For those of you who may not be familiar with keyword staking, I'll put the bottom line up front. Keyword staking is a great way to promote your content and drive more traffic to your blog/business/website/etc. In this article, we will cover three main topics.
- What is keyword staking?
- How can keyword staking help you as a content creator/author/blogger/business owner?
- What platforms allow keyword staking?
I'll also throw in a bit of a bonus and discuss my personal keyword staking strategy and the importance of "long tail keywords."
What is Keyword Staking
In order to understand why keyword staking matters, it is important to take a step back and think of the internet and how search engines work. The internet is composed of countless articles, web pages, blogs, and videos of almost every topic imaginable. However, all this information is useless if we can't find the exact information we are looking for. Search engines, such as Google, allow internet users to simply type in a search term and receive the content that is most relevant to their search. Search engines are able to sift through the vast amount of content and display the most relevant content through proprietary computer algorithms that determine what information the user gets to see first. If I search for Bitcoin, I see results for Bitcoin. If I search for cat videos, I see cat videos.
But how does this actually work? When I search for "Bitcoin", there are countless videos, so why do I see one instead of another. The way that a search engine categorized and prioritizes search results is known as the search algorithm. I won't go into all the details of search algorithms, but the basic concept is that these algorithms determines what information that we see when we search for a term.
Why Search Result Order Matters
Obviously, there is a huge advantage to having your content listed at the top of the search results. Most people will click on the first few articles that they see, and hardly anyone will even scroll to the second page of the search results. Business owners and content creators know how important it is to get their content to the top of the search results which is why they spend so much money to pay for sponsored ads and promote their content in the search results. The computer algorithms that determine search order, however, are typically guarded closely, and it can be hard to determine why one article or post is shown before another.
By contrast, keyword staking provides a more transparent way to determine search page results. With keyword staking, users attach tags to their content. For example, I recently created a video about withdrawing LBC from the LBRY platform and used the keywords "how to withdraw lbc from lbry", "lbc", "lbry", and "withdraw lbc." These tags help the search engine find my content when a users inputs a query relating to withdrawing their lbc from the LBRY platform. Let's suppose for a minute that 10 other content creators had created a video about withdrawing LBC from LBRY. Which video would a user be shown first?
With traditional search engines, a video would be prioritized by an opaque algorithm, but with keyword staking, those search results would be prioritized by the amount of crypto staked into a specific keyword. The difference is that keyword staking is more transparent. Google has frequently been accused of manipulating search results to favor certain content and viewpoints over others, but due to the secrecy of the algorithm, it is difficult to prove this. By contrast, keyword staking is a more transparent process in which the content that has the most staked crypto is promoted over content with less staked crypto.
Staking Strategy
I'm not an expert, but I wanted to share a few keyword staking strategies that have seemed to work well for me. First off, it is important to know that the staking strategy depends to an extent on the platform and how it rewards staking. For example, on LBRY, you can use five keywords per video and you also get to control how much LBC to stake on a specific video. Remember that long tailed keywords generate less traffic, but have less competition. By contrast, more general keywords generate more traffic and more competition. If I don't plan on staking a lot of crypto on a specific video, I will mainly use long-tailed keywords. This helps me avoid competition and be a "big fish in a small pond" so to speak. I can capture the majority of the views that are searching for that very specific keyword.
On the other hand, If I have a large amount of crypto to stake on a specific video, then it might make more sense to target broader keywords that can result in more traffic. With crypto-keyword staking, there is a bit of strategy involved. In general, staking more crypto allows you to target broader, more general keywords, and choosing long-tail keywords is better for times when you can't stake a lot of crypto against that keyword.
One more thing to consider about staking keywords is the economics of the stake-able crypto itself. As it currently stands, LBRY allows users to stake crypto against a video and then un-stake and re-stake that crypto to support another video. Staking offers a boost in search position but doesn't actually consume any of the crypto. In my opinion, this makes investing in a stake-able crypto like LBRY a smart choice. You can use the crypto to boost your traffic and then sell the full amount of the crypto back when you don't need the boost anymore. The same could be said of Presearch and the PRE token. With traditional digital advertisements, you "pay per click" which means that any money you spend on boosting your content or purchasing ads is gone once a user clicks on your ad. Even some crypto-social media platforms like Uptrennd and Minds use a "cost per click" model in which users can boost their content by spending tokens. Keyword staking offers significant advantages over both traditional advertising models and "pay to promote" crypto models because content creators still retain ownership of the underlying crypto asset used to promote their content.
As it currently stands, users can use PRE to compete for key ad space. Staking PRE will promote your content without actually consuming any of your PRE. One caveat to this is that Presearch has announced that this free staking won't last forever. Sometime in the next 12-18 months, it is possible that staking PRE will result in a loss of some PRE. It is to early to know exactly how that will play out in the future, but at least for now, it appears that staking PRE is a "free lunch." I don't know how long this will last, so I'd recommend checking out Presearch as soon as possible and deciding whether or not to take advantage of this free staking period before it goes away.
Summary
As a content creator, one of my most fulfilling experiences has been sharing my content with the world and being able to put information into the hands of those who are seeking it. However, sharing our message with the world means that we need to do more than simply create great, interactive, and informative content. We need to understand how the internet works and how search engines choose what content to show to the audience. Part of this means understanding how keyword staking can help us promote our content on crypto-social media platforms. Although I am certainly not an expert in the matter, I'd like to briefly summarize a few tips that have helped me.
Staking crypto against keywords can help content creators boost their content and gain followers
Choosing more specific keywords helps smaller channels and creators gain an audience without competing against the bigger channels
Choosing broader, general keywords can work if creators are willing to support that content with a substantial crypto stake
Crypto keyword staking can be more cost effective than traditional advertising because the crypto is not consumed during the staking process and can be resold later on.
These keyword selection strategies can be used on legacy social media platforms as well, but I believe that crypo-social media platforms offer newer creators the greatest opportunity to grow their audience through a smart keyword selection strategy and proper use of staking. I hope some of these tips are helpful, and I'd encourage you to leave your own tips in the comments so we can all learn from each other. Good Luck!