What is Cryptocurrency SEO?
Search Engine Optimization or simply SEO can be defined as the set of processes and tactics used to improve the organic presence of a website in search engines.
Crypto SEO is the process of ranking your website in search engines for relevant crypto - and blockchain - related keywords, helping increase your brand exposure and reach a larger audience.
SEO is incredibly important and must be included in every successful digital marketing strategy, even more for the cryptocurrency industry. Let’s see why.
SEO is the most effective digital strategy for cryptocurrency websites
Even though Google has recently made it possible for eligible crypto websites to run search engine ads, the truth is that there are still many limitations in the crypto advertising space.
This is why SEO for cryptocurrency is incredibly important and when the SEO strategy is planned and executed well, SEO can really determine the success of your project.
However, SEO is not just about finding some relevant keywords, sticking them on a web page and letting it work its magic.
The reality is that SEO is a complex matter and it requires a lot of research, analysis and most importantly, patience. At first, outranking other crypto sites that are competing for the same keywords you want to rank for might seem a very steep mountain to climb. But don’t be let down by what seems to be an impossible task, good work always pays off.
There are many factors that determine good SEO results and while there are many valid SEO guides out there that do a good job in outlining them, we will look specifically at those factors that are more relevant to the cryptocurrency vertical.
Content is king, especially in the cryptocurrency market
SEO experts and crypto marketers universally agree that content is one of the most important ranking factors along with link building, a good technical framework and User Experience (UX), just to name a few.
When we perform a search on Google and click on a search result, we expect to read something that it’s relevant to us. That’s Google’s main job: serving results that are relevant to our search. But how can we improve our SEO ranking and make our web page appear for a specific crypto keyword?
The answer is quite complex as there are many factors that influence the Google algorithms, however the basic and most important rule is very simple: Your content must be relevant and engaging.
How to make your content relevant to your target audience
Keyword research is usually the first step to build great content. Ask yourself the question: Which keywords my target audience would use to find my website? This might sound very basic but it’s incredibly important.
For example, if your website is an NFT marketplace, the user search intent is likely to be transactional, meaning that keywords like “buy nft” or “buy nft with [insert cryptocurrency here]” should be part of your shortlist, whereas if you run a blog or a news outlet the search intent will be more informative, with users asking questions such as “what cryptocurrencies are trending right now” or “what’s the difference between pow and pos”.
In essence, to build content that is relevant to your target audience you need to find the right keywords that serve the right search intent. Don’t stuff too many keywords in one sentence or paragraph; content must be created with users in mind and nobody likes to read a list of keywords that doesn’t make much sense. Google algorithms are very advanced and they can understand search intent with an incredibly high accuracy.
To summarise:
- Make sure that your content reads well
- It’s relevant for what your target audience is searching
- It matches their search intent
If you follow these three basic rules you have already done a good chunk of your work!
Crypto Content Specific Factors: E-A-T and YMYL
Creating relevant and engaging content that matches with users search intent is something that is common to all verticals, not just crypto.
However, there is an additional layer that sets crypto SEO apart when we talk about content creation.
The crypto verse is growing exponentially and more and more people want to be part of it. Whether it’s for buying, selling or exchanging cryptocurrencies, NFTs, real estate in the metaverse, P2E games or any other aspect of decentralised finance in general, the truth is that the crypto verse moves a lot of money.
The majority of crypto projects are legitimate, have proven utilities and have earned trustworthiness over the years, but at the same time the crypto verse is still a grey area with many rugpulls and shady projects. Even the most expert crypto investors have been scammed and lost a considerable amount of their stakes.
Google is perfectly aware of that and to make sure that users are served with the best content, they have developed the Search Quality Rating Guidelines which are used by a human team of assessors who manually rate the quality of Google’s search results.
This gives a strong hint on what Google is looking for from pages and content and factors like E-A-T and YMYL play a very important role.
What’s E-A-T and how is it relevant for Crypto?
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. While it’s not a ranking factor itself, it’s heavily featured in the aforementioned Search Quality Rating Guidelines. This means that Google will reward websites that have reliable, valuable and trustworthy content and demote websites with low-quality content, pushing them down in the search result pages. But what is E-A-T? Let’s look at the three factors that make up this acronym:
Expertise: This is pretty self-explanatory. You must demonstrate expertise in the crypto niche. If your project is doxxed, this means featuring the people behind it, their achievements, background and anything that can make them see as experts in the eyes of Google and users alike. If your project is non-doxxed, demonstrating expertise could be trickier but listing previous projects or partnerships can help to increase your expertise level.
