How to Do Affiliate Marketing on Quora – The RIGHT Way

What Is Quora?

Quora's Affiliate Link Policy?

This is where there seems to be a lot of misinformation floating around. Maybe they updated their policy recently, I don't know.

What I do know is that in Quora's spam policy it is specifically stated that...

• "Affiliate links are not allowed on Quora and any content that use affiliate links will be considered spam."

There you have it... NO AFFILIATE LINKS ALLOWED... Period.

And if you do post affiliate links there are two possible outcomes:

1. They may block or ban your account
2. The content will be deleted

Well... I guess there are 3 possible outcomes. It is possible that the affiliate link you post isn't detected right away and you get away with it for some time... but I wouldn't count on it.

Content containing affiliate links is considered by them to be spam. Now this isn't necessarily true, and it is completely possible to promote products via affiliate links without spamming, but Quora takes ​a zero-tolerance approach.

So then, if you can't post affiliate links, how the heck do you do affiliate marketing?

Don't be discouraged... it's still a great platform to use for affiliate marketing promotions... you just have to take a bit more of a roundabout approach.

Affiliate Marketing The Right Way

So basically what you have to do is use Quora as an initial driver of traffic, but you can't drive this traffic right to an affiliate promotion. You first have to drive it to some other channel, whether it be a website, Youtube, Facebook, etc... and then to an affiliate promotion.

There are some best practices to go about doing this to increase your chances of success. Let's go over each in detail...

Step 1:  Join Quora & Choose Relevant Interests

The first step is a given... join the platform, which is completely free.

You can create a new account if you want to, or you can join via Facebook or Google.

Step 2: Follow Relevant Interests, "Spaces", and People

Interests: The next step will be choosing your interests. This is part of the initial process you will be taken through after joining. 

For this you are going to want to choose topics that are related to your niche.

• Are you in the supplement niche? You could choose broad interests like Health, and more narrow interests such as Bodybuilding, Crossfit, etc.
• Is your niche dog food? You could choose interest ranging from Dogs to Dog Health and everything in between.

If your niche is "video games" and there is an exact match of "video games" you can choose as an interest, that is great, but if not it is fine... just choose related interests. This is more likely to happen if your niche is very narrow.

Spaces: After selecting interests, you will be prompted to "Follow Spaces".

A Space is community centered around a specific topic or area of interest. This is basically like a subReddit on Reddit or a Group on Facebook. Anyone can create their own Space around a particular topic. ​

The difference between a Space and an Interest is that a Space is a user-created community, whereas an Interest is basically just a category on Quora where you can find relative information from various Spaces and user posts.

Based on the interests you just chose, Quora will provide some Spaces you might like to follow.

Again, follow Spaces that are relevant to your niche. 

Users: Lastly, it is also beneficial to follow users that are in your niche. 

If you don't know any authority figures in your chosen niche then it would probably be worth it to do some research. 

Initially, I'd recommend following at least 2 or 3 users.

Why is this important?

Well, because your ultimate goal is to become an authority figure in your niche too, is it not? 

Gaining authority in your niche on Quora will mean that your posts/answers get more views... which can potentially lead to more affiliate sales.

As you establish yourself as an authority figure that people can actually trust, you will naturally gain more followers, and these people will be alerted to your activity, just as you will be alerted to people's activity that you follow.

Following users, Spaces, and choosing interests that are relevant to your niche is all about finding opportunities. Your Quora feed will display topics related to your interests, and you'll receive updates when there is new content in a Space you followed or by a user. This will keep you up-to-date with what's going on and you'll likely find some good affiliate marketing opportunities by doing this.

Step 3: Provide Helpful & Informative Answers

There is no "easy" and good way to go about this. It takes work and it takes time, just like anything in life that's worth achieving.

The ultimate goal here is to drive traffic to make affiliate sales. But to do this the right way on Quora, you will first need to gain some traction... gain some authority.

The way to do this is simple, but can take some work... which is to provide helpful and informative answers.

What Kind of Answers Should You Provide?

This all depends on the types of questions you're answering. Some questions will require detailed explanatory answers while others will be short and to the point.

