What Makes an ICO / STO Launch Effective?

ICO / STO launches can be affected by multiple things, including the ICO / STO website, technical aspects of SEO (search engine optimization), the technical setup of the ICO / STO, community-related issues, public relations, and the SEO strategy. The success or failure of an ICO’s / STO’s marketing strategy is dependent on multiple interrelated factors. A profitable ICO / STO campaign also hinges on the ICO / STO website hitting its token sale targets.

It’s important to remember that the ICO / STO must rely on its website, not solely the actions of distributors, exchanges, or agents. Additionally, the ICO / STO website must be structured in such a way that it is able to consistently generate token sales post-ICO / STO. One of the most effective ways of achieving long-lasting results with token sales and ICOs / STOs is search engine optimization (SEO).

Search Engine Optimization Can Enhance Blockchain Startups & ICO’s / STO’s

As it stands, many blockchain startups and ICO’s / STO’s are missing the mark when it comes to search engine optimization. This wastage is evident in the overall poor implementation of blockchain SEO in these operations. SEO lays the groundwork of a strategic growth paradigm for a business. Any entity seeking lasting online success requires a well-structured SEO plan. More importantly, it’s imperative to maintain fully optimized websites post-ICO / STO.

Are Blockchain & ICO / STO Companies Preparing for Post-ICO / STO Growth?

Any start-up that punches through the ICO / STO phase of their business lifecycle soon hits a critical stage in operations. For starters, a significant volume of capital will be generated from the token sale, and this can be used to fund business operations. Provided the necessary technology is in place, this breakthrough phase of business operations can lead to rapid growth and development for the company. As the blockchain technology is adopted on a wider scale, greater trust is built between investors and FinTech corporations.

From an insider’s perspective, things look markedly different. There is a tendency towards myopia with ICOs / STOs and many companies experience this short-sightedness when they only focus on getting their tokens to market and raising capital. However, the long-term viability of a brand and the digital company’s blockchain technology must persevere beyond the ICO / STO. From a marketing perspective, some interesting questions are raised. It is important to conduct due diligence with regards to ICO / STO operations and what follows. The capital that is raised through an ICO / STO can be put to effective use.

The hype and hysteria of the blockchain technology is also grounded in the knowledge that smart contracts and decentralized technologies are the way of the future. This raises further questions about how the company wishes to conduct its operations, manage its product lines, and position itself for the future. To achieve these ambitious objectives, advisory boards, marketing management, and top-level leadership needs to direct operations accordingly. Brands that are launching ICOs / STOs need to be able to demonstrate their strategic vision and growth prospects. Failing to do so can cause investors to eschew their product offerings.

Are Website Considerations Beyond the 3-month ICO / STO Launch Date Necessary?

Believe it or not, there are serious implications for blockchain and ICO / STO companies adopting a short-term approach to their marketing campaigns and their websites. The ICO / STO is merely the beginning of a lengthy process of building a company that can generate the necessary capital, sustain growth operations, and ultimately become a successful enterprise. Technology takes time to build, implement and generate returns.

Online marketing professionals have come across disconcerting notions within the ICO / STO community, including the following:

• The technology offered by blockchain and ICO / STO companies does not necessitate a website presence.
• The blockchain & ICO / STO company does not need to focus on the ICO / STO launch website as a strategic asset.

Digital marketing professionals are deeply concerned about the short-sightedness of revolutionary technologists in the FinTech sector. Here are reasons to focus heavily on SEO in ICO / STO campaigns.

Are Digital Assets Needed for Businesses After ICO’s / STO’s?

For some successful ICO / STO companies, the domain and website serve their purpose when tokens are sold. After that, there may be no plans to continue with these digital assets. Unfortunately, there are huge start-up costs (development, investment, and time intensive research) involved in establishing the digital assets for an ICO / STO launch. These funds could be put to better use on developing the digital products and training human capital. Token investors (people who buy into ICO’s)/ STO’s have contributed significantly to companies that have substantial digital asset costs. For this reason, it is imperative that these assets lay the groundwork for the company’s operations in the future.

