Quora might seem like a strange marketing choice for accountants, yet it is hugely underrated in general by financial services. That leaves the door wide open for you to swoop in and establish some thought leadership, reap some SEO rewards, and pick up some new clients.
What is Quora?
Quora is about 8 years old now. Some call it a social media platform, due to its question-and-answer nature. Essentially, Quora allows people to post a query about a topic, and anyone can answer.
The most popular answers get “up-voted” so they become more prominent on the answer feed. So, if someone in the UK asks an accounting question on there, if you write an answer and it gets the most votes, your answer will display at the top.
There are some other neat features of Quora which makes it attractive to accountant marketing:
- You can put links in your post, meaning there is great potential to draw more traffic to your accountant website.
- Your answers can often display in search engine results. This gives you more brand exposure, but also really helps your SEO by generating some powerful backlinks.
- You can create a community by following users, and getting followed back.
- You can target your specific industry, and answer questions pertaining to it.
- You can establish more brand authority and thought leadership through your answers to difficult accounting questions.
Let’s dive into this in a bit more detail…
#1 Using Quora for Link-Building
An important part of an accountant’s digital marketing strategy should be to generate more qualified traffic to your website. The higher these volumes are and the more these people engage with your content, the more likely you are to generate conversions.
When you post your answers to questions on Quora, consider first writing a comprehensive blog post or article about the subject on your blog. From there, you could take an excerpt from this content, paraphrase it slightly, and post it into your Quora answer post.
At the bottom, you could then link back to your original blog post, inviting people to find out more:
“These are just a few of the issues you need to consider when filling out a UK tax return. If you’d like more information then check out my full article on this topic here [insert hyperlink]”.
#2 Using Quora for SEO in Accountant Marketing
It would be easy to assume that Quora posts would not get much traction in search engine results. Yet Google quite likes them, because the best answers are generally up-voted to the top of the Quora answer feed. Therefore, the top answers are generally seen as quite trustworthy by Google.
This gives your accountant website a great SEO opportunity. It takes time to build up your own search engine rankings, but Quora has already established itself in Google Search. All you need to do is provide a great answer to a relevant question, and gain the trust and confidence of users so they up-vote it.
Bear in mind that Quora posts automatically designate any links as “no follow”. This means you will not really generate any “SEO juice” from the links to your website in your post. However, you will open up an important traffic-generating channel to your content. From there, just make sure the post on your accountant website that you directed people to has all the on-site SEO it needs.
#3 Creating a Quora Community
Quora is similar to Facebook and Twitter in that it you have the ability to follow users, and be followed. This opens the door for you to connect with potential clients – business people, entrepreneurs, colleagues, industry partners, and more.
When you first sign up, you can begin by following the people you already follow on other social platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. This will give you a bit more confidence in building relationships with people you already have good connections with, and conversation history.
#4 Target Your Industry
Quora is essentially a big forum. Or rather, a collection of specialised forums. The potential here for accountant marketing is huge. This means you can look for questions specifically in your industry, rather than just wading through broad topics unrelated to your specialisation.
One big difference between Facebook and Twitter is the focus of the platform. Whilst the former is very much gearing everything towards the user, Quora’s main concern is answering questions. This means there is a shared etiquette on Quora and set of user expectations.
This makes it a low barrier to entry for new users. So if you are feeling nervous about getting started with Quora for your accountant marketing, you really needn’t be!
#5 Establish Thought Leadership
It might be tempting to think that Quora would simply be filled with lots of garbage and noise. After all, one only needs to look at the comments section in any mainstream British online newspaper to see some of the drivel human beings are capable of!
Quora is a great platform for open dialogue, and the interesting thing is that it is not a cesspit of subjective claims and inaccurate information. If someone asks a question, people are quick to spot irrelevant or low-quality answers. These therefore tend to get ignored, and disappear into oblivion.
Interesting, pertinent questions tend to get noticed, and so do good answers. The latter tend to be up-voted, which tends to put the best solutions to problems at the top. This system encourages high quality answers, and attracts people who know about the subject to participate.
For accountants, therefore, you can only benefit by listing your title, skills and experience in your profile and posts when you answer questions in your industry. You can also upload your headshot as well, giving you a more approachable, human feel.
