Building a Strong Community Without SEO
Our host today is Derek Jensen. If you're interested in getting in front of the readers of Site Sketch 101, check out our guest posting invitation here.
It seems the debate is still going on and will probably keep happening about focusing on building a strong community with or without search engine optimization.
I had a brief conversation with Nick awhile back and said that I feel I should not worry about SEO because no one really searches for college life tips or improving their college experience on Google or any other search engines. That being said, I do think he brings up a great point that everyone can utilize SEO in an effective way.
But, at the same time I believe that if you want to build a very strong and stable community you need to not have SEO be apart of it.
Why? There are so many ways of building a strong community that are much more effective and you are just going to cut yourself short by working hard on making your site or blog the best in SEO. Additionally there comes a time and place for everything, right? When building a strong community you need to focus on connecting with people, have strong and effective conversations, and really building your personal brand.
After reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, Crush It!, I now know how important it is to build your personal brand, because with no personal brand you don’t have an effective community to push anything that you do along for success.
4 Ways to Build a Strong Community Without SEO
Commenting on Blogs
This is probably one of the most tedious forms of building your community, but it is also very effective.
If you are willing to put in the time, sweat, and energy and really dominate all the blogs that are in or related to your niche or personal brand. What happens when making a comment is you’re connecting with the person behind that blog and their community and you strive to not really gain attention (no spam) but just offer your two-cents on what is being discussed. You do this and the person behind the blog and their community will take a visit to your blog.
But, this ultimately fails when you either make a poor comment (see the next four links to read how you can prevent this) or you are not transparent with what you are saying on their blog in either your personal branding or your own community.
9 Ways to Increase Comments on Your Blog
Your Guide to Comments that Get Noticed
7 Tips to Sharing Highly Effective Comments
Utilizing USTREAM.tv
Want to make a huge online presence? Heard of Jordan Cooper from Not a Pro Blog? He is making a huge online presence along with Ashton Kutcher and Gary Vaynerchuk by streaming live video of themselves.
Can anyone do this? Yes! What these guys are doing and what you can do is utilize the power of live creative, exciting, or interseting video to create viewers and many conversations. Sparking this conversations and gaining viewers is only going to help you build a strong community and online presence.
Not good at video? Start practicing and you might find personal enjoyment out of it. Think of this as being an uplifting way to build and connect with your community.
Participating in Forums
When I think of forums I think of geeky gamers going online and talking about their latest journey in Warcraft. To this day they have evolved and their purpose is to help the prospective community as customer service support.
Forums are a good way of keeping the community you have because they feel important being part of it, but when reaching out they are underutilized. More forums are forming and they are attracting many of us because they hold great value.
They are a big playground for us to just talk and respond to whatever is being talked about. Nothing you want to respond to, you can start your own topic. What a perfect opportunity to present yourself and attract followers for your working community back at your site.
Search.Twitter.com
Lastly, welcome to the most underutilized and unproductive way of connecting with others in your niche or related to your niche. I call it search.twitter.com. Just recently I have devoted a good amount of time to this “tool” in engaging with other college students.
Summary
All of these ways are great in building an effective and strong community for your blog, but you need to keep a few things in mind.
You need to more than just one of these ways, these ways and some others all can guarantee a healthy community without worrying about SEO to attract a “community”, and if you have no transparent or noticeable brand with a community to back you up you will not have a strong online presence.
I know SEO is very important in attracting viewers, but in terms of building and maintaining a strong community it takes so much time and effort. Instead, let’s put that time and effort into not only building a community but building our online presence and SEO cannot do that.
Group Reflection
Of course this is a debate, but do you agree or disagree with me saying that we can build a much more effective community without worrying about SEO?
The point of this post is to get our mindsets on doing both of building a community and creating an online presence. What are ways you are building your community and your online presence without SEO?
Bruce Teague said:
I’m going to have to gently disagree with you on this one Derek. I think SEO is always important and you can implement the basics of SEO with little effort. A few simple plugins and you’re on your way. The phrase college life gets about 250,000 searches a month.
I do see your point that focusing your efforts on community over SEO a great majority of the time is probably a better strategy in your case. If you drop out of college though, you’ll have time for both!
