You are probably already aware of the simple fact that in the age of hyper-digitalization the success of any project/product/company is greatly correlated with the amount of eyeballs it pulls in, most of which are coming from direct Google searches.
How can we increase the number of eyeballs Hive receives?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
source
While I won't go into the nitty-gritty of SEO because it is insignificant for the point I'm trying to get across, I'll give you a quick TLDR about what Search Engine Optimization is.
In short, it is the process of optimizing a web page and its contents to be more easily discoverable by users searching for keywords relevant to your website or the content published on your website. It is the art of ranking high on a search engine. We are living in a highly competitive world which means that ranking high on a popular browser like Google is going to be a nightmare to achieve.
To increase the SEO of any given website one must put in quite a lot of work, consistently.
One of the most important aspects of SEO that we as a community can collectively work on is publishing awesome content. Absolutely massive amounts of relevant content (no-spam or plagiarism of course) with the right keywords included. This is exactly what all of us have been doing for Steemit all these years. Each one of our posts published on Steemit slightly increased its SEO and we've been doing it for years, mostly unwittingly. Inch by inch, one keystroke at a time, post after post, we've built up Steemit's SEO to rather admirable level.
Don't believe me?
Do me a favor and punch in "Steem" into your browser of choice. Although steem is a fairly generic word, because of Steem's SEO and the SEO of other sites which published content about it, you will see it pop up as the first result. Not only that, but you will find six, seven or even eight in some cases, pages full of Steem related content.
Now try browsing for esteem and see what you get. Yes, a bunch of retarded articles about how to increase self-esteem. Now try finding @good-karma's esteem app on that list without adding any other keywords.
.
.
.
.
Ten pages and still nothing....
Why?
You've guessed it, it's because of poor SEO!
On the other hand, this is where Steem/Steemit kick ass and most of it is our credit.
Hours and hours on end which we've collectively put in creating content for Steenit all went in increasing it's SEO.
For a site used by only a few tens of thousands of people, it turns up at the top of search results and is ranked really well by Alexa. Currently sitting @ 18k on Alexa, while Peakd is way down the list @ 193k.
View more stats on Hypestat
If it wasn't for us and the content we've created, Steemit's SEO would be garbage. Sadly, this is not the case today and this is where Hive is going to struggle going forward.
Try searching for anything Hive-related and see for yourself the point I'm trying to make.
I have yet to find out any long-tail keyword which results in Hive popping up on the first page (apart from including Peakd in the mix but that's irrelevant for now) and this is going to be a major hurdle we need to jump over in order to move forward in any meaningful way. No matter how many people we get in the know about Hive, it's all in vain if they aren't able to find it through browser searches.
So what can we do about it?
This will be an unpopular solution because it results in a lot of content related to a topic that people are already sick and tired of reading about, HIVE. While most yearn for non-Hive-related content, it's exactly this Hive-related content which we need more of, now more than ever. In order to start boosting Hive's SEO, we need to re-write all of the Steem-related content which now have nothing to do with Steem anymore and everything to do with Hive.
That means writing about:
What is Hive?
How to make a Hive account
How to earn on Hive
How to increase your follower count on Hive
How to style/edit a post on Hive
What are upvotes/downvotes on Hive
How much is my Hive upvote worth
How do delegate/undelegate
etc.
etc.
etc.
etc.
You get the point!
Any question one might ask oneself about Hive should and must be answered, time and time again. Not only so that we would increase its SEO but also to guide new users through this new and fairly complicated and hard to comprehend experience.
Apart from further development of the chain itself and coding out new features like SMT's, this is what the content creators among us should be putting an emphasis on. Because, even if we got the sexiest, most user-friendly blockchain out there, it won't mean a thing if the everyday Joe and Jane can't find it through a simple Google search.
For this reason, I would like to invite every one of you to start posting about Hive. How to's and tutorials.
The more the merrier.
NOTE: There are a number of techniques one can implement in order to help rank its article higher in Google searches. This not only increases the SEO of the article itself but also the SEO of the links within the article. Most of them are easy to implement and don't require a lot of effort. I'll drop a couple of useful links down below for you to take a look at which will greatly aid you in pimping your articles to be SEO friendly.
Best Tips For Writing SEO Optimized Article in 2020
SEO Copywriting: How to Write Content For People and Optimize For Google
How To Write SEO Friendly Content (Beginner To Advanced)
If you do decide to step in to help fix HIVE's SEO by pushing out great content, put up a link to your articles right here in the comment section and I'll throw an upvote your way. Heck, I might even distribute some liquid HIVE as an additional incentive if we get enough people participating.
Also, don't forget to reblog the shit out of this article in order to get the word out to as many people as possible.
As always, thank you for your precious time and cya in the next one.
Peace out!