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SEO Vs Engagement

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SEO Vs Engagement

What is the purpose of your blog and who is your target audience? These are some of the most important questions you will need to answer when starting or writing a blog.

Once you’ve decided on those questions, then it is time for the big one. How will you get readers to your website?

Search Engine Optimization

For years search engine optimization (and perhaps pay per click ads) was the way to go. To be sure it still plays a significant role and will for a very long time. However, the one problem today with seo is that it is a one way street. You only have to please the search engine.

But things have changed. It is not the only game in town anymore. There are multiple ways to get visitors to your website, and the options seem limitless. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Even Google has gotten into the social media game with Google+. And, there are blog aggregators like technorati, and sharing sites like Stumbleupon and Reddit.

Recently, tech investor Roger McNamee gave a presentation at a TED event in California. In the presentation, McNamee said that index search (Google) peaked in 2008 with 90% of all websites being discovered through Google. Now it is down to 50%.

Why is that? I can find what I want quicker and easier in other places. If I want to learn about a car, I can go to cars.com. If I want a house, I can go to realtor.com. If I want a date I can go to match.com.

That doesn’t mean Google is disappearing. They are not. What it means is that they are not what they were in 2008 and more opportunities on the Internet are presenting themselves to publishers of great content.

Purpose of Your Blog or Website

So, I am back to purpose and audience.  In reality, the purpose of your blog is not to be the world’s #1 blog. Well, it may be, but suffice is to say there are very few of those.

The purpose of your business blog is not to sell something or promote yourself. Although it may do those things.

The real purpose of your blog ought to be to deepen customer relationships and increase referrals.

A search engine cannot do that for you. It can only connect a request with a need. Once the connection has been made with the site visitor, the game fundamentally changes.

Engaging with Your Audience

How will you engage and interact with your audience?

That’s the next big question, and that is really for you to determine. The way you engage your audience may be different to mine, and it may require a different strategy to deepen relationships.

The one commonality amongst all blogs and websites is that they must provide rich content that can help your audience solve their problems or meet their needs. And, it must be free.

In addition to great content, you may have a killer email newsletter. Do you have an easy way for them to subscribe to it?

Do you encourage your blog readers to leave comments by asking them engaging questions, including something like; “Please tell us how you feel by leaving a comment below.”

If you use social media, ask questions and learn what your followers are looking for. Every business has an entry point to helping your readers and social media followers. They followed you initially because they had a problem or need, and you had the answer or were able to help them.

You are in business because someone had a problem and you were able to help them solve it. Treat your blog and social media that way and it will prosper. Maybe not in a week or a month, but perhaps in 6-12 months you will be in a vastly different place.

Conclusion

SEO is a much needed and valuable tool. But by itself it is no longer enough. It is great for helping people get to your blog, but what happens afterwards?

If the purpose of your blog is to deepen customer relationships and increase referrals, then provide free value based content and ask questions that help solve their problems.

So is it seo or engagement? I say it’s both. You just have to know their purpose in what you are trying to accomplish.

Image © Red rockerz – Fotolia.com

About

Don has been an entrepreneur for over 8 years. He previously owned a local online community magazine and newspaper. Don currently owns a web design/development company in Dallas, TX. In November 2011, Don started The Internet Conference to help inform and educated business owners on how to use the Internet to grow their businesses.

