Growth Hacking a Blockchain Startup — with Content Marketing
Pursuing an idea based on emerging technologies and making a mark with it has never been a cakewalk. The same applies for almost every startup and MVP built upon DLTs, i.e. Blockchain.
Because of the enormous anticipated untapped potential that this nascent technology has, getting PR or even a meeting with investors is relatively easier than on-boarding customers for your dApp.
If you are building a B2B solution or something that organizations (Enterprises and Governments) are meant to use, you probably won’t have to think much about things other than the product, whitepapers, and some slick email pitches. Part of the reason for this is the enormous future potential that the technology presents. According to Gartner hype cycle for emerging technologies, the plateau for blockchain technology will be approached in 5–10 years:
However, it’s a whole different story when it comes to dApps meant for the individual end-users or service companies who are looking to provide blockchain development services. This post is meant to be a primer on content marketing for blockchain startups and how they can growth hack their way to increase user base and gain traction.
First things First.
The very first thing to do is creating a content strategy and start posting on your company blog. You can host your company blog on the medium platform as the majority of people who read about blockchain are already there. Building your tribe and loyal audience will be easier here instead of starting from scratch, waiting to rank for keywords and hoping for search engines to send readers your way.
Get Found Online.
Getting traffic from search engines is very important to grow your audience and more importantly, broaden it. The most important reason as to why you should spend your all-important marketing juice on SEO is because almost all the keywords are relatively new and your competitors too have started targeting them in recent times.
So, you have a nice shot at dominating SERP for any keywords related to blockchain. Some of the things that you can do to hit the ground running and get found by readers:
- In-Depth content with Topic Clusters/Pillar Pages: Creating in-depth and detailed content is the first thing you need to do in order to dominate any keyword. To take an extra step for creating in-depth content and making the most out of it — create Pillar Pages.
Because the search queries now are phrases instead of a couple words, the variety of keyword combination for search queries has increased. By creating pillar pages for every set of keywords, you can reap the real benefits of capitalism in SERP!
Also, Google or any other search engine for that matter, wants to serve the users with on-point results for each and every search query they feed into them. For example, Google will rank different pages/blogs for the keywords “what is a public blockchain” and a different page for “difference between public and private blockchain”. By creating a pillar page that explains the different types of blockchain and then pages for each type, you can rank for more keywords and hence more traffic.
- Get On-Page SEO right: You’ve created great content now, Google should start ranking you, one would assume. But it doesn’t work that way anymore. Today, SEO + UX = Success!
The search engines want to make sure that the results they feed their users are useful for them. For this, they prefer a page that can actually help users to find answers to their users and a site with great user-experience can serve this purpose better than one with cluttered content and low loading speed.
The UX considerations for SEO are termed as On-Page SEO. Things that you need to perfect your On-Page SEO game are covered quite well in this On-Page SEO cheat sheet.
- Build links at Scale: Link building is just as important as it has ever been. To top all that, Google has gotten even better in assessing how you build links. However, getting genuine link juice is easier to get in the blockchain niche.
Part of the reason lies in the fact that almost every publication and editorial is looking for credible sources who are working with blockchain, which makes it easier to get a chance of getting features and becoming a contributor for even major publications. A very interesting thing to note about backlinks is that pages on the top get 2.2 times more backlinks as compared to the one ranking second.
Use Social Media to Promote your Content.
The audience for any content related to blockchain tech is quite young. And guess where all of them can be found? Social Media! You can leverage this to your advantage by promoting content over social media platforms.
Better yet, you must focus on building communities on platforms such as Reddit and Telegram. This will help you create a loyal audience sooner than otherwise.
Use Thought Leadership with posting on relevant Publications.
Commanding thought-leadership is important for any individual or company irrespective of the industry they’re in. It has been found that a whopping 39% executives and decision makers have asked a vendor to participate in the RFP process based on thought leadership content. The best way of doing it in blockchain niche is by contributing at esteemed publications. Some of the publications where blockchain startups can contribute guest posts are:
● Hackernoon (Well, obviously!)
● Coindesk
● E27
Content marketing is one of the biggest tools for lead generation in the digital age. Make sure that your blockchain startup is making the most out of it! With this, I’ll wrap this primer on content marketing for blockchain companies. Have any questions? Or would like to add some suggestions here? Feel free to highlight and comment, and don’t hold them claps back if you liked the post.
