SEO is standard on the web. But what about Steemit? Read the pros and cons then join the debate.
The Internet is a busy, noisy place. To get your website or blog noticed, most people rely on search engine optimization or SEO for short. That’s a set of activities you do to help search engines find your content. It’s time consuming to do and constantly changing, but also a necessary part of online marketing.
But what about Steemit? Should we all be trying to write our blogs using SEO?
The answer isn’t simple, or maybe it is. I think it depends on your perspective. To help you decide whether to use it on your posts, I’m looking at the topic from an unbiased, objective point of view.
What do many people do when trying to decide on something? They create a pros and cons list. That’s what I’ve done for using SEO on Steemit. The questions I asked myself were, "What benefits do I get from using SEO?" (the pros) and "What are the downsides for me if I use SEO?" (the cons).
But since interacting with posts here requires someone to be a member, I’ve separated the pro list into three categories:
- When existing Steemit members find your blogs
- When non-Steemit members find your blogs
- When it doesn't matter if they are a member or not
Take note that when I'm talking about searching and SEO, I'm referring to external search engines and not the internal Steemit search engine.
The pros for existing Steemit members
In this category, the benefits are in essence the same as any other social network when someone finds you and likes you.
- You can still get followers from older content:
When searchers find your older blog posts and they like them, they can follow you.
- You can engage in comments on older posts too:
If someone comments on an older post, you can still see that and interact with them.
You might wonder about the odds of a Steemit member finding your blog here using a search engine. I'm not sure about the others, but Google is pretty smart (scarily so sometimes). From my experience, I’m seeing more Steemit posts in the results over time. I've found quite a lot of content and people I didn’t know existed here.
I'm not saying every result is a steemit.com post, but it happens more than you might think.
The pros for non-Steemit members
If your blog is the best result for a certain search term, it will appear in someone's results.
- They can read your content and find what they need/want:
Just like any blog content on the Internet, it can help people solve a problem they have. They could be bored and need entertainment. Perhaps your tutorial on how to iron a shirt saves their upcoming date. Basically, you’re helping people with your content.
- They might join Steemit so they can vote on content after reading yours:
It’s hard to say how likely this one is, but it could happen. If they like your blog, they might look around some more, and then join.
Steemit member or not pros
The pros in this category apply to members and non-members alike.
- Users searching for content can find it long after you’ve posted:
Content is created so fast on Steemit it appears and disappears within days, sometimes even hours. It’s sad to think of all the beautiful poems and stories that may never be read. Or the instructional how-to posts that still have value long after the seven-day payout passed. There are music and videos worthy of being listened to and watched too. Most of it disappears into the abyss of the blockchain.
But if the posts use SEO, then Google (and other search engines) will index them and bring them back for everyone on the Internet to see. The benefit here again is that you're helping someone.
- Drive traffic to your website, blog or store:
If you’re in the habit of including a footer with links to your other online content or businesses, then an SEO ranked Steemit post can drive traffic to it. This makes blogging here better than free traffic, because you are getting some payment for your posts via upvotes.
Based on my research, this is one of the biggest benefits when you use SEO. The reason why gets into some technical details, but if you want to know, here are two blogs to read on the subject:
@anarcotech's article on using SEO for promotional purposes.
@infobunny's Steemit SEO guide. I highly recommend clicking the website link at the end to learn even more about it.
Now for the cons
There are quite a few benefits to using SEO, but is it all rainbows and butterflies? No, it isn't.
- Using SEO takes time and planning:
Whether you're doing it on your website or Steemit, SEO requires planning. Entire companies are dedicated to performing SEO for businesses. Bloggers can do their own if they know what they're doing. Even if you know what to do, it takes time - more than just writing a blog and posting. Which leads to the next con.
- No tools:
As I mentioned in the previous con, there's an entire industry built around SEO. That means there are many tools you can use to help optimize your website or blog. But not on Steemit. Many of the most common tasks are not available. For example, you want to have short, keyword focused URLs. You can create these here, but there's a trick to it that is a bit awkward (in my opinion). Both articles I linked above describe how to do it.
The point I want to make is that it isn't easy given the current setup on Steemit. And there are some things you just can't do.
- Doesn’t necessarily lead to upvotes, followers, or comments:
So you spend a lot of time and effort to help your post rank on Google, but you don't receive any immediate benefit. There's no guarantee of financial gain, new followers or comments. Have you wasted all your time? That, again, will depend on your perspective and long-term goals.
To SEO or not to SEO, that is the question. Was my pros and cons list complete? Let me know in the comments if I missed anything. And I'd love to know if you use it, or if you plan to.
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I never tried to apply SEO to steemit and now I see that it wasn't smart. This appears to be a really good idea, especially the url hacking tips from the post of @anarcotech. I somewhat doubt the usefulness of assigning names to the pictures, but it won't hurt for sure.
SEO create search highways that become hard to avoid
I read it a couple times and I really still don't understand what it is or why it would help a beginner on steemit.
SEO comes from Search Engine Optimization. But I agree on your point :D
If you're already an established blogger who knows about SEO but are new to Steemit then it could be useful. But if you're totally new to blogging then there are better ways to spend your time than doing SEO. Just concentrate on making quality content and comments and you'll do well.
I’m looking at the topic from an unbiased, objective point of view.
From a cost benefit analysis I don't see why it would be worth but I don't think it would hurt to put your key words in your title and also use them in your article.
If you already know your keywords you've already done most of the SEO work. The research is what takes most of the time in practical terms.
And it might be worth it from a cost benefit analysis depending on your objective.
From what I can tell, you need a certain amount of upvote juice so your links are not nofollow. A bunch of nofollow links doesn't really help SEO unfortunately :(
That's true. I haven't been able to find out what the threshold is exactly but I read it's somewhere between $10-40.
