We Can Be At The Top
I have talked about optimized content for a very long time. How Hive & its communities can- and will benefit by it and even though I truly believe it could change literally everything for Hive in terms of traffic and growth, there are a lot of people out there not as convinced as me.
Many people seem to be focused on the bad- or negative sides of things long before they understand, realize or see the positive. Hive isn't the usual blog or website so we can't optimize content and rank certain articles high on search engines is one thing I've heard more than once. Others claims it's useless to focus on making optimized content because it takes "too much time" and that it would take us several months or even years to see the true impact of such efforts.
I have ranked articles for specific keywords and search phrases, and even though they are long-tail keywords and low-competitive ones, I have still managed to put Hive & LeoFinance on top of Google. I have published content I believe others will benefit from and articles that people will search for on search engines. I put in effort for the future benefits so to speak and I have proved that it's doable.
The article I have pushed all the way to the top of Google was even called "The Best Post Ever On LeoFinance" because @cflclosers saw the potential and because he understands how important search engine optimization is. I have mentioned that article many times in the past as well, for various reasons. Both because I create inbound links to it, but also because it generates more "buzz" and "hype" with social signals which eventually strengthens my ranking positions even further.
I have been on the top of Google for several months already, and even though it's not the best keyword, it's bound to yield us great results over time. It's evergreen content, because it will continue to be relevant long past its publication which makes traffic grow over time. That's the whole idea with evergreen content.
Evergreen content is not news, trends, statistics or numerical reports. You aren't likely to generate any substantial amount of traffic with your personal story either, even though all content is needed on Hive.
What you earned last week could potentially be evergreen content but it depends on how you write it. If you just talk about your author rewards on Hive it's not evergreen. You'll get upvotes, comments and whatever during the first few days but you aren't likely to see any more results after that.
If you talked about how you bought Hive at $0.15 and sold it for $0.45 though, include ROI and share a story of how others can buy low and sell high, it's possible to get traffic over time. What makes it evergreen is how you present your information.
A well-optimized article ranks better than a poorly formatted article. The actual content doesn't matter in that sense. Evergreen content that is well-optimized will yield great results over time though, for two reasons;
It is optimized and it is evergreen, which means that it's continually relevant and stays "fresh". Some of you might say that finance is evergreen so anything you publish on LeoFinance should be considered evergreen content, but that is not accurate. The truth is that the majority of the content on LeoFinance is not evergreen, even though finance is an evergreen subject.
Remember what I said above: Trends, news, statistics or numerical reports that are likely to change has an 'expiration date' and is mainly used to boost traffic and sales for a limited time. That is not evergreen content and posts about how much tokens you have bought, posts about BTC reaching a new ATH or posts about Elon Musk buying/selling crypto is not something that will generate tons of traffic over time.
Those posts are great for us today, but they are not likely to give us anything at all one- or two weeks from now. If you talked about Elon Musk, had a background story and included hard facts of why he invested in bitcoin or not, people might be interested in that in the future.
- It's about what type of content others might be looking for in the future.
Think of what type of things others might be searching for on search engines now- or in the future. Optimize your content and produce evergreen content to push Hive and its tribes to new heights.
- That's how organic traffic will take us to the next level.
Also, make sure to retweet, share, like and whatever things you can do on social media to get social signals as those will bring us more juice as well.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I've been working in SEO and content marketing professionally for many years. There is so much truth in what you have shared here. I think people who don't really understand the difference between trend-related content and evergreen content might benefit from some examples. Like:
Also, you could provide some tips for how to find short and long-tail keywords. I'm not sure if SEM Rush has a free version, but one tool I really like is Ubersuggest.
Hey Jayna,
Good to see some more people on Hive that understand the true value of SEO :)
This is a great idea!
Hey @hitmeasap, maybe you could do a Hive guide to keyword research or something of the like?
SEM Rush is also my favourite keyword research tool, but as you said it's paid.
If we can get a list of free tools like Ubersuggest, Google trends, simply using Google search suggestions etc etc, this would be a good reference point.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
If we describe Evergreen content in WordPress terms, Evergreen content is a page (a static page) while much of what we post at LeoFinance, Proof of Brain, and the broader Hive.Blog universe is posts (blog entries). The posts or blog entries are on a timetable, and after time expires the content becomes stale; it's still important for historical reasons, but it's no longer fresh.
Evergreen content is any content which doesn't change much and is useful for that very reason. Think of references, lists, how-to posts, even cautionary tales.
Recently @forexbrokr and @crypto-guides began a series of guides to each cryptocurrency covered (Bitcoin, Hive, and in progress is one for Ethereum. For however many cryptocurrencies get covered by this series of guides, that will content will be (more or less) Evergreen.
