Which Comes First, SEO or an Active Community?

I'm posing this question -- Which Comes First, SEO or an Active Community? -- because I'm not sure the importance of SEO (search-engine optimization) is always considered when it comes to planning new online communities . It is sort of a "chicken or the egg" question, but I've come to the conclusion that when you think about building an active customer community, you need to think about search-engine optimization. 

Here's why: you need big numbers to have an active community and SEO is a key part of delivering them.

We've all seen the 90-9-1 statistic, and whether you accept it literally or not, it's obvious that only a fraction of your community members will be active creators of content. It's what we see in the real (not online) world, after all, where in any given group the vast majority will listen and observe while a motivated few take initiative and lead the way. 

So, if you want discussions in your community to be lively and timely, if you want content to be fresh and not grow stale, you need a lot of people who are willing to be active. To get a large number of them, you need a large community. 

There are lots of ways to populate your community, but for sustainable growth the search engines are your best friend. When content from your community shows up high in searches for terms and phrases that represent problems and solutions important to potential members of your community, you'll have created a set of signs leading new members in your door. And not just any members -- these are self-selected, interested and motivated members.

I call that organic growth -- it's all natural. If you have thought things through well, then your community exists to serve a specific population for a specific purpose. Make sure the content that's in your community has value and meaning for your members, and also consider how to optimize that content for search engines.

I'm no SEO expert, and this post isn't about *how* to optimize your community's content for search engines (there are plenty of SEO experts out there, but I'll point to one of my favorites, where I have learned a lot: Jill Whalen's High Rankings website). 

I'm simply telling you to make SEO for your community content part of your plan right from the start. I'm happy to share a few tips I've learned over the years, however.

• When you respond to a question or create content, think about the kinds of terms that someone would search on if they were interested in this. Sprinkle those terms in the content naturally a few times (don't overdo it!). Instead of using common speaking or writing references (e.g., "that," "this, "it") all the time, ignore your school teacher's advice and be a bit redundant. Notice how many times I have used "search engine optimization" instead of only SEO. 
• Recognize that search engines are literal, and there may be other ways to phrase or describe the main topics you are writing about. For example, "search engine optimization" and "SEO" refer to the same thing, so I am using both in this post. Think about the exact words people would likely enter in a search box.
• Make the title of content engaging to people and search engines, both. Obviously you want a key search term right in the title if you can do so. The search engines will compare the title with the content and look for it to match up. But there's also the human factor to consider. When your content does show up in the search engines, you want a compelling title to increase the chances that people will click through to it. So, think again like a potential member of your community who has a need, question or problem: what would get them to take a look at your content?
• Build your content in small, targeted chunks. I learned the power of this quite by accident. In managing a Q&A site, our content was naturally built around very specific topics. When we split out each topic as its own webpage (the way blogs do), our search results and traffic grew tremendously. Search engines want to provide specific answers to specific questions, so short and sweet works for them. The more targeted, the better.
• Use consistent terms and phrases throughout your community site. So, if your community is about social media, that term should appear in just about everything on your site (again, don't overdo it and don't force it, but look for opportunities). All that short targeted content will get aggregated by the search engines and they'll conclude that your site really is a rich resource for those terms.
• Use tags. These are freebies, folks. You get to set a list of the key terms people should use to find your content.
• Link to other content and sources when it makes sense to do so. First of all, look for opportunities to link to your own content. Those internal links not only help your readers navigate quickly and easily, but they show the search engines the connections between your content, too. But link outside your site, as well. The more connected your community is to other expert resources, the more helpful you are to your readers -- and, again, search engines look for these connections. Last point on links -- they can lead to links back to your site, which is even more valuable.
• Name drop and praise generously. It's a great way to get people to create links to your site. People and organizations like to link to places where good things have been said about them. And don't just drop the link into your content -- reach out to the person/place you've complimented and make sure they know about it. You can either email them or, much more Web 2.0, you can leave a comment on their site with another compliment and include the link to your site where you praise them. That creates an incoming link to your site -- a really good SEO thing -- and if you've chosen a well-trafficked site to praise (hint, hint), then that little link could really pay off over time.
• Make it easy for people to share your content. There are all kinds of tools now, including the ShareThis button you see at the bottom of this post. You want word of mouth, so make it really simple and painless for people to talk about you and recommend your site.
• Consider creating lists. I don't know why, but lists seem to be popular with both readers and search engines alike. Have you noticed that this is a list?
• Last tip: be honest and do right by your community and searchers alike. Don't bait and switch with a catchy headline for content that doesn't deliver on that topic. Don't pound search terms into people in your content and turn them away by making your material annoying to read. The best SEO advice I ever got was to do what's best for your readers -- the SEO results will generally follow if you keep that in mind.

What do you think? And do you have any SEO tips you recommend for customer communities?