But the SEO value isn't just in the links if you manage to get free traffic from them. People can follow the links, it's just that the SEO goodness of STeemit won't flow through the link if it's no follow. But the posts themselves are indexed and found online by searchers.
So it all depends on your objective - drive traffic or to raise the SEO ranking of the destination website.
I don't believe SEO is worth it on STEEMIT. From using it, i've come to find that if people find your stuff, they find it and latch on. Steemit does a good job putting people's hot content on the front page.
to be honest, visibility for steemit post on google isn't so bad sometimes, they perform better than mini websites. But for popular topics, i find the need to include "steemit" along with my topic in google search. Which makes me think that I still need a personal website if I want more visibility from people outside steemit. I'm not sure if the steemit tags play a role in SEO
(upvoting this post for visibility)
nice post
do upvote for get back and follow me on @pankajhmh1
lol
Really interesting this article.
Even though I literally have been less than two days old on the platform. I'm a neophyte. It will serve me for future posts.
To the question in your title, my Magic 8-Ball says:
Hi! I'm a bot, and this answer was posted automatically. Check this post out for more information.
@hyperfundit Everyone of us has valuable things to share for the world. Sometimes even more than we think. That's the biggest pros of steemit I think.𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐚𝐲?
You got a 64.52% upvote from @bdvoter courtesy of @hyperfundit.com!
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The point I want to make is that it isn't easy given the current setup on Steemit. And there are some things you just can't do.
important thoughts thx for sharing
SEO on you steemit post do help a bit with regards to searcheability of your posts. But sad to say that it will get pushed down from the heaps of new posts generated at quick succession. Not unless you promote or some steemit whales joins in and upvoted your posts which gives it a strong chance of making it to the trending tab.
very good
friend I advise you to use steemit, as seo applied to your website, steemit will position you in a very simplified way
Great post @hyperfundit
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STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
It seems counterintuitive. SEO create search highways that become hard to avoid. I enjoy the balanced web of Steemit content I find currently.
Great article.
Steemit is new way to earning by posting blogs for new bloggers. It gives inspiration for writing good contents. Personal blogs on websites requires time to popular on internet. I t requires best seo skills.
SEO works on steemit also , it good for the industry and brings pots to the top , so if we want to promote our post it’s better to use SEO rather than using bots , I want to learn SEO , can u help me ????
Upvote my comments and reply
i know that steemit doesn't need any seo ,they are looking for unique content that will boost digital commerce and earn more steems, steem bot will track each and every action of an user done on post that will reduce your upvote value.
@hyperfundit how to do SEO of steemit blogs??
really useful Artical I read it But i want that you make some extra blogs or show your YOUTUBE channel link......
Your post is always good...........You will continue to have such a good post
steemit is a platform where everyone works together and achieves success
Great post, I had been wondering the exact thing. I am a content writer so, to me, it is worth it because I have an extra portfolio to show :) giving it a try.
Hello, very good content, I liked it a lot, I gave you a vote in favor, I hope you follow me and give me votes in favor too, kisses
is this work for beginner ??? oo really :@
@hyperfundit, I gave you an upvote on your post! Please give me a follow and I will give you a follow in return and possible future votes!
Check out my new post. It is about my first shoot i did 6 years ago.
Nice article.
Congratulations @hyperfundit!
Your post was mentioned in the Steemit Hit Parade in the following category:
good concept sir.. i like it..thanks for share your inportant concept..
Nice article
I do not know about SEO, but I assure you, 3PO is not worth anyone's time.
I wonder how much good SEO actually does if SteemIt itself isn't very placed on major search engines. I've been a full-time writer for 8 years now, and during that time, I've constantly searched for information on various topics. However, I don't recall a single time Steemit appeared in searches unless accompanied with the "SteemIt" keyword. That's one reason it's taken me this long to find and join SteemIt.
Even if you search for this post's exact title, minus the "SteemIt" keyword, you won't see any SteemIt results in the top 20. To me, that implies SEO here wouldn't be that effective to external search engines unless you're specifically writing about SteemIt.
I don't think you can say that Steemit isn't placed well. If you haven't seen specific results from steemit then maybe that's because very few are doing SEO to be indexed well. If everyone did it then we might see a different story. Or if there were better tools for us to use for SEO that would make it even easier.
I also checked out the domain on MOZ. It has a domain authority of 80, 35.7k linking domains, 93.2% external links are follow and 99.2% of internal links are follow.
Food for thought anyway to discuss the chicken and the egg nature of SEO here.
That's a good point. It could be that the structure and lack of better tools (like they have in WordPress) makes it difficult to compete with the open Internet. But that's kind of what I meant when I said SteemIt itself isn't placed well. Rather than everyone on SteemIt being bad/lazy/apathetic at SEO, it could be that we're already handicapped by the SteemIt environment or Google's perception of it.
That said, I ran a few more tests by taking older titles that don't have the SteemIt keyword and put them, verbatim, in Google. Several did indeed appear #1, but some of course didn't. I'll keep my eyes open when I do research and reserve judgment until more data is in. :)
In either case, I really love the Steemit concept and the community here. I've only been here a few days, but my impression is already quite favorable. :)
Hi @hyperfundit I’m use to speak about marketing in my Steemit blog and sometimes i try to do some SEO! I’m completely agree with u. Onestly i think that it’s more usefull for non steemit users in my case. Cause I’m use to to add all my contacs in my post so, as u said, it’s very usefull for free traffic.
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STOPI've never thought of SEO on Steemit. Thanks for the information. It makes me put some perspective into all this
We can do something with seo. But still from other members you can't get that result. Are you using seo in your post? @hyperfundit