One way to get an idea of what types of questions you might want to answer and what types of answers you might want to provide is to take a look at some of the users you followed... the authority figures in your niche and see what they're doing... because obviously it's working.

For example, you can click on any user's profile and view their answers/questions/posts, etc. Here you can see exactly what people are posting...

*Okay, maybe not the best example. It seems Neil hasn't been active in a while... but you get the point.

How long should your answers be?

There seems to be a growing trend where people think that longer content is better, especially when it comes to ranking for things like SEO. Often times it is, but not necessarily.

Don't get caught up in the belief that your answers need to be a certain length.

As mentioned, what a good answer is completely depends on the question. Just answer things as you see fit. Use your better judgment. Put yourself in the shoes of the person asking the question and think about what information you should include that will benefit them.

It's all about being helpful here. 

Don't Spam!

I see it all the time... affiliate marketers answering as many questions as possible, copying and pasting answers to multiple questions, providing generic responses, etc... all in a rather obvious attempt to sell people on their product/service.

This might work to some extent, but certainly isn't a long-term strategy that will help you become an authority and build a brand.

Furthermore, in if we refer again to Quora's spam policy, it states that:

• "It's alright to post about your product or company on Quora, either in an answer to a relevant question or as a post on your Quora blog, but repeatedly posting the same information or intentionally misapplying topics on posts in order to gain more visibility may be considered spamming."

It's just not worth it to take the easy approach and spam links and information everywhere. If Quora does decide it's spam, and this is up to them, then they can simply delete posts with one swoop.

There is no shortcut to good quality content.

Upvotes Are Key

And, when you do provide good quality content, it will naturally get upvoted by other users who see the value in it. The Quora algorithm will recognize that the content is good and that people like it, and will then increase its exposure to other users. 

Better content = more authority = more upvotes = more traffic to your affiliate offer. Not necessarily in that order.

Step 4: Link to Another Website, Channel, etc.

Okay, so you've created your account, you've followed relevant Spaces and Users, and you're posting good quality content... answering questions to the best of your ability.

Now it's time to promote your offer, but you can't do it directly.

You will need some other channel to direct traffic to. This could be a website, Youtube, a Facebook page, Instagram, etc.

There are lots of options. And those places that you are directing the Quora traffic to is where you will have affiliate links.

Quora >> Website, Youtube, etc. >> Affiliate Offer

That is how it's done. And some approaches you could take to implement this could be to:

• answer a question on Quora and provide a link to a Website/Youtube, etc. that elaborates on the answer, in case readers are looking for more information.
• answer a question and link to content on a Website/Youtube, etc. that provides information on a related topic readers might be interested in.

Again, just use good judgment with this. Don't be too pushy and focus on actually helping people.

Spam Is The Enemy

Quora considers content that has affiliate links to be spam, but it's not just this. A quote from their policy states that:

• "spam is defined as one or more questions, answers, posts, comments, or messages whose purpose appears to be to direct traffic to external commercial sites while providing little to no value back to the Quora Community"

So, even if you aren't using affiliate links... even if you are only linking to a website or Youtube video... it can still be considered spam if what you are doing isn't providing much value to the community and if you are just overdoing it.

It's all about value. If you are posting everywhere linking to your website, which then links to an affiliate offer, and aren't really helping that much... prepare to have your posts/answers deleted. It could happen.

Additional Tips for Additional Traffic

#1 - Include links in your bio

Inside your Quora profile you have the option of writing a bit about yourself in the bio section. I recommend including links to your websites or other channels here. 

These likely won't contribute as much traffic as actually including links in posts and answers to questions, but they shouldn't be underestimated.

#2 - Write Like a Normal Person

You aren't writing essays here. Quora is much more laid back than sites that are somewhat similar, such as Wikipedia. Things aren't as formal and you are much more likely to see real user options and conversational-type language.

Of course it will depend on your niche how you talk, however. If you are in the niche of rocket science then you might have to take a bit more of professional and scientific approach, to cater to your audience.

But as for most things on Quora... keep it conversational and real. This is why people use Quora in the first place. They want raw answers.

The Takeaway