Is SEO Relevant?

[AWS]

Back in the day you had to actively work to make your forum accessible to robots. You had to work to get your site listed in directories such as yahoo, which was the holy grail at the time, or Open Directory Project at dmoz.org. Now it seems the SE's will find you no matter what.

What you think. Is SEO really necessary?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

DMOZ That brings back memories!

I wish it would had stayed in tact. it was always a reputable directory.

As far as SEO goes, I think and I know it still has weight. But for a forum, it's more difficult. Not all users will understand SEO and if we try to force it one them, we'll only run them off.

I feel like forum owners should do very little in terms of SEO.

Instead, focus on social media marketing and building a loyal community. We don't need SEO to succeed. We need to focus on people marketing.

 

[Cpvr]

I’d say SEO is still relevant, especially since Google implemented the ‘Forums’ tab on their search engine. Our forum threads can appear in search results, particularly when considering user intent. Some users might type a question into Google and find a forum thread, which could lead them to our forums.

Building links to our forums can help us rank higher if we want to focus on Google rankings. It’s still an effective way to attract new users, much like social media marketing.

 

[Bawse]

I've been noticing more traffic to my forums from search engines. You need to steadily build links, and create fresh content. It takes time to see results from SEO.