How can I use Quora to make money?

Ah! If there ever were a question just for me, this one is is probably it.

I’ve been making a significant, mostly passive income from Quora for about a year now. Admittedly, I only stumbled into it.

I had only discovered Quora just a few months prior. I was working a summer internship in a city separate from most of my friends, so I had a lot of spare time on my hands. Having always been a voracious reader, Quora kept me up a bit too late many or most work nights that summer.

At some point, I began to feel a little guilty learning so many amazing things from other people and not giving back myself. So, I started writing answers to questions in the e-commerce and distribution space. I had been working independently in e-commerce for 8 years, and my internship was at a Fortune 200 distribution company.

It’s worth noting that the thought of putting so much effort into writing these posts with the potential to reach tens, even hundreds of thousands of people made me super nervous at first. The first few times I hit submit, I immediately stood up and paced around a bit to shake it off.

While most of my initial answers received very little attention, one blew up. The response (upvotes, comments) was tremendously positive. It was a great feeling.

Around the same time, I was also reading quite a bit about affiliate marketing. I knew what it was all about from previous reading. After all, I had spent 8 years selling physical products online.

For those of you not familiar, affiliate marketing allows you to make a commission selling other people and company’s products online, without actually fulfilling product orders or serving customers. You just have to make the introduction. You don’t have to be hired. You just post a link to the product or service that is unique to you, and software tracks any sales that result from your recommendation. The software knows that buyer purchased after clicking your link.

Finally, I decided to give it a shot. There were services I was already mentioning and linking to in my answers that had affiliate programs themselves, so I swapped my links out for affiliate links.

Within 30 minutes, I made one $30 commission.

I immediately did the math to calculate how much more money I would make that day. $30 every 30 minutes… 12 hours left in the day… Holy #$%^!!!

I didn’t make a penny more that day. But over the course of the next couple weeks, I did quite well.

As it turns out, you can’t just drop affiliate links wherever you please and without disclosure. It violates Quora’s policy, and disclosure of affiliate links is required by the Federal Trade Commission.

This goes for most 3rd party platforms like facebook, LinkedIn, Medium, and reddit as well— even though you create and contribute the content yourself.

Now, if you still want to make money from affiliate marketing on these platforms, the key is to build blogs relevant to what you are writing about. That way, you own the platform and what kind of links you post are up to my discretion (so long as affiliate relationships are disclosed).

Then you can post really informative, helpful content on 3rd party platforms like facebook groups, Quora, and reddit to cultivate an audience. From that content you can link to supplementary resources on your blog where you are free to use affiliate links and earn commissions. If that content is great as well, people will continue to read your content, use your links to support you financially, and share with friends.

Let’s explore an example of how this works in practice:

Did you know many credit card companies offer 0% interest as an introductory rate for the first X months of having their credit card? Did you know credit card companies also pay hefty affiliate commissions for successful referrals?

During my senior year of college, I was a little strapped for cash. I had money, but most of it was tied up in my online businesses and/or stocks. However, I had a job lined up for after graduation, so I knew I would have cash coming in soon.

All of my friends were taking senior vacations. I didn’t want to ask my parents for money— they had covered enough.

So, I opened a few credit cards with 0% interest for 6–9 months. During the second semester of my senior year, I partied through an online marketing conference in Vegas, visited a friend in NYC, went skiing in Colorado, searched for housing in KC, and spent a weekend at the lake.

I paid the cards off in the first couple months after graduation using my salary.

Now, it’s not the smartest financial decision I’ve ever made, but I’m not the only college student who would enjoy living it up a bit during senior year despite a lack of funds.

How can I make money on that?

Easy. Tell the story around Reddit, facebook groups, Quora, Medium… Link from those posts to a blog post titled something like “Top 10 Credit Cards Offering 0% Interest.” That blog post would compare the pros and cons of each, and link to applications using, you guessed it, affiliate links. Links to credit cards paying me $50, $100, even $150+ for a signup.

Again, it doesn’t stop there. Readers will enjoy the content. They will share with friends. They will come back for more helpful content again and again, assuming I keep it coming.

Building the blogs themselves is a piece of cake these days. Here’s a 5-minute how-to. You don’t need to know how to code, you don’t need to be an expert designer— even the writing is made easier with tools like Hemmingway App.

You can find affiliate products and services to promote with a simple google search. There are a lot of spammy products out there which are no good for your readers, nor your reputation.

While many companies run their own affiliate programs independently, many utilize affiliate networks to manage the link tracking and connect with people who will promote their products. Affiliate networks are great places for you to find products and services you can promote.

Here are just a few:

• Amazon: That’s right! Amazon has an affiliate program for nearly everything listed. Commissions vary. The interesting thing about Amazon is that you will not earn commissions solely on what you link a reader to, but everything they purchase in the next 24 hours!
• Share-a-Sale: Home to more than 3,900 affiliate programs— Share-a-Sale is sure to have something for your niche. Not only do their advertisers, pay for referred sales, many pay for clicks and ‘leads’ too. My personal favorite.
• Rakuten: One of the oldest networks around. Rakuten is known for its intuitive interface and over 1,000 advertisers, including many well-known brands.
• FlexOffers: Many well-known companies use this network, including Macy’s, HP, and Hallmark, along with a variety of lesser known companies.
• Commission Junction: Probably the #1 affiliate network overall, CJ is home to many of your household names. Credit cards, banks, insurance, security, real estate, fashion, you name it. Because there are so many big name advertisers here, competition can be stiff. You may actually have to apply for programs, and your site will be held to a higher standard.

To sign up for a network or affiliate program, you will want to opt in as a ‘publisher’ (‘advertisers’ are who you promote for). Most will require that you provide a link to your blog. Again, you can set up a blog in very little time (video tutorial here). Hosting your blog will cost just less than $1/day, or 66 cents if you pay annually.

If you provide good content for people, not only can you expect affiliate commissions, but generally people will reach out to you for consulting, coaching, friendship, business propositions, and more, depending on what you write about.

Plus, anytime you have influence like that, there’s always the opportunity to sell your own info product, for which you can recruit other affiliates to sell for you.

Best of luck!

 credit : Parth Theway, lives in Warewolf's World (2017-present)