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{ 35 Responses }

  1. Samuel says:
    Engagement is the new key to getting your site more known. SEO has its place and make sure to keep it there. Don't expect it to care of everything else while you are only thinking of links and building them. It takes time for your site to take a large toll in the niche.
  2. Spatch Merlin says:
    Hi Don, My idea goes the same with you. SEO is utterly important in any online business, but without engagement it won't out nowadays. The best way to attract customers is to make sure that you establish a good relationship with then. When partnered with SEO, this would give your traffic a blast. Spatch Merlin From More Web Site Traffic
  3. Ewan Kennedy says:
    Hi Don, I agree with the big picture you have painted. All these elements are becoming so interdependent that none of them can be ignored and it will be very interesting to see how Google+ develops. The ingredients of the pie become ever more complex. I still wrestle sometimes though with how some businesses can put social media to good use. Some sectors lend themselves far more easily to it than others so maybe one has to consider every case individually to get the strategy balanced sensibly. For my own marketing, I set up a new site just over a year ago with an integrated blog. That was mainly for SEO reasons and it has worked well since all my rankings have improved considerably. I only opened the blog up to comments a couple of months back and only have a few comments but am already beginning to see how allowing interaction will bring even more benefits. Also, creating new content is far more enjoyable than link building.
  4. Kimberly Gauthier says:
    You're right; it is both. I really like how you broke out the differences. I tried to build a blog through engagement alone and it worked, but it was hard work and it took longer. Now that I write three blogs, I felt that it was important to learn the SEO basics and I've been able to do well with my blogs. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm getting there.
  5. Jamie Northrup says:
    I think you need a good balance between both SEO and social sharing, unless you're talking about micro niche sites where SEO is still the key. Also as search engines for social media get more sophisticated that willbe something new to optimize.
  6. Hooker says:
    I for one am encouraged by the changes that are occuring. For months I studied SEO and it is an ever changing and neverending subject. So now, as my #1 strategy, I write every post with one question in mind, "How can I create this article so people will pass it on?"
    • Don Purdum says:
      Hooker, you are correct about SEO. The changes happen so quick sometimes that it can be very hard to keep up. I appreciate your strategy! Thanks for commenting, Don
  7. Richard says:
    In the grand scheme of things, SEO doesn't help if you don't have an engaging blog and an engaging audience. Afterall, you're writing for human beings not machines. Too much SEO ends up being a situation where one is missing the forest for the trees.
    • Don Purdum says:
      Richard, Thanks for commenting! I wish more SEO people would listen to your wise words and stop writing SEO in such a way that people don't understand what the writer is trying to communicate. Well said!
  8. Steve says:
    Don, You make some really good points here. These days SEO is only part of the equation. I have long been a strong proponent of email marketing for instance and use it a lot in quite a few of my niche websites, but have not made a strong push on my main blog for some reason... SEO will get you far, but the other games in town are also damn importnat and becoming more so every day.
    • Don Purdum says:
      Thanks Steve for the kind words and for commenting! Email is a great compliment. I read Michael Stelzner's book "Launch" a year ago and he is a big advocate of email. His argument is that an email list is the only one thing you can control. If something happens to your social media pages, you lose all of those contacts. But you can back-up your email list everyday. I thought it was a powerful position.
  9. Kaloyan Banev says:
    Definitely both need to go hand in hand and need to co-exist. Of course it pretty much depends on the business niche, however integrating blog into business website is a must nowadays.
    • Don Purdum says:
      Thanks for commenting Kaloyan! Agreed. I have run into some businesses that the effort doesn't out way the cost of social media in either time of finances.
  10. Devesh says:
    Hey Don, Great stuff. Building relationship and engaging with the readers is very important and plays a great role. SEO is a great tool and can help you drive tons of visitors but it's your content that will convert those visitors into leads. Great post, Don !! -Dev
    • Don Purdum says:
      Thanks Dev for the kind word! I appreciate your comments. It's true that visitors without content that creates raving fans is a missed opportunity. See it all of the time.
  11. Mark says:
    Hey Don, Great article. Personally, I believe that "engagement" trumps SEO by a long shot. Recently, I have learned to drive traffic via SEO and I learned that if your engagement isn't in place first meaning, your content doesn't connect with and convert your SEO-based traffic, then it is all for naught. Now, my view is that SEO is a natural by product of great content. Great read, friend. Mark :)
    • Don Purdum says:
      Hi Mark! Thanks for commenting. I feel the same way. I believe in SEO, it works when properly. But we are in a new paradigm that is shifting, and if you're not engaging the reader or your content is weak, you will struggle.
  12. Kate says:
    I agree with you Don.
    • Don Purdum says:
      Thanks Kate!
  13. Don Seidenberg says:
    Don, Thanks for telling this story. Too often companies are so pre-occupied will being found via SEO that they neglect to tell a compelling story to engage their visitors. Another blogger named Don
    • Don Purdum says:
      Thanks for commenting Don! I think you're right. If companies would spend more time and resources engaging, I think they would find and connect with their target audiences, see their ROI increase dramatically, and grow sustainably for longer terms. SEO will continue to change, but connecting with people will not. If you can create raving fans, they will do the SEO for you and help you reach your target audience. I'm not suggesting to ignore SEO, but it cannot engage your audience.
