Hi everyone,
Following up on discussions like the How to Use stake.Link Initiative, it’s clear that educating and onboarding users is key to driving adoption. However, there’s a critical gap: many users can’t even find stake.link when searching online.
It’s become clear that stake.link’s SEO is holding us back in terms of visibility and accessibility. Currently, our site doesn’t rank prominently for critical search terms, which may be limiting the discovery of our platform by potential users. This issue isn’t just about visibility—it also indirectly opens up risks like phishing sites taking advantage of our low rankings.
This discussion aims to:
- Highlight the current state of our SEO and its challenges.
- Brainstorm solutions to improve visibility and organic traffic.
- Gather ideas from the community to prioritize efforts and create a roadmap.
Current Issues
- Low Search Rankings: Keywords like “Chainlink staking”, “stake LINK” or “stLINK crypto” don’t lead users directly to stake.link.
- Traffic Leaks to Aggregators: Third-party sites like CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and Coinbase dominate rankings for these terms, redirecting users who could otherwise land on our platform.
- Technical Barriers: Our current framework relies heavily on JavaScript, which impacts how search engines crawl and index the site.
- Potential User Risks: Phishing sites could exploit low visibility, putting users searching for stake.link at risk.
Proposed Solutions
- Technical Upgrades:
- Migrate to a framework like Next.js to enable Server-Side Rendering (SSR) for improved indexing and load speed.
- Implement essential files like
robots.txt
andsitemap.xml
to guide search engines in crawling our site effectively.
- Content Creation:
- Build out a stake.link/blog section and publish SEO-focused articles on topics like:
- “How to Stake LINK Tokens with stake.link”
- “Benefits of Staking Chainlink (LINK)”
- “Step-by-Step Guide to stLINK Rewards”
- Use targeted keywords to optimize content for search queries that align with user intent.
- Keyword Strategy:
- Focus on medium-difficulty, high-value keywords like “Chainlink staking” (1,300 monthly U.S. searches, moderate competition).
- Include long-tail keywords like “How to stake Chainlink tokens” to capture highly specific searches.
- Backlink Building:
- Partner with reputable crypto sites, blogs, and influencers to acquire backlinks to stake.link.
- Create educational content that is naturally shareable and linkable (e.g., a staking rewards calculator or detailed staking guides).
- User Safety:
- Improving our rankings helps reduce the risk of phishing sites gaining visibility.
- Monitoring and Analytics:
- Use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to track traffic, conversions, and keyword performance.
- Regularly audit SEO performance to refine strategies.
Why This Matters
- Increased Visibility: Improved rankings ensure users searching for staking solutions find us easily.
- Higher Credibility: Ranking high in search results boosts trust and authority.
- Traffic Ownership: Less reliance on third-party platforms like CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap.
- Organic Growth: More traffic and visibility ultimately lead to higher participation in staking.
Open Questions
- What ideas or strategies do you think would be most effective to improve our SEO?
- Can this be a community-driven effort?
- How much can the core team, as the unique and official UI host, contribute to SEO improvements?
- What budget or resources should we consider for these improvements?
Next Steps
If there’s consensus that this is worth pursuing, we could:
- Develop a roadmap prioritizing high-impact actions (e.g., content creation, framework migration).
- Establish a small budget allocation for technical improvements and content generation.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions on how we can collectively tackle this issue!