Here are links to the previous Steem SEO Tips posts, for easier navigation:
SEO Tips #1: https://steempeak.com/seo-tips/@gadrian/seo-tips-steemians-optimize-content
SEO Tips #2: https://steempeak.com/@gadrian/13-on-page-optimizations-authors-can-use-on-steem-seo-tips-2
SEO Tips #3: https://steempeak.com/better-seo/@gadrian/howto-improve-steem-seo
Google reads pages on the web kinda like a human (with exceptions and differences that are not important to point out now). From top to bottom, from left to right, and yes, from one page to the next / another, if there is a link between them.
Google also takes time to crawl a website, the bigger and slower the website, the more time. While it sees things that may be invisible to the naked user eye, like metas or a sitemap, Google generally goes through links one by one, starting from the homepage of the website.
The best position your content can be on to be indexed by Google is on the homepage of the website. The next best position is that your content is on a page directly linked on the homepage. And the next next best position is when your content is discovered through a link found on the directly linked page.
You get the picture: the shorter the path to your post, the better. That is true for both human visitors and for bots.
Let's take a look at steemit.com homepage (while I am logged out, as Google bot is):
What is shown directly on the homepage -- if you can notice in the screenshot above --, is Trending: All Tags posts. If your post is trending on the platform, all tags considered (so not within a specific tag), it is there.
I also marked certain groups of links that appear on the homepage:
- Trending, New, Hot and Promoted links at the top (marked as group 1 on the image above)
- most used tags at the right (group 2)
- featured posts (group 3)
- regular posts, in this case also trending (group 4)
- Steemit updates on the right sidebar (group 5)
Links from Groups 3 and 5 are currently entirely up to Steemit Inc. on their interface.
On some other interfaces, one can purchase a featured post position, which will go in Group 3.
Also on some interfaces, the promoted posts from Group 1 are also displayed as special posts inserted in all other feeds, and marked as promoted, much like featured posts are. I believe Palnet.io pioneered this little improved exposure benefit for promoted posts in our ecosystem:
So, for SEO purposes, having a post on the trending page (for all tags) is best, because that's what it is displayed on the homepage.
The next best thing is that Google only needs to go through one link to get to a page where your post is listed.
Let's ignore the New posts category from this logic, because they don't stay high on the page long enough for Google to notice them, unless you are extremely lucky.
But all the other options in Group 1 are valid. A hot or promoted post is still one "click" away (i.e. one follow of a link) for the crawler.
So are trending posts in a specific topic which is listed by steemit.com on its homepage (for example, trending on photography tag). Not hot or new posts on the same topic though! Because for that, the crawler needs to follow the topic link first from Group 2 and then follow the appropriate link from Group 1. Two pages to crawl instead of one, plus your own post.
See how a little distinction between hot and trending can make a difference?
It also raises more questions to our eternal disputes on what deserves to be on the trending page(s), and for what reasons.
Anyway, being on the trending page of Steemit or other Steem interface does not guarantee indexing by Google. But given similar conditions, a trending post has better chances of being indexed (or receiving a higher position) than a non-trending one.
The easier it is for Google to find your post, the better chances are for it to be indexed. Afterwards, optimization factors matter. But first Google needs to find your post.
Let's take one of my posts as evidence to that. The previous post I've written about Steem SEO Tips, is ranked 3rd when searching after its title "How to Improve SEO on Your Steem Posts?":
That's really good actually! My previous two posts on the subject are not indexed, at least not high enough to matter.
See something interesting at the image above? My post was not indexed for the steemit.com domain, not for the steempeak.com domain, the interface I used to publish it, but for ctptalk.com.
Maybe Blain (
So, here's the tip: if you have a post that you believe is worth indexing from Steem, but it's unlikely you will make the trending page on steemit.com, choose carefully the tribes (and future communities) you post for. You might get what you wish when you choose to support a smaller tribe or community. A previous good track record in that tribe / community would help, of course.
Here's another tip.
I started this post like this:
Google reads pages on the web kinda like a human (with exceptions and differences that are not important to point out now). From top to bottom, from left to right, and yes, from one page to the next / another, if there is a link between them.
That bold text is very important. To be discovered, your post needs to have links to it. That's one more reason why you should distribute your (and others') posts on social media and why you should link to other posts.
I've already mentioned the benefits of adding internal and outbound links for SEO here, but I thought a reminder doesn't hurt.
Also, I was wrong earlier, I didn't start the post like that. But it is the description meta of the post (slightly modified), if you remember what that is. If not, I explained it at the beginning of the series.
See something else interesting at the image above, with the search results?
Google didn't use the description meta, when indexing my post, instead it used section titles and some fill up words from the beginning of the first non-title section to put together the description of my post for their search engine. Not as I expected and not as explicit as a good description meta, but I guess that's how Google algorithm works now. The description meta still works like a charm for sharing a post on social media or on places like the Discord.
I began our post from today by adding links to the previous SEO Tips in the series. Great for the human reader, great for a bot crawler.
And I'll end it the same way, since it was a pretty long post.
Here are links to the previous Steem SEO Tips posts, for easier navigation:
SEO Tips #1: https://steempeak.com/seo-tips/@gadrian/seo-tips-steemians-optimize-content
SEO Tips #2: https://steempeak.com/@gadrian/13-on-page-optimizations-authors-can-use-on-steem-seo-tips-2
SEO Tips #3: https://steempeak.com/better-seo/@gadrian/howto-improve-steem-seo