A different Achievement: One of the most viewed Quora writers

OK, Bragging Times: When I started writing desi Traveler in its previous avatar of  Kids and Car it was on Blogspot and the idea was to share our family road trip. Over the years the blog continued to grow and evolved in its current form where I write about travel, photography, wildlife and sometimes try an odd & lame attempt at humor.

When desi Traveler was still in its earlier avatar of  Kids and Car I wrote more about family travel and kids as focus trying to answer queries that parents may have while traveling.  Most of the posts had pictures clicked from a point and shoot camera or no pictures at all. But there is only so much reach a personal hobby travel blog could reach.  So I joined a travel forum called India Mike and enjoyed answering questions from fellow travelers, especially about cities I have lived or traveled to. Very soon I was banned from India Mike, with the accusation that I am trying to promote GHAC, an adventure club I volunteer for.  My appeals to the admin of the forum were not accepted and I was banned from India Mike forever. Well, all I can say is India Mikes loss is Quora’s gain.

This post is a bit of personal gratification and a bit of a guide to how Quora works so let us read ahead.

What is Quora?

Qu or A or Question or Answer is what I am guessing.

I am not sure how I discovered Quora, I think it was a tweet of Mahesh Murthy a prominent angel investor and thought leaders in IT  and startup space. Quora is one of the most popular websites in the world that people use to ask and answer questions on an open forum. Quora does not make any revenue as of now but still is ranked  115th most visited site on the internet globally and number 14 in India as per Alexa rankings of Quora. Now you may debate Alexa Rank can be manipulated, please go ahead but remember that is not even my focus area for this blog post. I simply want to highlight that Quora is a very popular site BTW here is Alexa rank of desi Traveler if you want to check it.

Going through statistics of my posts on Quora I noted a few things that I am feeling very happy ( or bragging – take your pick 😛 ) to share.

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As per my Quora profile so far my posts have been viewed 143, 383 times and in last 30 days alone my answers were viewed 14,634 times. Now while this last 30 days views on Quora is nowhere close to the monthly traffic desi Traveler blog gets  it is still a substantial number . 

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But the biggest reason I am grinning ear to ear is that Quora lists me in top 20 writers in 3 fields where I have answered questions of fellow travelers. In total as per the stats visible I have answered 350 questions on Quora so far. A lot of questions are a repetition of questions answered earlier, so I just guide the readers back to either a previous answer or to one of my blog posts ( sneaky me 😛 ). So the actual answers typed may be lower than 350 and since these answers are specific to the point they don’t take as much time as a blog post.

The category where desi is making some difference are: ( these are as of today, and may change anytime based on a multitude of factors ) 

1. Most Viewed Writers in Road trips – Where yours truly tops the list
2. Most viewed writers in answering questions about Indira Gandhi International Airport in India – Here I am at number 5
3.  Most viewed writers in answering questions about Travel Photography, here yours truly is at number 7

Now technically it does not matter as not everybody is on Quora, so if you are not writing at Quora it is not a big deal for you. But why I am happy is that Quora is an open forum and anybody can answer any question. The readers can upvote and downvote the answers ( something similar to Reddit Karma ). So writers whose answers get upvotes often have a chance to move up the rankings in the search result. Not very different to how SERPs in Google search works.

What is the meaning of Quora Rankings?

As a writer moves up in the rankings more people see his answers which mean, I am able to help more and more fellow travelers via Quora.  I do get a few queries on my blog also related to specific posts like

• Eco volunteer Training Program

• Shopping In Singapore 

But those questions and answers are limited to my blog reader and the questioner but with Quora, those answers go to anybody who makes a search either in Quora or in Google. As Quora is a very high authority site it gets a very high listing in Google search just like Wikipedia.

So my reach as a writer increases manifolds and every once in a while I get a referred click from Quora for my blog, though it is minuscule as of now but may increase in future. In all honesty, the credit of those page views to a large extent goes to the reach of Quora and not to my personal following as my follower count on Quora is a negligible 184 and those guys rarely have asked a question to me so far.

Why the Answers on Quora get high views?

There are many reasons for that some of them stated earlier but let me repeat them point wise

 

• Like I said Quora is one of the most popular websites globally with huge traffic from around the world, so each question has a chance to get trickled down effect traffic and when the overall traffic is in millions you are bound to get traffic in hundreds for popular topics and questions. Simply by the scale of volumes.
• Quora is a high domain authority site and ranks very high in Google search result and in my opinion, it gets lots of traffic for long tail keywords or sentences
• Within the answered questions if you have built a reputation on Quora and people upvote your answers they are shown first to the questioners. So suppose somebody is asking a repeat question there is a high chance he may land on a question already answered and upvoted by other users.

 

Why I want to continue to write for Quora: Just like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc. Quora is also a social network but of a different kind, it encourages people to ask questions and answer. So you are building a different kind of community online that is purely driven by merit of your answers.  So the satisfaction I get from answering questions on Quora is tremendous, and the odd click back is an advantage as many times I leave a link to one of my blog posts that will have more details to the question. The difference is that while on other social networks your reach is limited by your followers and the likes etc. you receive and you rarely are visible outside your own social network or common hashtags. In Quora based on the merit of your answers and upvotes your reach almost has no limit, more questions you answer and more upvotes you get more people see your answers.

Should you answer a question on Quora: I am sure you are passionate and or expert in some area it could be travel, photography, science, management, astronomy, cooking so you can start answering people who are looking for some help. So by all means, go ahead create a profile on Quora and if you want you can also follow me  :). But remember answering questions on Quora is to help fellow travelers ( or any field you have expertise in  ) and it will not make you any money nor Quora is a substantial source of any kind of traffic back to the blog as of now.  All the links on Quora are “No follow” ( means they don’t help in your blog / Website SEO at all ).  Also like any social media platform, one is dependent on the policies of the site, tomorrow if Quora wants it can decide to delete all your content due to some policy violation. But I still think it is worth it if my answers are helping fellow travelers around the world. With this I also want to thank other people on Quora who answer on Quora for this is our way to help fellow travelers, parents, photographers, students and what not.

So what is the big deal in being most viewed writer on Quora?

Actually, nothing because unlike Facebook, not everybody and their uncle are on Quora. Quora may be big but it has a long way to go before it can even come close to Twitter or Facebook in reach. More so these rankings are dynamic and can change based on various factors so tomorrow’s most viewed writer can be somebody else.

Please remember this is not a competition just a sense of satisfaction that your work is appreciated and recognized on a platform that is growing and is purely driven by usability and merit.

Update: So I got this update from Quora that total views on my answers have crossed 250,000 that is a quarter of a million views just on the answers on Quora.

Suggested reading: desi Traveler in Top Travel Blog lists 

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