Is Quora or Medium Dead?

When comparing the relevance of Quora and Medium, some may feel the two are too different for such a comparison. You can find answers to questions on both sites, but Quora does an excellent job of drilling down the specifics with answers from qualified experts. That’s not to say Medium doesn’t have experts—they’re there and ready to share knowledge.

We aren’t comparing Quora or Medium here, however. Instead, we’re looking at both sites to determine if they’re valuable for marketing. Before doing that, let’s look at definitions for these sites.

Decoding the Popularity of Quora and Medium: Insights and Statistics

Quora

Founded: 2009
User base: Quora has over 400 million monthly users, making it one of the top 20 social media platforms worldwide.
Global traffic: In May 2023, Quora observed its highest global traffic, with 1.28 billion visits, indicating its widespread popularity.
Visitor engagement: The average time users spend on Quora ranges from 4 to 10 minutes per session, suggesting a highly engaged user base.
Content diversity: Quora supports 24 languages and offers over 300,000 topics for users to explore and share their expertise.

Medium

Founded: 2012
Active users: Medium has a massive user base, with 100 million active users monthly.
Content volume: The platform sees over 1.38 million posts added monthly, demonstrating its role as a key content creation and consumption site.
Mobile readership: Approximately 68% of Medium’s readers access the platform via mobile devices.
Demographics: Medium’s readership is predominantly affluent, with over 50% having an annual income exceeding $100,000. Most readers are white (71%) and male (55%), with the largest age groups being 25-34 and 35-44 years old.
Traffic sources: Only 25% of Medium’s traffic comes directly, with 60% arriving via search engines and 8% from social media. This data indicates a strong reliance on organic search and social media referrals.

In short, they’re both knowledge-based sites where users pose or answer questions about specific topics—however, they go about it differently. For example, Medium is for blog-style content, while Quora features questions with threaded answers.

Medium and SEO Limitations

There is a lot that writers can do on Medium beyond sharing information—including generating leads, uploading custom images, and more. However, the underlying question here is—is Medium good for SEO? It’s a loaded question because some say yes, and others respond with a resounding no. Let’s break down the good and the bad:

Why Medium is Good for Optimizing for SEO

Keyword research: Conduct keyword research to find terms your target audience is searching for. Incorporate these keywords naturally into your titles, subheadings, and content.
Quality content: Focus on creating high-quality, informative content that adds value to your readers. This strategy attracts more readers and encourages sharing and linking, which are beneficial for SEO.
Engagement metrics: Encourage reader engagement by asking questions, prompting discussions, and responding to comments. High engagement can positively impact your content’s visibility.
Backlinking strategy: Include backlinks to your website where relevant. Although Medium has ‘nofollow’ links, driving traffic to your website can indirectly boost your SEO.
Use of images: Incorporate visually appealing, relevant images to enhance reader engagement. Ensure these images have descriptive file names and alt text for SEO purposes.
Canonical tags: Avoid duplicate content issues using canonical tags when reposting blog content. This information tells search engines which content is the original, preserving your SEO efforts on your primary site.

Medium Has the Following SEO Limitations

Limited analytics: Medium provides basic analytics, which might need to be more for detailed SEO analysis.
‘Nofollow’ links: The ‘nofollow’ attribute in Medium’s links limits backlinking’s direct SEO benefits.
Duplicate content issues: Reposting content without canonical tags can lead to penalties from search engines.

Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of using Medium for your SEO goals, considering its limitations like ‘nofollow’ links and limited analytics.

The Marketer’s Guide to Medium

Here are some tips for marketing using Medium, including posting frequency and getting noticed.

How Often Should You Publish on Medium?

Even though this isn’t an SEO topic, per se, the more often you publish, the better exposure that brings. If you don’t have enough time to publish on Medium daily, the sweet spot seems to be posting between three and five times weekly.

How Do You Get Noticed on Medium?

There are several ways of getting noticed on Medium, including the following:

Post valuable information regularly
Cross-link to other internal (Medium writers) and external (reputable resources) contextually
Interact with your readers socially in comments, on their posts, and in their online communities
Write for Medium publications outside of yours
Incorporate many images (Canva.com is an excellent tool for creating unique image content)

Aim to publish on Medium three to five times weekly to optimize exposure.

Is Quora Marketing Relevant?

Marketing using Quora is just as relevant now as it’s ever been. Because of the site’s changes—stricter policies against promotional links, more competition, new content types, and more—some marketers find it challenging to use Quora. However, for some businesses, the site proves quite valuable.

