Create your own branded subreddit

Chris says: “Make your own branded subreddit.

The fact that Reddit is dominating the SERPs right now is something that everyone is noticing, even people who aren't SEO specialists.

It's a really fast and underappreciated way to start ranking for a lot of high-difficulty keywords, and it doesn't have to be too difficult either.”

Why do search engines and readers like Reddit at the moment?

“Search engines like it because readers like it, so we can answer one by answering the other. Readers like Reddit because they're sick of listicles from websites that obviously put themselves as the number one SEO agency. They want something genuine.

One place where you can go to find genuine answers from real people is Reddit. Therefore, people are more likely to click through to Reddit links; they're more likely to spend some time on those pages and read through a variety of opinions from real people.”

Does this apply to a broad section of society, or is a certain type of user more likely to engage on Reddit?

“When you look at Reddit’s user demographics, it's used more by younger people than older people. However, I was recently talking to someone who is in the process of getting another round of funding from some VCs, and one of them came to him and said, ‘I Googled your company's name, and look at what they're saying on Reddit.’

This was an older person, who's well-established, and who has a lot of resources to do research with, but he's using Reddit just like someone might do when they’re looking for a recipe, because he understands that he can get some real opinions there.”

Is it always an advantage to rank on both Reddit and your site if you are ranking well for your target keyword phrase?

“Absolutely. For a lot of non-branded keywords, Google isn't going to want to put your site in the top 10 twice. However, if you have your own branded subreddit, you can effectively do just that.

You will both increase the amount of real estate that you're taking up on the SERP and attract a different kind of reader. Someone who might not click on a branded website might click on a branded subreddit, so you're attracting two different kinds of audiences as well.

Also, Reddit provides some opportunities to really address things like common objections to your product. If you have a branded subreddit, it's very likely that real people will go on there and make those complaints. That's okay. That's something that you don't need to be afraid of because that's your opportunity to shape the conversation around those objections and give your responses to those things.

Then, when someone Googles those common complaints or objections, they’ll get your conversation around those things, not someone else’s.”

How do you build up the authority of your subreddit and rank for keywords with posts there?

“The number one thing you can do is make it and post there. A lot of people aren't even taking that first step. It's like the first step to SEO, which is making sure that you have a blog for search engines to crawl in the first place, and a lot of folks aren't even at that step.

After that, you want a consistent posting schedule. It’s okay if most of those posts are coming from your own accounts at first, but you can cross-post those onto other subreddits, usually smaller ones, that might be interesting.

If you're trying to sell a cookbook and a personal brand around that cookbook, you can do some cross-posts on the subreddit r/EatCheapAndHealthy. That's specifically for people who are looking for a narrower niche within cooking more broadly. You can cross-post there and say, ‘Here's one of my recipes from my cookbook,’ for example.”

How do you interact on your own subreddit without appearing overly self-promotional?

“In my experience, it really helps to be honest. You are there to sell things, and you shouldn't try and sneak around and say, ‘I'm here to just help people out.’

If you're posting from the Majestic Reddit account on the Majestic subreddit, people know that you're there to promote Majestic, and that's okay as long as you're honest about it.

The important thing is that you allow other conversations to happen. The number one thing that can kill a subreddit is over-moderating; trying to overly control every little piece of conversation between users – whose accounts, ultimately, you don’t control.

Let people have their own conversations, and you can also promote and advocate for yourself by saying, ‘I’m a real person, I work for this company, here’s what I think.’ Some people will like that and some people won’t, but it’s those genuine interactions that start aggregating the most positive brand sentiment on places like Reddit.”

Can your own subreddit account act like an online customer service portal that you could redirect common customer questions to?

“You can do that, but I would be cautious about only using it for that sort of thing, because then your subreddit is only full of complaints. That's not what you want, especially because we're seeing LLMs scrape subreddits a lot, particularly branded subreddits. You don't want it to just be complaints on there.

