Take advantage of open forums

Navah says: “This might catch some of you by surprise, because I am definitely a paid media girl, but my tip is to focus on non-login forums like Quora and Reddit, and other niche vertical forums as well.

They provide a really useful way to bypass some of those ranking questions, such as how to beat your competitors on those more competitive search terms. Also, on the paid side, you can sneak in there because a lot of search result pages put forums at the top – above paid ads.

On top of that, there are a lot of great creative insights you can gain for both your paid and organic efforts.”

Should you be writing a question and answering it yourself or should you just get involved in the discussions that are already happening?

“It’s 100% both.

It’s very useful to have a branded login, where people can tell that it’s obviously you, so that you can shape the conversation and put some questions out there. It’s also really helpful to have anonymous interactions where you can get people’s honest takes on you and your brand, but also on the topics that are related to your brand.

I’ve had the pleasure of reading a really lovely Reddit thread about Optmyzr. I’ve also had the heartbreak of reading a really negative thread about Optmyzr. People will say anything and everything on social media, and on these forums, so it’s important to develop a thick skin.

There is huge value in reading, responding, hearing, and teasing out some of those questions. Be transparent when you’re clearly getting information but, when you’re just reading information and upvoting or downvoting things, it’s okay to be anonymous.

It’s useful to get that honest take. People tend to be nice to your face because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. When you’re anonymous, you can get some really useful feedback about your customer service team, the usability of your tool, and your pricing compared to your competitors. There’s a plethora of amazing pieces there.

When you are thinking about the topics you’re going after for your content and paid media campaigns, there is a real cost associated with creating that content, having it rank organically, and then getting your listing to the top of the SERP. Therefore, it’s really important that you invest in the right topics. Checking out those forums is a really useful way to do that.

Login platforms like Discord and Slack are also amazing resources. You should participate and join in – and even consider hosting your own for your best customers.

However, they are not going to be how you rank, they are going to be how you get feedback. If your goal is purely feedback, then you probably want to create a peer-rated group that will be respectful and honour the rules of engagement. If your goal is purely ranking, then non-login forums are the way to go.”

Is it likely that users can find out when you’re being anonymous as a brand?

“It depends on who you are and what you’re posting. If you post something super innocent like, ‘That’s really interesting!’, they’re probably not going to figure it out. However, if you ask really probing questions or speak in a very ‘salesy’ tone, then they’ll probably figure it out.

If you’re going to go the anonymous route where the point is to get that feedback, you have to rein yourself in with what you’re going to ask. If you’re open about the brand you represent and openly explain that you want to understand some of the problems they’re talking about, by starting a conversation in the forum or in DMs, those are different conversations.

If the goal is to rank, you should not be anonymous. The goal is to show that you’re present and you’re engaged. If your goal is feedback, on the other hand, the most honest feedback will be when they do not know who you are.

Also, people will be more honest when they don’t have to be responsible for what they say, People tend to be cruder or meaner when they don’t have to take responsibility. LinkedIn, for example, is just as lovely and wonderful – and it will help you rank as well. However, it’s not going to be that same forum conversation.

LinkedIn is much more focused on a topic, a person that ranks well for that topic, and some of that person’s posts that are interesting. You still need a login to fully engage with that content. Reddit and Quora let you have a ‘freemium’ guest approach, which is super useful for brands that are trying to bypass the friction layers of a login and competitive search terms – whether it’s on paid or in content.”

When you’re posting as a brand, do you recommend full disclosure, where you’re answering questions but stating that you might be biased?

“100%. I typically go a step further, and I’ll name competitors when I talk about our tool.

It’s good to treat your competitors as friends, and have friendly competition as opposed to ruthless cutthroat competition, because we all go to the same events and talk to the same people. If you are a friendly competitor/partner/affiliate, it’s very easy for your friends to talk about you.

I can say that I’m Navah from Optmyzr and we have all these great functionalities but, if you want something on the simpler side or you’re more of a beginner, Opteo is a great choice. If you are heavily on the enterprise side, Fluency and Skai are great options. It’s a matter of cultivating those friendships.

One of the reasons why some brands lean into influencer marketing, and some brands lean away from it, is because there’s a degree of authenticity when someone truly loves the tool, and shares that they love it – not because they were paid to say that but because they genuinely mean it.

We have a Friends of Optmyzr program where we invite people to share their feedback. We do not pay these people so, when they share their amazing perspective, it is genuine. Some brands will pay and have affiliate links associated with sharing that positive content.

