SEO Is A Terrible Community Building Strategy

What would you do if someone turned up uninvited at your party? Look at them skeptically? Throw them out? Now what would you do if someone arrived at your community from a search engine?

Community building is entirely about building relationships that last. Examine your social group, I bet there is an intricate network of ties that connect your friends with each other. New members come in through one of these ties. Like a community, people invite their friends, who invite their friends. Everyone is there because everyone wants them to be.

Search engine traffic is different. I would treat them differently, even skeptically. First, assume any visitors from search engines are simply bonus to the work you're doing. It should never be part of a community building strategy. Second, I'd push them to build relationships with members quickly, or leave.

Why not put a 'Just Arrived from Google' thread on the forum, or a page just for these people? Include a brief primer about the community, hot topics and actions they can take to build relationships quickly.

Comments

[Ben]

What an awesome time for you to post this. I've been having discussions with other personal bloggers (http://20somethings.ning.com/) about how much one should cater to search engines to build traffic versus going grassroots and old school by simply letting the content drive itself within the community.

I think you pretty much summed it all up brilliantly. Thanks!

[tim hoang]

Richard, have to disagree with you. While it would be great to have a community that is formed organically via people knowing people, I think, for some communities the point of it is that you meet people you wouldn't normally be in touch with. Search engines are gateways to the Web for most people, how else would i find a Man Utd supporters club in London if i didn't know anyone here? By having a few more randoms, it adds variety and diversity to the community - and that's what makes a great one right? Not everyone thinking like sheep.

[Tom]

Nice post Rich - SEO is certainly not the way to build a community though it can provide some benefit while building the community (e.g. revenue!!) so it's important to look at both aspects hand in hand.

Also - there's many ways that a strong community can help your SEO efforts if you're looking at it from the other direction

[Tim Jahn]

Great idea with the 'Just arrived from Google' forum. It's nice to recognize those visitors form search engines and invite them to join the community. Definitely don't depend on them to be your entire community though.

[Richard Millington]

Tim: Good point about the Man Utd supporters club in London. I think we have two opposite opinions on the diversity issue. I've never been to a party and worried about the lack of diversity. I worry about the stranger pinching the beer!

More seriously, I think the right communities bring in diversity. Friends of friends bring in more and more diversity at each link. Man Utd now (sadly) has fans around the world. This wasn't through search engines, but by hearing about the team from friends and Man Utd cultivating and building these fan groups (often by virtue of sending Beckham there).

Given a choice between proactively recruiting people, or passively hoping the right people find my community, I'd pick the former.

Tom: Absolutely. You can use SEO to make money from a community. I don't recommend it. If you're building a community for direct ad revenue, I think you're always going to be disappointed. If you're building it for better loyalty, evangelism, feedback opportunities, cost-savings etc - you're on to a winner. There are better ways of making money from an online community. Like developing products just for the online community.

[Martin Reed]

Rich - I understand the thrust of your argument that often the best members of online communities are those that have been referred by existing members. This isn't always the case, though.

My online communities have picked up some fantastic members from search engines; members who have added real value and would be a great loss to the community if they were to leave.

SEO is not a terrible community building strategy. It should be a part of your strategy, but not its chief component.

- Martin

[Sofia]

hey!
nice stuff.i liked post as well as comments.
i fully believe in SEO communities, because i have response from communities for virtual employees and some one suggested me www.marketraise.com

sophia