How to Get New Ideas for Content from Quora

Like many bloggers, there are times when I struggle to find ideas for blog posts. I always have a list of ideas to hand and I also use my own content planner. Yet there are still occasions when my ideas don’t seem to work for me. When I’m in a fog like this there’s one place that provides endless inspiration. It’s no big secret to be honest because many bloggers use it. Nonetheless, I’m going to show you how to get content ideas from Quora but I’ll put my own twist on it.

The purpose of this post is to:

• Provide an overview of Quora for those who don’t know it.
• Explain when and why I use Quora to stimulate my creative juices.
• How to get new content ideas from Quora.
• How to increase the power of any content you create by leveraging Quora.

What is Quora?

If you don’t know, Quora is a type of forum / blog where people can ask and answer questions. To participate in the Q&As you have to register for an account, after which you too can ask questions and provide answers to any questions on the platform.

Quora users can provide answers to questions rather like comments on a blog posts. Other users can engage with answers by replying to them, sharing them, sending a thank-you and “upvoting”. The more upvotes an answer gets, the more Quora increases its visibility.

In terms of getting new content ideas from Quora, you don’t need to open up an account since Quora’s content is visible to anyone. That said you’ll get prompted to sign up sometimes. For the purposes of this post and the twist I mentioned, I’d recommended you create a Quora account if you don’t have one. More on this later!

The great thing about Quora is real people use it to post real questions they need answers to. If one person needs the answer to something you can bet your bottom dollar others want to know too.

Hence there may a demand for content that answers these questions, and if you have a solution on your blog you’ll be well placed to catch a visitor!

When I Use Quora for Ideas

I’ve used Quora casually for content inspiration for many years. But I find it most useful when I’m blocked for ideas or when I feel uninspired with the content I have in my planner.

Most days I have a clear understanding of the content I’ll be working on in advance, which helps me remain productive. If I start the day having to think about what I’m going to write, the whole blogging process becomes constipated! I’ll spend time figuring out ideas for content, planning it, possibly researching and then finally writing. This isn’t great for my schedule as I’ll end up finally publishing at 2am!

Sometimes the content I’ve planned just does not inspire me to write… we all have off days. This is a pain because it means I’ll end up in the constipated zone!

At times like these, a I can quite quickly pull a more inspiring content idea from Quora within a matter of minutes.

If this sounds familiar to you and you need a creative boost quickly, here’s how I use Quora to generate some ideas quickly.

How I Get New Content Ideas From Quora

As I said above, you don’t need to have an account to get content ideas from Quora, but there’s an extra step you can add to the brainstorming approach I’m discussing here. I’ll add this at the end of the post.

The way I use Quora for inspiration is to head on over to the homepage and login. If you don’t have an account you won’t be able to see anything more than a login page and so won’t be able to search for any content ideas for your niche.

If you have an account this won’t be a problem since you’ll just be able to log in! However, if you don’t have an account you’ll need to get beyond this gate to see anything. There are a couple of ways to do this:

Firstly, create an account! This will drop you inside Quora and you’ll be able to make searches from here.

Or… go directly to this page on Quora and use the search bar. This will take you to an area called a “Space”. Spaces are like topic areas that users create to curate questions based around a certain topic. The link I’ve put here is for a Space built around the topic of blogging. You might not be looking for content ideas in this Space so you can search for something in your preferred topic area.

You’ll see a search bar at the top of the page (see image above). You can use this to bring back questions people have asked. Start typing in the search field and Quora will auto-populate it with suggestions as you go along. In the example below you can see I’ve started a search for flower arranging and the how Quora is trying to predict what I’m looking for.

Type in your entire search term and then look in Quora’s suggestions for a the one with a general search icon (a magnifying glass) and press return. Quora will pull back a results page, which may or may not include any results… but that’s okay.

You’ll see a bunch of navigation options on the left hand side of the page to filter the results. Click the one titled “Questions” and this will return all questions people have posted that relate to your initial search.

The image below shows example questions for the search I made on flowers. This shows just a fraction of the questions relating to this search, but you can see already the types of things that people are seeking answers for… and this is where you’ll find your content ideas!

Take one (or as many) of the questions you feel confident you can supply a detailed answer to and use that as the subject of your blog post! Heck… why not go wild and take a bunch of them to add to your list of blog post ideas?

Make a note of the questions somewhere and then start knocking your content ideas out of the park!

That’s it… it’s a really straightforward and quick way to get new content ideas from Quora. Within minutes you could snag yourself dozens of ideas… all from just a few simple searches.

Leveraging Your Content Ideas from Quora… With Quora!

As an extra little step, I recommend you create a Quora account if you don’t have one. The reason being… you can give any post you’ve written based on a Quora question a little leg up.

By going back to the original question on Quora you’ll be in a position to post an answer to it yourself. The method I use is to provide a good summary of my post as an answer, and then link back naturally to my article from within the answer I submit.

If you decide to do this, don’t be spammy about it. Your answer has to be detailed enough to fully satisfy the user’s question. But you can include the fact you’ve written a more in depth solution for it on your blog and share the link to it.

I’ll repeat this… don’t spam. Provide a valuable answer to the question.

Taking this approach to amplify the content idea you got from Quora kills two birds with one stone:

• You start to build up a portfolio of answers in Quora, which over time might increase your reach on another platform: the better your answers, the more upvotes you’ll get. The more upvotes you get, the more visibility you’ll have.
• You’ll add links in Quora back to your blog posts. Popular questions get lots of views and this may result in traffic coming your way directly from any link you leave back to your post.

Simple enough right?

Summary

• Quora is a place where real people are looking for answers to specific questions.
• If you’re blocked for content ideas or need a little inspiration, you can get new ideas for content from Quora questions.
• Search for topic in Quora and look for specific questions users have posted.
• Use relevant Quora questions as the starting point for your blog post. Write as detailed an answer in your post as you can.

And for an extra little bit of juice…

• Sign-up for a Quora account, if you don’t have one.
• Supply a detailed summary of your blog post as an answer to the question that inspired it… but leave some meat on the bone!
• Advise in your answer where the reader can find more detail in the blog post you wrote and link to it.

But always remember… as with any platform you don’t own, be graceful and respectful when you leave a link to your blog and DO NOT be spammy.

That’s all for today folks!

Paul

Have you ever used Quora for content ideas? Drop a comment below and share your tips?