I would use it for a mix of things. If someone makes a product complaint on there, absolutely answer it, and use it for that. However, you can also use it for PR and product announcements, and you can use it for giving advice to your audience that may or may not be about your product, in the way that you would use your own blog. It's a multi-purpose medium.”

Are you not building your brand on rented land?

“In a sense, you are, but the direction that Reddit is headed (based on all of its financial disclosures) is that it wants to make itself as brand-friendly and as open to this exact use case as possible, because that's where they see their own opportunity for growth. You're building your brand on land where the owners want you to be. They want you to do this exact kind of thing.

The fact is that search engines love them. This is where the traffic is pointed anyway, so it's good to have an outlet in that mall. Search engines love them at the moment.

Obviously, Google did a deal with Reddit, which makes it more likely for Reddit to be prominent in the search results, but it's not necessarily forever. However, it's also showing up a lot in ChatGPT, and it's showing up a lot in Bing. It's not unique to Google and, while 90% of search is still through Google, we’re seeing search diversify a bit more for the first time in a long time. As we're seeing that, we're still seeing a lot of traffic go to Reddit.

The core factors that make Reddit appealing to people remain true, regardless of that deal with Google. There was a lot of traffic going to Reddit before that deal happened, but now that's solidified it and amplified it even more. Also, because it moves so quickly, you can see ROI relatively quickly compared to other forms of SEO.”

How often do you have to post on Reddit, and how do you encourage interaction to start with?

“I would recommend that you have 3-5 native posts in your subreddit per week, and that you're also posting comments on a daily basis, replying to threads in other subreddits, and just being helpful in the community. You want to build a brand presence in communities that you'd like to target and are relevant to your audience.

It is a slow, low, and steady engagement process, but we see it snowball pretty quickly – especially if you drive traffic towards that subreddit. If you have people on your own team or customers who know and like your product going to your subreddit, asking questions, and having conversations with each other organically, that can drive growth really quickly.

Reddit will also drive traffic towards your subreddit if they think that someone is likely to be interested in it. If you're creating good content that raises engagement, then Reddit will drive people to your subreddit as well.”

Should you attempt to drive people from your subreddit to your website, or is this something that would happen naturally?

“That can be a bit trickier because people don't like clicking on external links as much in Reddit, but if you can do that organically or if someone requests it, there are absolutely ways to do that.

One of the most effective is when you have an in-depth study, you publish an insight from it, and you say, ‘You can read the rest here.’ We're all familiar with that playbook, and it's especially effective on Reddit. Create an infographic and say, ‘I pulled this from this report that my team published,’ and that's a pretty easy way to drive traffic towards your site.

However, that might not be your end goal because the conversation is happening on Reddit. You’re affecting that conversation, which is a great goal in and of itself.”

How do you use Reddit to encourage AI to feature your brand, and how do you measure the value of those interactions?

“There are tools like Perplexity that you can use to check what kinds of searches you're showing up in.

When it comes to how to target LLMs, the field of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is still really new, so I can't pretend that I have all the answers there. However, I recently read a paper about how semantic phrasing really matters.

If you would like a Reddit post to show up in searches around Majestic, using that keyword towards the beginning of a sentence, and in a sentence that contains a common question, is a good way to target those same questions that people are asking.

People ask LLMs questions that are phrased differently from the way they would type into Google. Keep that in mind, and try to keep the language organic. At the end of the day, it's pretty simple to write that out because that's how people interact with LLMs: with really naturalistic writing.”

Is there a decent Reddit competitor/alternative, or is Reddit fairly ubiquitous?

“Within a specific industry or location, there might be. If we're talking about the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, and we're talking about general use, then Reddit is the biggest player.

However, for SaaS companies and SaaS startups, Y Combinator’s forums might be a real competitor there, or there might be specific automobile forums that are big for that specific niche.

You want to research your niche, but Reddit is widely very popular.”

Chris, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“Get on Reddit and start posting. Do it now to start seeing your results snowball as quickly as possible.”

Chris Meabe is Content Manager at Foundation Marketing. Find out more over at ChrisMeabe.com.