When you’re thinking about forums and rankings, another consideration is whether the content being posted is clearly a paid promotion, and it’s essentially an advertorial, or whether it’s someone’s genuine feelings about a product or service.

I think it’s far more important for the influencer to disclose than it is for the brand, when something is a paid promotion or there is a paid partnership. A brand will obviously be biased about and promote themselves. However, when an influencer puts their name out there and associates their clout with a brand, and it doesn’t go so well, that’s where I see a bigger risk.

You should consider that when you’re thinking about how to navigate those forums, especially knowing how mean people can be.”

You’ve talked about virtue in marketing before, so what does that mean to you?

“One of the things that I talk about with Fred Vallaeys, one of the Co-Founders at Optmyzr, is scaling virtue. There are a lot of people who feel like we have to be evil to do our job. There are a lot of things in marketing that feel icky, such as privacy issues and deceptive policies and practices. There’s a whole black hat SEO industry around tactics that may or may not be above board.

A lot of people actually exit marketing, not because they weren’t successful, but because they want to do something that they feel is good. The problem is, you can only do so much good one-to-one.

Part of why I’m in software is because, as I found out throughout my career, I do best when I can help a lot of people with the least amount of effort. Optmyzr has been opening up a number of our studies and sharing a lot of data, in part to scale that virtue and bring a level of transparency.

These are good thought-leader topics that can influence forums. We are sharing data that only we could share, because we have access to all of these accounts and can share these trends – and we’re doing that from a place of goodness. We’re just looking to share the information, and people can do what they want with it. We’re not charging them, and we’re not doing it for the money.

If you’re doing something for good, and the point is to do good, and you happen to make money, it’s a much healthier mindset. If you make a whole bunch of money and you happen to do good, that’s nice, but you were doing it for the money. They’re very different outlooks, and you make very different choices based on those outlooks.”

Are massive, branded discussion boards like Reddit and Quora where you want to be, or is there still a place for fairly small niche forums?

“100%. I talk about Quora and Reddit as the tithe that we have to pay to rank, or the tithe we have to pay to collect information en masse. Where I have my most productive conversations are actually little Discord communities that are focused on digital marketing.

They are locked behind a login and you have to be accepted into the group, and there are very specific roles. People know exactly who you are because you got accepted into this group. If you don’t abide by the rules, you will be kicked out of the group.

Another great forum is Slack. There are a lot of really great Slack groups, like the amazing PPC Chat run by Julie Friedman Bacchini. She has done a fantastic job migrating PPC Chat (which was running for almost 2 decades on Twitter/X) over to Slack. There is lots of great information there, and you even get to talk with Ginny Marvin quite a bit.

When you’re looking at a login group, where it’s a bit more private and there’s a more human connection, you get a richer connection. The price you pay is that there aren’t going to be as many people, so the statistical significance of the findings is going to be limited. There’s going to be more anecdotal data.

When you’re looking at larger groups, they are going to have lots of potential eyeballs, but you can’t control or moderate how it goes. I personally don’t like Reddit or Quora very much. For personal use, I like Reddit less than Quora. There are essentially two people on Reddit. One is an exceptionally helpful person who posts very useful tutorials and is super detailed and helpful and nice. The other is someone who loves to make others feel bad about themselves for how stupid they are.

I tend to prefer kindness in engagement, so I don’t like going on Reddit very much but, every once in a while, I’ll check out some subreddits on topics like gaming – but not so much marketing. The marketing ones are hit or miss. There are some really good subreddits for verticals like travel, legal, DIY, and computers. If you’re looking to get started, and you’re in those verticals, those can be very useful.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“I’m going to preface this by saying that this is not me attempting to be preachy or judgmental. We all need to stop focusing on how dubious Google is and focus more on our business, our business metrics, and doing the things needed to succeed.

A lot of people complain on forums, LinkedIn, etc. about all the ways that Google has wronged them. There are things that Google has done that are certainly bad, but the way that you move forward is by, first, giving them constructive and specific criticism, and then by focusing on your business.

You can look at other channels. Not enough people are paying attention to Microsoft and Amazon, for example. These non-login forums are another really powerful way to influence the conversation. People are starting to begin their searches on these forums.

Take 20% of the time you would have spent complaining or shaking your fist at Google and allocate that to checking out three subreddits. Carve out time during the week when you’re going to check out these subreddits or participate in a login group.”

Navah Hopkins is Evangelist at Optmyzr, and you can find her over at Optmyzr.com.