Authoritativeness: Essentially, this is how reputable your website is. Google will look at any articles, references, press releases, reviews or any other signals of authority that relates to your crypto site. The stronger level of authority about a specific crypto topic, the better your page or website will rank. Great content is linkable, meaning that it naturally attracts links from other websites and this is seen as a very strong signal of authority by Google. Link building is a key SEO pillar and we will discuss it in a dedicated paragraph.
Trustworthiness: Like expertise, this is also self-explanatory. If you want to leverage the power of SEO, you need to be reputable. Endorsements from reputable players in the crypto verse, partnerships, mentions on the main crypto news outlets and other trust factors give Google a strong signal about the trustworthiness of your website.
The bottom line is that Google ranks websites which content can be trusted and that provide users with reliable and well-researched information. Recent algorithm updates suggested that Google is putting a lot of emphasis on E-A-T.
YMYL: What cryptocurrency companies need to know
Google categorises websites that can impact users’ happiness, wellbeing, health and financial stability as “Your Money Your Life” and crypto and blockchain websites well fall into this category.
According to Google, “YMYL websites demand a high degree of trust” which ties with the E-A-T factors. It’s important to not deceive or confuse users with inaccurate or limited information, false or misleading promises such as forecasting a 10x return when in reality there is no certainty to achieve such result.
Information must be factual and identifiable, ideally disclosing the source whenever possible.
Crypto is a volatile financial investment and Google holds crypto websites to a higher standard compared to other verticals.
YMYL for crypto content is something that can be easily overlooked especially when cognitive bias comes into play. We like to think that we know our project or product better than anyone else and as such, we tend to see ourselves less biased than others (blind spot bias). This is why it’s essential that content is created by a professional crypto copywriter who is unbiased and knows the implications of YMYL in crypto SEO.
Link building for crypto websites: what’s different?
Inbound links, i.e. links received from other websites are vital for SEO. Links represent one of the major ranking factors and help to build authority for your website, which ties with the “A” in E-A-T.
Essentially, each link acts like a “vote” and the more votes your website receives, the more authoritative it is in the eyes of search engines. Not all votes carry the same weight though.
Receiving a link from CoinMarketCap or a major crypto news outlet is probably more relevant than a link received from a local, semi-unknown directory.
But what really makes another website linking to yours? The simple answer is content. As mentioned already, engaging content that is seen as reliable and trustworthy will naturally attract links and this is the best way to do it.
In the crypto verse, it is not uncommon to see websites that have built an impressive number of low-quality links through black hat SEO tactics. While such tactics can give a noticeable boost at the beginning, they can be harmful in the medium-long run. Google has released several algorithms throughout the years - the most famous being Panda and Penguin - to diminish the search engine results page (SERP) presence of websites that engaged in manipulative, low-quality link schemes and keyword stuffing.
Because crypto websites are considered YMYL by Google, building high-quality links using white hat SEO tactics (i.e. through natural outreach) is even more important than in other industries.
The blockchain technology applied to link building
Blockchain technology is also changing the link building game with the adoption of smart links, which allow to natively track when and with whom the link has been shared, through an embedded smart contract.
Through smart links, content creators should have more control over their links and how they are used. This will increase trust and transparency since the blockchain ledger will act as a symbol of trust and enable real content creators and businesses to ensure transparency.
Conclusions
While SEO best practices are universal and can be applied across all industries and verticals, SEO for crypto has different nuances that must be addressed to ensure a successful strategy which leads to more brand exposure and search engine traffic.
Factors such as E-A-T and YMYL are possibly even more important for crypto websites, in order to ensure trust and transparency, and helping to highlight rugpull projects and those out to deceive. If the landing page content of a project seems too good to be true, it probably is. Exorbitant APY DeFi farms and pools, typically speaking, should be avoided.
Blockchain technology will impact the future of SEO through smart links and having blockchain code integrated into a web pages source code - looks possible within the near future.
If you want to leverage the power of SEO to drive traffic to your crypto website, you need to engage with crypto advertising experts. Contact our digital marketing experts today and take your website traffic to the moon!
