4 Tactics to Boost Your SEO Game With Online Communities

So, you’re a community manager and using a variety of techniques, you’ve managed to improve the engagement metrics on your online customer community but the numbers are still stagnant. You wish to achieve your business goals by diverting more traffic to your community but are unaware of the right tactics. What should your ideal approach be in such a scenario?

Heard about SEO optimization? We bet you have! Thinking about search engine optimization (SEO), the mind automatically drifts towards tactics that can be used to improve engagement, website rankings, and more.

Let’s dive right into understanding how you can drive maximum engagement on your online community by simply upping your SEO game.

SEO and Common Factors Affecting SERP

SEO refers to the practice of improving website rankings by optimizing content and using business-specific keywords. This results in better visibility across Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and generates traffic.

SERPs are the results obtained when a search query is entered in the search engine. To understand how to rank high on a search engine, it is essential to know what the search engine really wants to see. A myriad of factors determines your ranking in search results. Some common factors that affect search rankings are:

• Keywords on the web page
• Page load time
• Quality and quantity of the content
• Site crawlability
• Content optimization
• Backlinking profiles

SEO efforts are majorly focused on achieving engagement, driving traffic, and increasing awareness. As a community manager, your aim should be to focus on improving SEO for your online community. But why should this top your list of agendas? Let’s find out!

Online Communities and SEO

According to statistics, around 93% of total online experiences begin when a search query is entered in a search engine. It is, thus, vital to emphasize on SEO to improve page visibility.

This is where online communities come into play for strengthening your SEO game. An online community provides you with full control over a variety of SEO factors that help in improving SERP rankings. It is thus crucial to analyze user requirements and prepare content that acknowledges their needs. Mentioned below are the key reasons to focus on the content in online communities for optimizing your SEO game:

• • The content is user-generated in online communities which promotes authenticity.

• • The availability of quality content helps attract the right audience to the online community. As a result, SEO improves.

• • Quality content promotes cross-platform shareability which enhances visibility.

Online communities render brilliant opportunities to rank better on SERPs and improve website visibility. Umpteen benefits can be extracted if the right SEO tactics are used.

Boost Your SEO Game With Online Communities

SEO isn’t simply about improving page rankings in search engines. It should align with the content being provided on the community platform. Rankings are sure to depreciate if visitors on the web page do not find the content to be useful and appealing. Hence, we bring to you 4 tips that will empower you to make the online community more user-friendly and reap the desired results.

1. Focus on the most talked-about keywords: More often than not, users who interact on online communities talk in lingos. Since the content on an online customer community platform is generally user-generated, it has a great impact on SEO. The reason for this is that when a user enters a query in the search engine, the keywords will be crawled, and matching suggestions will be displayed. These suggestions will contain content used in your community and aid in topping the SERPs. So, focus on inserting keywords that the users are actually searching for.

2. Strategize to attract the right audience: Attracting the right audience to the community will lead to improved SEO rankings. How? Netizens are curious to know more about new product launches, services, and more. Providing unique content will prompt them to click on your website link and stay engaged. This will lead to improved page time, quick resolution of issues, and promote user engagement. Also, Google loves intent-based content which is the key to attaining better rankings.

3. Provide fresh content for engagement: Another way in which a community can help SEO is by generating fresh content. Encourage your users to contribute unique content in the community for maximum engagement. Not only will this lead to better CSAT, but will also bring vibrancy to the community. An influx of ideas will keep the participants hooked and encourage them to indulge in meaningful conversations. Thus, ensuring that only quality content is being generated and uploaded is an absolute necessity.

4. Use SEO-friendly URLs: Communities are driven by member engagement which makes it impossible to edit every URL to make them SEO-friendly. Thus, specific pieces that bring in results can be targeted and their URLs can be modified accordingly. Ensure that relevant keywords are placed in the URL to make them SEO-friendly, but avoid overcrowding them.

Conclusion

Remember, apart from using SEO techniques for page rankings, updating fresh content in the community is also a key engagement strategy. Ensure that you are providing your users with useful and shareable information that keeps them hooked to the community.