Since Hive (and LeoFinance) are gaining new members every day, there could be guides to the various aspects of Hive blockchain, its dApps. Concepts such as DeFi and staking can get the Evergreen treatment. Introduction to Technical Analysis concepts (including candlestick charts would be great for novices.
As long as they qualify, there could even be Evergreen meme posts. (With the brutal price swings affecting nearly every other cryptocurrency, we can use some laughs).
Evergreen content is out there if we know where to look, and some members of LeoFinance may find it easier to post Evergreen content than the more time-sensitive analysis posts about cryptos. If they haven't found a topic they're comfortable witing about, perhaps Evergreen content is their niche: it's not time-sensitive, so they can take their time preparing the content to post when they can.
I'm in.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Thanks for this magna, it's great to see more people starting to get involved in the project.
By building a well structured base of evergreen content, we can attract endless organic traffic from Google.
More eyeballs, means more ad revenue and a higher token price after we see more burns.
I've been a little busy this weekend (we just adopted a puppy haha!!), but will be finishing off the guide to Ethereum today and have a new template ready to go.
Hopefully we'll see you getting involved with the project by writing some content for one of the subheadings :)
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
The real question is, will evergreen content get rewarded by the Hive community?
As with posts, comemnts, and replies generally, Evergreen content will produce earnings for the first seven days. Its value comes from how many people find it from using search engines. If we don't get earnings from the Evergreen content, the Evergreen content can lead to fresh content which will.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
That's not the real question. That's just short term thinking for a cash grab...
We need to change our thinking to building long term value and for Hive, this can easily be achieved via publishing evergreen content on our domains to encourage ongoing organic traffic from Google.
For example, take a look at the leofinance.io front-end. See how it runs ads?
Evergreen content that ranks on Google will bring in more eyeballs on those ads...
Which will lead to more LEO token burns...
Which will lead to a higher LEO price floor...
Which will eventuallyyyy lead to a higher HIVE price.
This strategy rewards stakeholders who think long term.
Of course by doing this, there is a trickle down effect for rewards.
But as Hive and all of our domains are so young, focusing on building a base of quality, long-form evergreen content is KEY to our success.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
It is the real question.
If only what pays out is the none evergreen posts, then people will post whatever pays out.
For example, I just wrote this up. Using Drones to Extend Radio Range I didn't check on key words to make it more SEO focused, but it isn't a flash in the pan article. Inside it, I link to this article TIL: A little more about Software Defined Radio. Right now, the combined total of these two articles will be less than a $2 reward.
Will it trickle down for those who wrote the evergreen articles or for those who can easily stack up on all those tokens? Because for a lot of people here, there isn't the ability to make oneself and instant whale, they are hoping to earn enough to have enough to stake and hodl.
Again, very short term thinking.
Sure, you can milk the shit out of the rewards pool just posting garbage that nobody except bots upvote.
But pretty soon with no value being added, you're going to see the HIVE price go to zero and your rewards wont matter anyway.
If we want our shitty rewards to continue, then we're going to have to start adding value to the token.
The best way to add value to Hive and therefore make the HIVE price go up, is to produce content that will show up in organic searches and bring new eyeballs to Hive long term.
It's about the HIVE price itself, not your individual balance in tokens.
Post rewards don't matter when it comes to evergreen content because it is building value for the actual HIVE token through creating demand and hopefully eventually like LEO, through ad burns.
Changing this perception is the battle Hive faces.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Great article again, I'm going to think about this for a bit, and see if I can find a topic to write about on Leofinance that could be considered evergreen content (never heard this before, learning something new today, check haha).
I love to do a little test to see if I can wrap my head around these things for longer exposure. It's been on my list for quite some time to learn that, but haven't done so. Your articles are helping a lot to push it up my list, thanks for that!
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Hey mate, good to hear that the idea of building evergreen content has piqued your interest :)
I truly believe that this is the most important thing we can do to sustainably raise the price of HIVE and LEO long term.
If you're looking for some evergreen content ideas, I've recently started the @crypto-guides project.
The idea of this is that each week, I will create a blank template that features subheadings that the community will then provide content for.
Eventually leofinance.io will end up with a long-form, evergreen crypto guide for every single project.
Take a look at the Bitcoin guide for example.
I'll have a new template up today and all you need to do is pick one of the subheadings and create the content on your own blog with a link to the guide.
Simple as that and a HUGE help in building quality evergreen content.
Hopefully we'll see you involved :)
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
That's absolutely amazing! I will add the account to my list I follow and check them out. Not sure if I will today, but I will get back to you about it, because that will probably be very very helpful :)
Awesome of you to start that project!