Optimize Using Quora

Profile optimization: Create a comprehensive profile highlighting your expertise. This effort lends credibility to your answers and increases the likelihood of user engagement.
Keyword-focused answers: Identify popular questions in your niche and provide detailed, keyword-rich answers. This research can help your answers appear in search engine results.
Content gap analysis: Use Quora to identify questions not adequately answered online. Create content on your website to fill these gaps, and reference it in your Quora answers where relevant.
Building authority: Regularly contribute valuable answers to establish yourself as an authority in your field. This effort can lead to more upvotes and higher visibility on Quora and search engines.
Linking strategy: Include links to your website when relevant, but do so sparingly and organically to avoid being flagged for promotional content.

Create a comprehensive Quora profile and consistently provide detailed, keyword-focused answers.

Quora for Content Distribution

Target audience insights: Analyze questions and discussions to understand your audience’s needs and interests.
Evergreen content: Focus on creating relevant answers that attract traffic over time.

Analyze Quora discussions for insights into your target audience and focus on creating evergreen content.

How to Use Quora for Marketing

There isn’t a magic formula for using Quora for marketing. Here are some basic steps:

Set up a profile, ensuring it includes your interests and qualifications
Follow Quora topics relevant to those interests and topics
Ask and answer questions about what you list in your profile
Connect with other users active in your niche
Build authority so you can eventually mention your company’s products or services in answers

Establish a credible Quora profile aligned with your interests and actively participate in relevant Quora topics.

Why Quora Matters for Your Marketing Strategy

Quora is an excellent tool for determining your target audience’s pain points. What problems do they need to solve? They might post questions on Quora while searching for solutions. Use that content as inspiration for creating relevant content on your site.

Why Quora Makes Sense for Content Distribution

With over 300 million monthly unique visitors looking for tips, evaluating products, conducting research, and learning about specific topics, Quora is a gold mine for exchanging knowledge and reaching target audiences. Quora sets the stage for askers, information seekers, readers, and writers to find and post evergreen content.

Because Quora personalizes content according to what users want to learn, its content is always relevant. Because it’s evergreen, content isn’t lost in the shuffle or pushed to the bottom of a distribution list. It’s always easy to find, no matter when users search.

Leveraging Quora for Enhanced Visibility on Medium

With its question-and-answer format, Quora is a hub for expertise in various fields. It provides an excellent opportunity for writers and marketers to showcase their knowledge and guide readers to their Medium content for more detailed insights.

Establishing Authority on Quora

Answering questions strategically: Seek out questions on Quora relevant to your Medium content. Provide valuable, concise answers and subtly direct readers to your Medium articles for more comprehensive information.
Question-driven content creation: Use the questions you encounter on Quora to inspire Medium articles. This strategy creates a natural flow for readers who seek more detailed explanations or viewpoints.

Regularly answer questions on Quora relevant to your expertise, subtly directing readers to your Medium content.

Building a Follower Base on Quora

Engage with other Quora users: Regularly answer questions and engage in discussions. This engagement builds your reputation and encourages users to follow your content, including your Medium profile.
Quora spaces: Participate in or create Quora Spaces that align with your Medium content themes. This effort helps in gathering an audience with specific interests.

To build a following, engage with other Quora users, and participate in Quora Spaces that align with your Medium content themes.

Cross-Promotion Tactics

Teaser content: Share snippets of your Medium articles on Quora, creating a teaser that invites users to read the full article on Medium.
Quora blogs: Use Quora’s blogging feature to publish related content and cross-reference your Medium articles.

Share teasers of your Medium articles on Quora and cross-reference your Medium content in Quora blogs.

Tracking Performance and Refining Strategy

Analytics tools: Utilize analytics tools to track how much traffic your Medium page receives from Quora. Doing so will help in understanding the effectiveness of your Quora activities.
Feedback and adaptation: Pay attention to the questions and topics gaining traction on Quora. Adapt your Medium content strategy accordingly to ensure relevance and interest.

Use analytics tools to track traffic from Quora to Medium and adapt your content strategy based on feedback.

Consistent Brand Voice and Messaging

Unified voice: Maintain a consistent voice and style on both platforms. Doing so helps in building a recognizable personal or brand identity.
Content synchronization: Ensure that your Quora answers and Medium articles are in sync regarding the information provided and the opinions expressed.

Maintain a consistent voice and style across Quora and Medium, ensuring content synchronization.

Quora or Medium: The Choice is Yours

No matter which direction you choose to go in, Quora or Medium are excellent tools for finding and marketing content to your target audience. A good strategy is using both tools to ensure you reach and engage with more target audience members.

Editor’s note: This content was last updated on 11/21/2023.