Derek Jensen said:
The point I am trying to make Bruce is simply that you can build a better community without SEO.
I feel if you were to focus solely on building a community and not worrying about trying to attract people from search engines at the highest quality level as possible, you would be doing yourself a favor.
Now don’t get me wrong I do focus on SEO with a few simple plugins.
I’m just talking about how we can build a community by not worrying about SEO. Does SEO help? Yes.
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Keith said:
You are right Derek, “college life tips” is only searched 19x a day on Google (but that is 570x a month and would be very easy to dominate) but “college life” gets over 8k searches a day and doesn’t really have a difficult level of competition either. (BTW thats 270k searches a month just on Google).
I agree that building a community is important, but how will new people find you if they aren’t on those forums or on Twitter?
A few simple methods like title tags, anchor texted internal linking, YouTube vidoes with “College Life” in the title, and optimized images could get you up the rankings on a term like that and would have zero negative affect on your community, in fact it would help to grow it!
So, do I disagree? I would give a resounding YES I DO to that question. Can you build a community without SEO? Yes you can. But you can build a much better and bigger one with it. And you can do it without keyword stuffing and crap like that which would affect your community.
Here is a question Derek: Do you think it harmed Nick’s community for optimizing his site for the term “How To Blog”? He is no ranked #2 for that term which is searched 15k times a DAY! Do you think it builds his community for being ranked well for that term?
Anyway, great article Derek, good to see you out guest posting.
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Derek Jensen said:
Keith,
I agree that you can build a bigger community with SEO.
Using my site as a case study (because most of you that have sites about blogging or websites will benefit more from SEO) what college student is going to search for “college life tips”?
I don’t want to attract people that are “desperate”. I want to attract a group of college students that are looking for some inspiration or guidance but just don’t realize it yet. So what is my strategy to gaining this community?
-Attracting whoever is on Facebook and Twitter and current college forums
-Outreach to local college campuses
-Getting the few I initially attract spread the same word
These are ways I am building a community and I feel this is different from (of course) sites that talk about blogging or websites, but there are many blogs that talk about life experiences, cooking, and etc.
So, I feel if they had this same concept they could just put SEO on the back burner (need to still have it) because there time will be better used.
And to answer your question. SEO did not harm his community here and it built it very nicely (the backing for this is highlighted in my previous statements).
Thanks for the feedback!
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Noah Rainey said:
Actually this all depends on the month your multiplying this by.
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Tycoon Blogger said:
I disagree. Why does it take to be one or the other. It is not hard to implement seo strategies and the benefits coupled with the other techniques will serve to bring your blog more traffic then deciding between one or the other.
If you (are any readers here) are interested in making money blogging, seo startegies are needed to make sure you are getting the all important Google traffic.
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Derek Jensen said:
You are right. We always say why not do both.
To be honest I dislike always saying this because yes we can do both but we are going to do more than the other.
So, if I had to choose which one to work at more I would focus on building a community besides SEO.
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Noah Rainey said:
Stop trying to go against the flow and stand out. Accept that he’s right.
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Derek Jensen said:
I said that he is right Noah. I am just trying to make my own point.
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Boni said:
Thinking about SEO is a necessity, you need it. Building a community is a good way to get more visitors, but with SEO you get noticed by the world. With SEO you can make your blog listed in search engine and make you gives you more visitor.
And I think, when someone get your website, and found it interesting, that is the time community start built.
I think you must thinking about SEO, while you start building a community.
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Derek Jensen said:
What would happen if you built a community that was so powerful and they continued to build the community?
I believe you would get noticed by the world.
Sure it might take longer and more work to actually have conversations with people instead of just inserting a couple words in certain fields and hope they make that search. But, I feel it will be worth it in the long run.
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Boni said:
Yeah, I also agree with you.
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cooljaz124 said:
Nice article. Still that din convince me not to practise SEO
Derek Jensen said:
I’m not telling you to not practice SEO.
Heck I do SEO but I don’t focus on it. I am focusing on building my community in other ways.
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Richard Scott said:
I agree to a point.
If you have a topic that no one searches about, then yes, SEO doesn’t matter.
