the problem is... that optimizing content for people which are outside of Steemit is bad in short term for authors. They prefer to focus on users on platform, which already have a lot of SteemPower. Votes from 100 new users which will find your article in Google and even register on Steemit because of your article... those 100 votes will be worth close to nothing.
guilds could actually help with that, if they would focus only on content which is very popular also outside a Steemit but on Steemit is undervalued.
True, especially if those new users vote after the 24-hour payout period.
In the long term good content keeps on bringing in new users which will eventually drive up the price of Steem. In the end the whole community benefits hereof.
SEO is definitely a long term goal. But I think the whole story here is built to work in the long run (example: steemit.com has been in beta for almost one year now :)).
The next update will bring new solutions and extend the payout period to 7 days. That will help a lot to open the doors for new users.
This is something the large stakeholders themselves should be paying attention to. Getting actual traffic onto Steemit.com = providing value to the network that should be rewarded.
That´s true, @noisy. I fully agree. SEO is surely an investment in the future and results will be seen in the long run. I totally understand that it´s a lot (maybe too much) work to do for the majority of authors. That´s why some helping tools (included in the editor) would be brilliant (keyword setting for instance).
Regardless, articles like this one here increase at least the awareness. That´s already a big step.