Building a website like Quora
Table of Contents
Q&A websites are not brand-new to the Internet, but Quora moves them to a completely new level. Still, even when building such, at first glance, a simple website, you’re going to face some challenges. And not only with tech aspects, but while attracting users as well.
That’s why in our article we’re explaining what to do to create a great Q&A website, what are the must-have features, how to promote and monetize it.
Why Quora’s that popular?
Quora is a platform where users ask questions and others answer them. Besides, the service allows editing and updating answers and organizing them.
As Quora has a rather simple and intuitive web design, it doesn’t take long for users to start publishing questions or answers. They may start just from the main page by simply scrolling to the latest questions in various categories.
Near the ‘Home’ button users see the ‘Answer’ one and find topics they may be interested in. There also are ‘Spaces’ that are communities and collections users create around interests and tastes they share. Users can follow any of these spaces. Finally, there’s ‘Notification’ tab that notifies users about any activities connected with them.
How to build a website like Quora?
Let’s take a quick overview of a Q&A website building process, step by step:
1. Take a look a competitors’ websites (like Quora).
2. Find the right team of developers.
3. Work on user-friendly and intuitive design.
4. Define and develop the features.
5. Create a promotional plan.
6. Add a few unique features to make the website stand out.
7. Think out possible monetization ways.
8. Don’t forget to update the website regularly.
As you see, the features are very important for the future website. So we’ve described several features of Quora that you may want to include in your product.
Activity Feed
This feature shows recent activities about the topic, the user is interested in. That’s why it takes place on the home page and helps with organizing the content. If you follow a topic, you’ll see all the questions and answered tagged with it.
Following topics
When you start a Quora account, you can choose topics from the database. So if a user sees a question they’re interested in, they can easily follow it and receive notifications with each new update. Also, on the right side, you can find ‘Related Questions’, connected to the one selected.
Comments
There’s ‘Add comment’ option at the bottom of each answer. This way, every user can comment on an answer or ask its author any related question.
Sharing
Users can share any question or answer provided on their social media pages, linked to the Quora account. For now, the website offers to share via Facebook, Twitter, and other popular platforms.
User profile
On this page, you can add personal details and photos. Users need to add a headline for short bio that tells more about them and their interests.
Home
Home page gives all the updates of answered or ranked questions. And it offers to discover new topics and people too.
Spaces
The feature allows building communities that are based on the same interests and search for details within these ‘Spaces’. But only members of the space can answer the questions posted there.
How to gain users?
The very concept of Quore website is based on exchanging the content and sharing ideas with a community. And if you’re working on a Q&A website, you need to create this community (for example, creating questions and answering them on your own). Remember that nobody wants to surf an empty website, and make sure the content is of a certain value.
Besides, the appearance matters too. A website like Quora requires well-thought-out web design process and flexible database.
And if we’re talking about attracting users, there are a few ways:
- Ads. Paid search, ads on social media platforms, etc. are good for bringing new users, but it’s better to consider all pros and cons, as well as your objectives, beforehand.
- Content. When you post high-quality content, users start being more active and tend to trust. Thus, you can get more shares, referrals, and traffic in general.
- Newsletters. Quora sends these letters once a week, featuring the top questions the user may be interested in.
- Social networks. Don’t underestimate the power of social networks. They work more than great when it comes to generating traffic. For example, you can create a page where your main audience hands out, like Facebook or Twitter. And that’s exactly what Quora does.
Ways to monetize a website like Quora
For now, advertising’s the only monetization model used by Quora. It has incorporated ads in the revenue model as it focuses on showing relevant ads from relevant advertisers. Still, the platform doesn’t use sponsored posts – users get answers there, not promoted content.
But there are several monetization ways, apart from advertising. We’re going to focus on the most popular ones.
Premium features. Developing additional features is always good, moreover, you can offer users to purchase them. For example, improved analytics. Quora website shows the quantities of users, but not any kind of detailed information like demographic data about users that read answers.
Donations. If you provide great content that is in demand, you can ask users to support the project. This approach keeps Wikipedia up and running till now.
Google AdSense. Finally, website owners make money by placing ads. And once a user clicks on the advertisement, the website gets money.
How to make your Q&A website better?
When building a question and answer website, you need to find out how to promote user engagement, how to properly organize the content, and many more. We’ve prepared a few hints that may help you.
Engage visitors
The time spent on your website is a very important factor. For example, to increase the time spent on Quora, the platform allows users to follow as many questions, spaces, topics, and people as they’d like to. And every question page on Quora has ‘Related Questions’ section that engages users deeper into surfing the platform.
Add social networks
Along with usual login+password registration, many websites allow users to sign in with their social networks accounts like Google, Twitter, or Facebook. And don’t forget about letting users share questions or answers on social networks.
Mind the relevance
Relevant data should be delivered to users instantly – to save their time and make the user-platform interactions smoother. Quora, for instance, sends notices if users’ questions got answered. This way, platforms delivers only relevant and customized content to its users.
Use emails
Emails are a great tool but don’t send them without a reason. For example, you may send weekly digests based on users’ preferences. Besides, adding links to those emails is a good idea since users can easily go to the topic and learn more about it.
Tech stack for a Q&A website
Quora creators decided to use Python, and not without reason. The platform depends on the participation of users, so they needed to choose a programming language that is flexible, reliable, and simple.
So, what benefits does Python offer?
- A solid ecosystem that supports deep learning
- Readability and efficiency
- Simple language syntax suited for prototyping.
- Fast ideation that saves time and money.
- An extensive standard library and ecosystem.
Another option is to utilize JavaScript to build a question and answer website.
And here are the advantages JavaScript offers:
- High development speed and prototyping
- Lots of ready-made solutions
- Easily integrated
- Allows development for different platforms: front-end and back-end (Node.js), mobile development (React Native or NativeScript), and desktop (Electron or NW.js).
As you see, building a website like Quora requires thorough preparation and planning. So, along with well-thought-out features and design, don’t forget about the developers – make sure your team consists of first-class professionals that are capable of delivering your top-notch product.