What you need to do, is expand those topics into areas that WILL draw traffic. That way you get the best of both worlds.
My website is the opposite. I don’t have a blog, so I can’t build a community. Which, for now, is fine, because I get all my traffic through search. In fact, my niche is all about the search. I give info and reference material that people are looking for. So it all depends on your topic and what you are using it for.
Derek Jensen said:
I know I could expand my topics, but I feel I could just simply connect and talk with people about all these topics that relate to my niche and it would benefit me more.
In regards to your website, you should get a blog where you just talk about jewelry.
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Mike Stenger said:
Great tips Derek. Speaking of live shows, I really need to get back in to the habit of those. I’ve got something up my sleeves for this upcoming week.
And I liked that you mentioned Twitter search. People really do underestimate.
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Derek Jensen said:
I will be looking forward to that, Mike!
And people really do underestimate Search.Twitter.com but when used right and often it will be a good tool to build a community that is willing to participate and join your forces.
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Spyros said:
I think that i will have to partly disagree. While communities are certainly the key to building traffic that lasts, organic traffic can be a great way to boost your earnings and get further exposure.
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Nathan said:
I do minimal SEO, because I just don’t have the time to worry about it…and I’m doing just fine.
Yeah, SEO helps, but part of getting good SERP’s is getting back links, and you can get a lot of them when you build a community through contact and communication.
Where SEO does matter much more, is in e-commerce sites and those that don’t build community.
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Derek Jensen said:
So basically you are saying that if you build a strong community and create many back links you’re SEO is improving.
I am under the same feeling that you should initially or put more time into building a community with SEO. For e-commerce sites though couldn’t you still build a community because I feel that is where businesses need to be going nowadays.
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Gautam Hans @ Blog Godown said:
See, SEO is important to bring the community to your blog. Once you have got the required traffic, then you can easily focus on building the community.
The point is: both SEO and community building is important. you just need to balance them in order to grow your blog.
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Derek Jensen said:
I see this. Building a community is important to to bring the community to your blog (if you can wrap your head around that).
Then once you have built a community through everything besides SEO then SEO will come and be easily implemented to further the growth of the community.
Everything we seem to talk about needs a balance, right? But that balance is not something that initially happens so we need to focus more on one thing, because that is what realistically happens.
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Nathan Hangen said:
Not in my experience. As someone else said, people find me through guest posts, social networking, social bookmarking, and word of mouth.
To Derek, I’m not sure you need a community for every ecommerce operation. It might happen naturally, but I’d rather focus on marketing.
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Sanford said:
Most of the blogs that I really enjoy were not found by SEO. I found them by their guest posts, comments, and mentions on other blogs.
I’m sure the path to them started with a Google search, but the communities I feel apart of were definitely found through community.
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Derek Jensen said:
You bring up an excellent point. Many times I am not searching for something, I just discover something and that intrigues me.
Just think if no one were focusing on building a community and they just focused on SEO?
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Sanford said:
Exactly.
In the “real” world, it might be like finding one of your friends at Walmart who sees that you’re buying air freshener. They recommend a small incense shop down the street that they like, you go by there and like the products, then you start buying there and recommending it to your friends.
Word of mouth has always been the most effective advertising.
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Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing said:
Derek my man, I want to be your friend; so not kidding here. You have no idea how much I love this post. lol
From the beginning (been a few years now), I’ve been so ultimately confused by everything above and beyond the “basics” of SEO (titles, descriptions, permalinks, etc.), I’ve pretty much given up.
I’ve ALWAYS built my community via other means and have always had strong, responsive communities behind me.
Honestly, if folks find me via search engines, its not on purpose. LOL
At least now I know I’m not the only one…and not an idiot.
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Derek Jensen said:
I’m glad we are on the same page Dennis!
I do know though that SEO is important but that is on the less importance of things especially compared to building a community via other means.
You bring up a good point about usually when people use search engines to find something and click on your page they are usually just there to find answers. But if someone were to just naturally go to your site (not through search engines) they are going to appreciate your answers more through that voice you have created.
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Fazreen said:
I personally use Twitter to create a strong community. I’m following you my friend,
Nicholas Cardot said:
Fazreen » I agree. I love connecting with people and promoting my site on twitter. I find it is incredibly useful.
