Let’s face it. Blogging can be exhausting, especially when it comes to creating new content on a regular basis. You want something fresh without boring your readers, but on a typical writing day, you can only come up with so many ideas. Well, I recently discovered a solution called Quora and in this article, I’m going to show how you can use it to find great keywords (thus, content ideas) for your blog.
What Is Quora?
Founded in 2009, Quora is a social Q & A platform that crowd source information from general users and field experts. You can ask almost anything on the site, get someone within that field to give a knowledgeable answer and vice versa.
Millions of users visit Quora every month and some of the popular topics for discussion are technology, startups and entrepreneurship.
How to Find Keywords for Blogging?
Like most social networks, you need to register for a user account in order to access the site. Once logged in, select a few topics that you are interested in following. Ideally, you want to get involved with the ones related to your blogging niche.
Then, list the topics that are within your knowledge or skills. In this example, I have selected blogging.
On the dashboard, you’ll see two important tabs; ‘Home’ and ‘Write’. ‘Home’ basically displays questions that are trending within the topics of your interest and ‘Write’ is the section where you offer your answers to other people’s questions.
Both of these threads are constantly updated and here’s where your research begin. Say, you are looking for keywords for a health niche and you found a few trending questions like these ones;
Straightaway, I was attracted to the first one (my mom is diabetic) so I grab that question and type it into the Jaaxy keyword research tool. Now, when it comes to choosing the right keywords, make sure you pick one that can help your blog post get top ranking and good traffic over a long period of time.
To achieve this, the keywords need to meet these criteria;
- They should make human sense, as in people would talk like that in real life.
- They should be long-tail, as in descriptive and contain at least 3 (or more) phrases long.
- They should have low competition, as in very minimal websites are ranking for the exact keywords (the ideal metric for competition; QSR is less than 100)
Now, let’s have a look at Jaaxy’s result.
Right off the bat, I identified 3 more relevant (√) topic ideas;
- What do diabetics eat for breakfast (QSR = 9) > Original keyphrase
- Good diabetic breakfast (QSR = 29)
- Healthy diabetic breakfast (QSR = 78)
- Diabetic breakfast food list (QSR = 6)
These are all great keyphrases and they meet the criteria that I mentioned above. If you are blogging for this niche, which one would you choose?
Next example, let’s say you are writing product reviews for a food blog and saw these trending questions.
We know that there’s quite a number of Asian population in San Diego so this question really feels appropriate. However, when I checked with Jaaxy;
This particular keyphrase doesn’t get a lot of searches (<10) so this post might take a lot longer to get a decent traffic. In this case, it’s probably better to retarget our content idea to other relevant keyphrases that people are already searching online such as;
- Family restaurants in San Diego (QSR = 34)
- Barbecue restaurants in San Diego (QSR = 38)
- Fine restaurants in San Diego (QSR = 14)
So, that’s actually THREE different keyword ideas that should keep you busy writing for a week.
Extra Tips;
- Keep an open mind when researching for content ideas; what’s popular on Quora isn’t always a good keyword choice.
- Likewise, a question that may appear ‘silly’ can surprisingly get a lot of searches and low competitions with a keyword tool.
- When researching for a particular keyword, always look out for other relevant and high performing phrases in the Jaaxy keyword research tool. It’s okay to search for something and end up with another.
- Combine two questions together and see if you can get more interesting keywords with better result.
Meanwhile, help answer some questions that are within your expertise. This will generate new ideas and information for other users in Quora as well.
So, Is Quora Worthy of Your Time?
As mentioned before, Quora is a Q&A platform so there’s a lot to gain from the discussion area, especially information that you might not usually get directly from Google Search.
For example, if you look at the thread for “What do diabetics eat for breakfast?”, you will find some really good replies from people with experience in the topic such as dietitian, prediabetic patient, doctor and physiology instructor. Leverage this information and add them to your article.
Besides that, do you know that you can use Quora to drive some traffic to your site too? When you involved yourself regularly in answering other people’s questions, you can offer solutions by getting more people to read your blog.
Keyword Ideas Are Everywhere
Before Quora, I was trying to generate ideas from thin air and I always ended up having writer’s block. Now, I not only know how to find keywords for blogging, I am also able to tackle real-life questions that matter to my audience. This will help a great deal in keeping my blogs relevant and up to date with what’s trending in my niche. I hope you’ll find some value from this discussion platform as well.
If you want to learn more about refining your keyword research skills, check out my recommended training platform for resources to help you out.
Do you have any thoughts or questions pertaining to this topic? Feel free to leave them in the comment below and I’ll get back to you.
Cathy, thank you so much for writing this article on Quora. I never heard of Quora until I read your blog. I like the fact you mention to be open minded and that some questions we type in Jaaxy will lead to better key phrases that have high traffic and low competition. Thanks again.
No problem Tim. Filtering keyphrases is a good thing so that we can discover more long tail keywords that are relevant to our niche. Jaaxy is pretty good at digging things out so I highly recommend that you give it a try.
This is great! I am also a blogger but I often find it difficult to get new topics to write about. It’s really challenging for me to get new ideas and to keep adding content to my site. I was introduced to Quora a few years back and was made aware that it is a Q&A platform. I never thought I could make use of this platform to get some inspiration to what I should blog next.
I realized too that you can build a profile and blog on Quora, do you think it is worth posting blogs on Quora since it already has huge traffic flow?
Quora has a big audience and it’s certainly possible to gain followers if you are active in your niche discussion. When you create a blog on Quora, the page actually get indexed on the search engine so that’s another alternative to drive organic traffic to your website.
I just started using Quora and think it is great! It definitely can lead to some great keywords in my niche.Your extra tip about keeping an open mind and what is popular on Quora is not always a good keyword choice is important. I crosscheck keywords from Quora with other keyword checkers like Jaaxy. Another concern I have about Quora is the validity of the subject matter expert. So that is another reason to crosscheck.
Quora, like most things on the web, can accumulate redundant information that must be filtered by our own common sense before we use them for ourselves. If someone claims to be an expert on a certain niche, it’s always best to read through their profiles, comments and answers to gauge their knowledge level. At least, that’s what I would do.
This has to be one of the most important aspects of building an online business. To have success, you need to know which direction to go. By having the proper keyword search indicator, you will have a better chance of ranking on any search engine.
I like your article and if I had to chose a keyword indicator this would be the one. Thanks again for your review.
Hi Cathy,
Love your site – it’s so nice. This article is a great piece of work. I can get so much from this. This is definitely a great way to find keywords but also find what to talk about that people are interested in too. So that’s a real plus. I go on Quora from time to time and I see some questions get a lot of followers and some not much. So it’s probably a good strategy to find ones that have a ton of followers, right? Or at least a decent amount.
Welcome to my blog Maria.
Following popular questions is a great idea as this will keep you updated with the discussions and trends. But for keywords ideas, I find that even a John Doe’s question is good enough to trigger a research on Jaaxy. Either way, you can use it to drive additional traffic to your site OR get inspiration for your blog posts.
Hi Cathy,
I’ve used Quora a few times in the past but never took full advantage of it. Your article definitely made it very clear how we can leverage both Quora and Jaaxy to come up with post ideas and keywords. This sounds like the perfect solution for the writer’s block that I experience from time to time.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi there Ian,
When reading through the questions posted in Quora, one can’t help but notice that these are all the common things that people search for especially on Google. That make them good search queries and hence, good keyphrases to use for creating blog content.
They certainly provide additional ideas on top of the keyword list in Jaaxy Keyword Tool.
I’m going to give Quora a try. Recently, I’ve been a bit bored of creating content and a bit low on morale. I’ve been looking for something fresh to get myself motivated again. Also I think it’s just the lack of result that’s making me feel a bit discouraged. I’m sure you’ve been through this since you’ve been on this probably a lot longer than me. I’m only 6 months old to online business. But I’ll see..
Hey Joon,
It’s only 6 months so don’t pressure yourself too much. You are right, I’ve been at this longer – 2 years – and my business is growing everyday. I look at it this way; as long as I want to learn, I will advance, be it more content, more traffic or more money. If I think negatively about my progress, then I would stop learning and nothing will ensue. Between the two, it’s very clear which one will produce a better result.
Perhaps this motivational post from a member at Wealthy Affiliate will lighten you up a bit.
I’ve never heard of Quora before, but as you show it is an easy tool to use to get some ideas and come up with useful keywords. I really struggle with keywords. I like writing, but when it comes to keywords I just block.
That is why I think I might try Quora and see where it takes me. Thank you for your review.
Same here too Ellie,
With emails, I can write forever, but when it comes to keyword based content, I feel lost sometimes. I think it’s the lack of a ‘conversation setting’ that makes the mind block. The good thing with Quora is that most of the contributors respond to questions in great length and you can learn a lot on how they elaborate their opinions and offer suggestions to the readers. This is a skill that you would want to pick up eventually as a business blogger.
Hi, Cathy! Great tips. I’m in the photography niche, and sometimes it’s hard to find new, original ideas without resorting to picture content. I’ll be sure to give Quora a try to see how your method works. Thanks a lot for the hints! By the way, added you on Google+.
Hey Daniel,
Then you would love Quora. The last I checked, there are 3.4 million followers in the photography subject alone. That is surely a great source of ideas for your blog.
Glad you found it useful.