
// Development
How to Build a Question and Answer Website Like Quora
// Development
Quora is a free, public Q & A platform. The service is included in the top 250 most visited sites in the world (top 80 at its peak) and generates revenue of over $ 12 billion a year. From our article you will learn why this site has become so successful and how to use this knowledge to create your own website like Quora.
It is also worth noting that, despite the mandatory use of real first and last names, you can ask anonymous questions on Quora. This feature is introduced to protect people from negative reactions if they ask questions about the future employer or a problem that has arisen because of them. Those who don’t want to see anonymous questions in the feed can turn them off.
Monetization. In the first seven years of its existence (2009–2017), the platform developed exclusively thanks to investments, without any own income. Monetization on the site appeared only in 2016, when they introduced the opportunity to advertise goods and services of third-party resources. Since then, advertising has been the only way to monetize a project, except for the sale of personal data (which is not discussed openly, but everyone does it, especially if you have specific surnames with user names).
When the site became the first in the chosen niche, the topics of the posts expanded: technology, books, fashion, health, art and much more. According to the data for 2018, the topics are now in the top popularity: entertainment, travel, business, marketing, training and technology.
When creating your own site of questions and answers, it is best to go the same way: concentrate on one niche, gather experts on the platform, become a leader in the chosen niche and then gradually expand the topic. Choosing a specific niche may be based on several factors:
In this case, you need to implement functions for two user roles:
These are the basic functions that are enough for a regular site of questions and answers. However, this will not be enough if there are worthy competitors in the niche you have chosen. To get around them, you need to offer users something that others do not, and / or make everything leagues ahead. You can achieve this with:
For a platform like Quora, the cost of creating a site is in the range of $ 20,000 to $ 50,000, depending on the hourly rate. At the same time, the amount can easily go up to $ 100,000 and higher if you need to implement many unique functions and / or make a high-quality mobile application.
If you want to save money, you can use WordPress themes (from 0 to 1000 dollars for one theme). However, in this case, it is better to hire a web developer to configure the theme, CMS and hosting. So you speed up the launch of the site and you can avoid many problems of growth.
When a staff member had a question, he did not go to a colleague or boss, but described the problem on the site. Other employees regularly looked at the feed with questions and gave answers to them if they were sure of the correct answer. Thus, the project team solved their problems and at the same time filled the site with content - simple, useful and free.
The second problem (user engagement) was also solved by simple methods: