It’s Been 10 Days Since My Last Post and Here is What I Have Learned (Hint: I Should Have Listened to @princewahaj)
I have a confession to make. For the last several weeks, I have been chatting regularly with @princewahaj and upvoting many of his posts. A number of his recent posts have provided advice for Steemit members on how to integrate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in one’s own posts. These posts are very thorough and well written, yet quite readable to the average user (I should know, since my technical knowledge is quite poor).
His SEO post series offers immense value to Steemit authors and content creators, not to mention big value for Steemit overall. If more Steemians follow his advice, it will help us reach many more people. I hope you’ll check out his blog and read the whole series: https://steemit.com/@princewahaj
However, I will now confess that I have not yet taken the time yet to integrate his advice into my own posts. I did read each of his posts and marvel at his suggestions, but I had to bookmark them to save the actual SEO work for later.
Why am I telling you this now?
I just returned from vacation, having taken one week off. In the week before I left, I made a few posts. The last one was posted 10 days ago, which means that I have had ZERO active posts on Steemit for the last three days. Nada. Nothing to suck the reward pool dry. (By the way, this post is “payment declined”, since I made more $$ than I deserved from my last few posts.)
But somehow, despite not posting, I have gained hundreds of new followers in the last week. So if I’ve had no active posts for the last three days, why has my blog gained more than 100 new followers in the last 48 hours alone?
There are multiple reasons. First, I have been voting and commenting during this time. 48 hours ago was when I returned home from vacation. I can’t stop voting and commenting whenever I’m online. There’s just so much good content these days. Second, my name was published by others as having sponsored a couple of community contests. So each of those activities might have earned me a few new followers.
But here is the main reason I continued gaining followers while having no active posts
It’s because when you search Google for “steem power”, one of my posts comes up as the # 1 result. Try Googling that term and you’ll see it.
This was an old post that I wrote last year, explaining the differences between STEEM, Steem Power, and Steem Dollars (SD as we sometimes called it back then, but now known as SBD for Steem Backed Dollars). The post is now outdated, since there have been several important coding changes since then. Perhaps most significantly, we no longer have the high inflation rate that we had back then. I have tried to explain this in my follow-up comments on that post, but much of the other information in the post is still quite relevant. I'm flattered that people still find it helpful in understanding Steem Power, etc.
That post paid out long ago, so I no longer make any royalties from it. That’s fine with me, since I was fortunate to have joined Steemit very early and was well rewarded for having written it. The post now has over 9,000 views.
Also, I receive several comments each day from people on that post, thanking me for providing helpful information. Presumably, there are many more people who read it and do not send me comments.
In other words, people continue to discover my blog at a steady stream each day via Google. And some of them are discovering Steem and Steemit for the first time, coming in that way.
Would you like your own steady stream of visitors, joining Steemit and boosting visibility for your blog?
Let me humbly suggest that you read @princewahaj’s SEO posts and follow his advice: https://steemit.com/@princewahaj . I am setting aside some time to integrate those strategies into my posts also. Yes, I got lucky once without listening to advice, but if we all follow directions and do this the right way, then many of us can achieve similar results with other posts. Once we have a lot more people optimizing their posts, Steemit should feature much higher in search engine rankings for many different keywords. That will bring us more people and help the entire platform rise.
Destination: Moon.
Payment declined on post. Images not used for commercial purposes.
First thing first, I can't thank you enough because it's such an honor to be mentioned by you. I am surprised that you took your precious time in making this healthy post. It's a huge surprise for me!
Now as I have this motivation, I'll continue posting SEO Tutorial Series and include more powerful strategies so that we could all unite, and work on the growth of Steemit!
Trust me guys, SEO is powerful than Advertising. You pay a minimum of $0.30 per click to reach quality audience in Advertisement field (means if you want to reach 100,000 people, you'll have to invest $30,000) and that's for once only (means you'll have to pay again next month), but what if you'd know that you can reach to millions of people with your time investment only, month after month?
I mean, look at @donkeypong post. It's ranked #1 in Google SERP and attracting huge amount of visitors. Another example is @gavvet and third example is @liberosist .
Lets unite and work on the growth of Steemit!
I'll read the whole series. Thank you to both of you.
Thank you @teamsteem . Your time on my posts is much appreciated!
Thank you for the heads up, added @princewahaj to my stalkmarket.
I second that @teamsteem!
This is the first post by @princewahaj:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@princewahaj/seo-101-how-to-optimize-your-steemit-content-for-search-engines-seo-tutorial-series
It's the real deal.
Thanks man!
I am a newbie so I am very interested in reading your series as I have lots to learn. thank you! 😊😊
I thank u for this SEO post I'm going to read up. Only a month into steemit and it is so deep and too much to learn, lol. It's overwhelming. However, It's all good as I love to learn.
Following @donkeypong's recommendations has not led me astray! I will for sure read your series and incorporate your SEO strategies. Followed you! Cheers.
Care to drop a few examples? I can scroll down the entire New feed and find nothing worth opening.
This is an example of one that is almost criminally under appreciated
https://steemit.com/science/@rieki/is-science-just-another-religion-21st-century-dogma-faith-in-science-and-the-cult-of-objectivity-1498976562-7605853
of course it is not easy to read and takes some time to digest. Maybe the author should split it up amongst a few posts.
"New" is pretty brutal these days, but there are plenty of gems in there for those willing to take the time.
https://steemit.com/photography/@eveuncovered/one-of-those-days
Thanks for your post @donkeypong , good one indeed especially reminding us on the benefits of steem power and SEO. I think that your Steem power post is top in google because of its quality..as it s outdated, is it not possible to edit it?
AFAIK, the Steem blockchain does not allow editing of a post after the payout operation has been made.
Yes, tried it too.
All I have been able to do is add comments to clarify the information.
But can you write a new post with corrections? And in the old post, where people come, give a link to a new post in the comments? Or is it also impossible?
A classic post, too! I'll always remember this as one of my first memories of joining Steemit. It was trending the day I discovered Steem, and I joined the next day.
I've seen nearly 2,000 views on an old curation guide of mine from July too.
It would be nice to be able to see the view history for our posts (in a chart for example), but from my initial looking at the programming API, I'm not sure that's very easy to implement.
Ok, great, so when I press "POST", I do it not only for the Steemit community, but for the whole internet to see.
My last article has made it to Nr. 1 on Google on title-related search. Damn.
I don't even know how it makes me feel. Am I excited? Yes. Do I feel more pressure? Yes. Yes squared. In all caps.
It is a kind of the moment "Hey, you wanted to be seen, now you're seen".
Btw does anyone know, this views counter, does it only show views from Steemit users or from everyone?
That confirms my belief in the usefulness , long-term, to keep making long form posts even if they don't pay out very well right now.
As a platform Steemit.com will keep climbing in Alexa rank and its contents will keep ranking higher and higher in Google's search results (unless they start messing with it on purpose)
Long form content will naturally contain keywords, and google's objectives are to present searchers with quality links, so time spent on page etc. will sooner or later weigh heavily in the search rankings.
I think it can't hurt to optimize your articles of course but to much obsession to game the algorithms is probably futile since they keep changing it to defeat "optimization" tricks that do not lead to quality content.
Its a very Darwinistic system.
Playing too many games with SEO will probably hurt you in the long run IF you do it at the expense of quality content
See:
https://hallanalysis.com/2017/05/26/seo-over-optimization/
My goals for Steemit is to find an audience of true fans, preferably a 1000 of them :)
Steemit.com I think is the first platform in a long time where I see that I have a better than average shot at achieving that, because currently the quality of comments is outstanding and that will automatically improve SEO value too. That is the real multiplier.
People chasing upvotes through memes pictures etc. are playing a very short term game. They are not building a portfolio that will pay off for them as you describe in your post.
I see the current reward distribution as an anomaly, things are starting out and are a bit crazy, I see fantastic posts not getting anything and trivial ones getting ridiculous rewards.
"Good on them" I say but long term they can't count on that continuing.
Steemit.com can become a hugely rewarding platform if distribution goes to consistently tens' of dollars per good post and a few hundred for outstanding posts.
If you have some predictability about your earnings, you can make this a full time job.
To get that predictability you'll need an engaged following that is actively commenting or spreading your content...
We're not there yet, but I am betting on that becoming a reality and will keep pluggin' away at my (maybe too) long form posts...
The long game...I like it.
Wow. Thanks for your informations. Well I think you deserve those $677 for those valuable informations.
And yes, I joined Steemit 12 days ago and commenting with relevant content on others posts gives you followers. Like 250 comments a day gives me around 50 followers.
I can't wait for my SP to be bigger.
Maybe I should not have declined payout. :) You're doing it the right way. Keep interacting, commenting, voting, and building good relationships with others. It takes time, but you'll get there.
I agree, thanks. Sometimes it gives me a bad mood because of few upvotes but I understand almost a half of my followers are from my facebook. And we will grow in time, it takes time but we will!
i think i have to start doing that and not only posting on steemit
Thanks for the advice! I'll be checking out @princewahaj's account and posts!
I see that this post says "Potential Payout $677.74 in 7 days Payout Declined"
What does "Payout Declined" mean? Thanks!
It means that the post is worth that much in payout value. If I had not declined payout, then I would have earned that much. However, I chose not to accept payment, so this post does not compete with others who are earning from the rewards pool.
Thanks for the reply! That's one more thing I learned about steemit :)
I guess its not too late for us then. :) Could this be the reason why for almost a year in steemit, I have not seen a major growth of my account? I will try to understand the series of @princewahaj and follow it. Hope, it will help me grow in the platform.