  14. mike says:
    Agreed that while SEO being a very important tool, that buy itself is not longer enough. It's as easy for us to bounce around the internet world as it is for us to change the channel... So know when they land on your site, you blog you must have something compelling and relevant to what got them there in the first place...
    • Don Purdum says:
      Thanks for commenting Mike! Couldn't agree with you more!
  15. Abhi Balani says:
    I agree with your "Real Purpose", building relationship with our readers is really important. I'm trying to involve my readers into comments by asking them interesting questions with in the post or even in comment. This was a very nic post.
    • Don Purdum says:
      Abhi, Thanks for the kind word! Relationship building and trust earning is critical to the success of your blog. Engagement is also just as important. It's great you're asking questions, allowing your audience to connect with your personally. That will be huge as you grow your site because people do not have relationships with words on a screen, but with a person they can interact with. Kudos!!!
      • Abhi Balani says:
        That's right. Previously, my articles didn't use to have much comments. But as I'm learning to engage with readers in my articles and comments, I guess it's working now. My recent article, which I have linked below is in my very first blogging contest. Will you believe I never got comments, more than 20-30. And this post have more than 230. :-) I'd be grateful if you see the linked post and leave your valuable thoughts on my article. Must share if you like. And thanks for a great piece of information.
  16. Dave Lucas says:
    The purpose of my blog has always been "as a digital dairy/journal/scrapbook" - originally it was meant primarily to accompany my weekly radio show - it evolved to what it is today - Circa 2006 I got 90% of my traffic via technorati, today Google brings in about 55% and the rest comes from various sources. I have found that twitter is a huge contributor at 20% while incoming traffic from facebook is less than 1 per cent. I detest email newsletters.
    • Dave Lucas says:
      Er - I meant DIARY not dairy... MOO!
    • Don Purdum says:
      Hi Dave, thanks for commenting! It's refreshing to know what you know what your purpose is and why your site exists. It appears that has significantly aided you in targeting your audience through appropriate sources. While I understand why you detest the email newsletters, if folks opt-in it's because they want what you have to say and find value in it. There are a lot of people who want to hear from you there and will find your site from Google, but they may not be active on social media to stay up with you. It's another great way to connect if done right. I hope you will reconsider? Kudos on the great work you've done building up your site!
  17. Daniel Wood says:
    I do agree with you Don, both SEO and social media are necessary for running a successful business. While SEO may take a long time, it provides results for a longer time period. Once you achieved the ranking, it is not that easy to replace a site from its position in Google. Also as the traffic is from the people already looking for your service, conversion rate is quite good if your site is informative and useful to the users. On the other hand if you are good in interaction, then Social Media can do the wonders for you. It is absolutely correct that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter can get you loads of traffic in very less time. Every one said so. But i think that is easier to be said than done. In reality there are a very few people who have achieved that traffic through Social Media. and ofcourse if due to any reason you discontinue with your social media campaign even for a few days, you will lost the traffic all of a sudden. which is not the case with search engine. To balance both, you have to take care of both.
    • Don Purdum says:
      Hi Daniel, Thanks for commenting! You bring up some great points, of which are extremely valid. The purpose of the article is get those folks off of the sidelines who think engagement is not necessary. A six page static website all by itself does not have the effectiveness it once had with a search engine. Yet, that's what a lot of small business owners are still doing, and it isn't enough if your competitors are doing more online. Balance is absolutely imperative between SEO and Social Media. The other side of it is too many people don't know why they are online. They just want more traffic, assuming that will bring them more money. It's the same with just wanting large numbers of the wrong Facebook Fans. They are not thinking about target markets, campaigns, online and offline integrated marketing, etc. And, it's understandable. That is not what they are trained in. But, it does not mean they don't need to work at it any less.
  18. Raj says:
    Hi Don, well said...It is crucial to balance between audience engagement and SEO. But sometimes, people may lose way and focus on the wrong thing. Sometimes, obsession with linkbuilding can become so high that one might forget the real purpose behind that and sometimes you may be so in to blogging that you don't focus on generating traffic to it. For maximum results, its essential to have concentrate one's efforts to both aspects of successful blogging...
    • Don Purdum says:
      Hi Raj, Thanks for commenting! Agreed! I just said that same thing in reply above. You need to know your target market and how you are using all of the tools (both online and offline) together to reach them. Well said Raj!
  19. techtikus says:
    If I look at my traffic sources I'd say a large chunk of my blog's traffic was brought by social media. If I took a closer look though these past two months, natural search engine traffic has topped of traffic from social media on a daily basis. Although it is still a long way to catch up with the total amount of traffic from social media it is slowly charging it's way up. In my opinion SEO is good but it will take quite some time to take off. Social media on the other hand can take off fairly quick if your engagement with your audience is good. With social media for me it depends on luck as well.
    • Don Purdum says:
      Thanks Techtikus for commenting! That's a great point. There are times when one can help over the other, especially with newer sites.