Derek Jensen said:
Thanks Fazreen. I’ll be contacting you shortly.
Using Twitter always seems to be a constant learning experience, which is always interesting but sometimes frustrating when creating that strong community.
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Ron Leyba said:
I think, without search engines, it will be social media I will be utilizing. Social connections works best, especially twitter and facebook.
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Kok Siong @ Cancer Research said:
I agree with you that blog commenting is a freat way to build up the community. However, SEO is important too. Then, why don’t we do both at the same time? I’m sure this will be too great for the blog to have good SEO and blog commenting skill. Anyway, thanks for sharing!
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Derek Jensen said:
Kok Siong,
As I previously mentioned in the comments I am saying that we should focus more on building a community without SEO than with SEO.
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Reza Winandar said:
Being active in forums is a great way, especially when you expert on the topic that discussed.
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Jasmine Henry from System Fail News said:
While I don’t support the idea of “if you build it they will come” because I don’t think that readers will flock to our sites on their own. However I do think that if we practise article writing and are able to write some truly awesome articles, we’ll be able to encourage a community to thrive!
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Derek Jensen said:
Surely we have to create great content whether that be written, audio, or video. A community cannot be built if the site or blog is not ready for community participation.
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Holly said:
Hi Derek,
I think you are right to put people first. Is this the point you are trying to make, put people and communities ahead of worrying about how well your site does on a search engine?
The more engagement your site has amongst members, and the more content they post related to the topic (keyword), the more pages you will have and the SEO will improve automatically, not including the work you put into your title and other metatags.
There was an interesting experiment about this where a blog author intentionally blocked search engines from her site to simulate what would happen if she had been “slapped” by Google. If you are interested, here is the link (not my site):
http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/hide-and-speak.php
Thanks for the article, I enjoyed it. Also, I really like your style of engagement, too, as I saw first hand on your last tweet when I put the wrong link to this article.
All the Best,
Holly
@mobienthusiast
Derek Jensen said:
Holly,
You nailed it right on the head with what I was trying to get across to people.
We can focus more of our energy on building an actual community that is going to be much more benefital to us in the long run than spending time making sure our site has strong SEO.
Simple SEO like a plugin and then having simple metatags are a good start.
As someone had said earlier, we can also build a community that knows our voice or purpose, whereas with SEO that is hard to create.
I rather have conversations than worry about what word to put where.
Thanks for your comment.
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Murlu said:
(Derek has heard my say this but I think it’s worth bringing to attention).
Imagine your blog as a business, your product is information.
In walks a customer (reader): how did they get there? While this may be important to understand how to replicate it, the most important part is how do I keep them at my business (blog).
We’re in such a rush to try to build a massive following, increase our numbers and broaden our reach that I think a lot of us lose sight of working on those one to one relationships that are far stronger than tons of traffic.
Imagine this, you have:
Choice A: A million visitors to your website.
Choice B: 100 visitors to your website.
Before you make your decision, know this:
The million people visiting your website will look around and bounce.
The 100 people coming to your site will leave comments, subscribe, talk to you and each other.
Which do you want?
We can all play the numbers game here; it’s actually really easy when we just go after SEO but it’s those people that stick around that’s going to build your blog and brand.
You have to start one at a time; you can’t forget that its a human on the other end and they want to interact with you. Don’t brush them aside for the next visitor.
That’s why it’s important to reach out to these existing communities to find those that are passionate about what you do. Passionate people take passionate action.
That’s my two cents.
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Todd Wissler said:
I am starting to agree with the position that SEO is not all it’s cracked up to be. If you’re good at it, great. If you find it confusing, you’re not alone. But don’t feel defeated by not doing it well if you’re trying to build an online business. The alternatives you mention Derek are great ways to build your brand. And paid traffic will get visitors to your site faster than SEO will. So what if you advertise and pay for traffic? It means less work than SEO does. If you spend $1000 a month on advertising but clear $4000 a month with less work…I’ll certainly take that over the confusion (for me at least) of SEO. As soon as you learn something about it, Google will probably change the rules…again.