platform, it is quite possible to ask the members to donate money to ensure that the site operates smoothly. These days, it has become easier to simply use a payment processor such as Stripe and PayPal to receive payment.
You can earn money from the Q&A website by showing ads from programs such as Google AdSense, BuySellAds. You can even create an advertisement program by adding a sponsorship section in your newsletters. There are a large number of ad networks that can work with you to help with monetization.
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