I love this space. But, as with any large grouping of individual people, there are a few things that I have been discussing that continue to go ignored by much of the space. When it comes to participating in highly competitive arenas it is those participants that see opportunity where waters are undisturbed that will find success. Especially when other participants choose to discount these strategies.
What we will be discussing here are two very basic topics:
- SEO and Digital Marketing
- Use of hedging strategies
Bitcoin Miner SEO and Digital Content Marketing
That is ⅔ of the world population using the internet. What is your primary use for the internet? Finding information. How do we find that information today?
We turn to search engines. Which search engine in particular? Google.
Google makes up a whopping 78% of all online search traffic. When was the last time that you searched “bitcoin mining” or “hashrate”? — Do your Googles.
The results are abysmal. Frankly embarrassing. Who are the primary “sources” we get through Google for such searches?
- Investopedia (okay, I guess)
- Toptal (never heard of them)
- Bankrate (never heard of them)
- Bitcoin[dot]com (crypto exchange wannabe and former BCH shill; not a good source)
- Cointelegraph (bleh)
- Blockchain[dot]com (puke)
- Binance Academy (yucky)
- Forbes (uninformed)
- Hashrate[dot]no (close but it’s “crypto” mining so, swing-and-a-miss)
- CoinDesk (bleh)
Not a single bitcoin miner. Not one. Not on Page 1 nor Page 2 – and that’s already 100% deeper than most people are willing to go on a Google Search. We don’t even get any of the Bitcoin Mining organizations or institutions that claim to be championing the industry! When we google “oil production” or “oil & gas production” we get a mix of varying institutions that monitor the industry as well as the corporations themselves such as Aramco. But when it comes to bitcoin mining we offer zero direction to the average internet surfer, whether that is the CEO of a prospective business or a congressman’s staffer. No wonder nobody is informed, nor wants to be informed! We aren’t helping ourselves at all.
BTC Miner Brand Awareness
This poses a massive failure by the industry as a whole. If nearly 2/3 of the global population uses the internet, and 78% of the search traffic is through Google Search and our results are not directing searchers to bitcoin miners or the trusted institutions. We are FAILING. Bitcoin miners need to be positioning themselves as the primary educators and resources for: what is bitcoin mining? how does it work? what is the hardware used (ASICs)? how does the subsidy distribution work? what is SHA-256? and so on.
By positioning themselves to be the primary source of information for gaining understanding, bitcoin miners stand to establish brand awareness through the information-seeking stage of the bitcoin/bitcoin mining rabbithole. Which is the most important and influential moment in any potential bitcoiner’s journey.
Most importantly, it allows prospective clients of a bitcoin miner’s services to gain understanding and weigh-out the potential benefits of integrating bitcoin mining into their current operations.
Secondarily, it allows for each bitcoin miner (should they so choose) to provide their own individual arguments as to the value of bitcoin mining, current market events, and their services rendered. Which is essentially… sales. Hats-off to those of you who identified this is efficient.
Plenty of bitcoin miners, both individual and cooperate, engage in activity on social media platforms like Twitter (it’s not “X” I will never call it “ex” that is such a stupid name for a social platform), but they aren’t driving activity towards their own websites. It’s a lot of peacocking, which is necessary – I get it, but it should be getting directed to their websites where their sites act as the trophy cases. Using a Twitter feed as a trophy case just results in your prizes getting buried under the algorithm. Let alone on the other social mediums like LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok. There are metaphorical TONS of reasons why bitcoin miners want attention being driven (through links, post shares, etc.) towards their websites. And there are 10 times as many reasons why our miners should be bragging from “here ‘til Underverse come,” – gold star if you got that reference.
There is an entire ecosystem that is content marketing, SEO, and Google Analytics. What’s more: these strategies take time. Time for the algorithms to identify all of the important metrics towards SEO or digital ad campaigns, to identify things like: what works (keywords), what doesn’t work (negative keywords), and which demographics are the ones searching for our keywords most. Time to refine strategies and approaches to avoid paying the egregious prices that Google suggests from jump. And time to identify what works and what does not. Meaning that the longer bitcoin miners ignore this vector, the more opportunity they give their competitors to establish dominion and take their lunch out from underneath them.
Then there’s the matter of our miners’ websites. Not exactly the prettiest girls at the ball, if you catch my drift. Many are enough to get the job done, and some even provide a good amount of relevant information. But that’s just it, they are enough. But when it comes to all things bitcoin, enough is not enough. We are behooved to seek excellence, in all things. Each individual and each bitcoin company is a representative of this industry, the community’s participants, and of the asset itself.
All humans are wired to judge the value of an entity (whether it be an individual, a team, or a company) by the manner in which they present themselves. If we aim to hold our world to a higher standard under bitcoin (hell, who am I kidding – a number of higher standards), then we must hold ourselves to higher standards as well. Miners can accomplish much by sprucing up their websites a bit, adjusting fire with regards to how they utilize social media, and using the content of their websites to maximize search engine traffic. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but it is not necessarily an expensive tab. It simply requires individuals that have taken the time to begin to understand how these games are played, and then letting them refine their approach.
Not taking the time to garner as much online attention as possible will hamstring any, and every, bitcoin miner in the long run. Their most likely competitors that will take this opportunity? Their current partners. More specifically, the partners that are energy producers today, like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, etc. these players have the energy generation already. Once these parties determine they can mine without a third party and they can bring their own in-house technicians, then current miners will begin to lose market share or get acquired. Losing market share is losing power and losing income. Two things that current miners can not afford to lose.
Enough is not enough. Excellence is required.
This is a guest post by Mike Hobart. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.