ICO / STO Launch Campaigns: Building Value from the Bottom Up

• Social media is a powerful marketing medium. The blockchain community comprises many active users with huge financial resources. Targeting these communities via social media channels is highly lucrative.
• Brand exposure and token exposure gets boosted every time the company, and its product lines, are mentioned over the Internet. This includes the blockchain community, blogs, forums, finance posts, and social media channels.
• Publications and press releases are useful means of maximizing online exposure for the blockchain company and ICO / STO. This is evident in articles, interviews, mentions, posts, insights, and reviews. Marketing agencies utilize these channels to increase brand awareness and enhance the profiles of blockchain and ICO / STO companies.
• In the infancy stages of an ICO / STO campaign, multiple links will be built directly to the website, via the blockchain marketing consultancy’s efforts, as well as through public relations activities. These are extremely valuable and will ultimately lead to a more successful ICO / STO via higher token sales.
• Insights can be gleaned from the blockchain audience through the various stages of the ICO / STO. It is possible to build a thriving community that values the blockchain commodity

Moving Digital Assets Around

It is highly complicated to move digital assets around, and if done incorrectly, can result in major losses. Conversely, when done correctly, moving digital assets around can benefit many big brands, and even help them to re-brand and better position themselves in the market. If these processes are ignored, the blockchain or ICO / STO company runs the risk of losses. These include the following:

• New assets take time to grow – Public relations work and digital marketing activity is a time-intensive process. If that is forfeited, the company may need to recover all those losses which could result in six months’ worth of lost growth.
• Trust and credibility are what drives profits with companies. This is especially true with ICOs / STOs and blockchain enterprises.
• If the original offering has changed dramatically from the current offering, investors may be reluctant to get involved. People like to be able to identify with brands.
• Budgeting issues can also crop up in the marketing department if digital assets are changed around.

What Does SEO Offer?

SEO encompasses almost every aspect of branding and digital assets. The periodic table of search engine optimization ranking factors contains all aspects of SEO, including content, HTML, architecture, links, social, trust, personal, violations, and blocking. Factors that rank highly should be focused on with precision.

Unfortunately, too many ICOs / STOs and blockchain companies are missing the boat when it comes to the value of SEO. This is evident in their website marketing initiatives. Consider the following:

• Content is the most important asset for any business or brand. It is time intensive to develop the content and expensive to create it. However, content forms the bedrock of the company’s digital assets. One of the most influential strategies available is content marketing.
• By employing effective content marketing strategies, businesses can grow their brand, increase their market share, and tap into the online universe more effectively.
• Targeted customers can read your content once it goes live. They will then decide whether to continue exploring your product’s attributes, qualities, and characteristics, and share it via social media channels. This sharing is also possible via microblogging platforms, personal blogs, finance websites, and the like. This increases the effectiveness of your marketing message, as well as expands the base of your domain and website.

How Are Link Profiles Affected?

Link profiles are made up of external sites that link to your website. Google values the strong reputation of certain websites, and your website can earn some of that reputation by having a link from the high authority sites to your website. Presently, ICOs / STOs do not seem to recognize how effective strategically constructing their link profiles can be. Link profiles should be constructive so as to control both positive and negative points of view.

• Quality trumps quantity any day of the week. The quality of the link profile – high authority good links versus low authority bad links-  is preferred over the quantity of links. It is expensive to link to high authority sources, but doing so will increase your website and brand’s visibility on the Internet. Even if your digital assets have fewer links than your competition, remember that it’s not the number, but the quality of those links that matters. More often than not, it is the link profile of a website that determines its strategic growth possibilities.
• Bad links are associated with low levels of trust, and they are largely irrelevant and organically earned from poor networks or sites that find the domain online and then link to it.
• Good links are extremely relevant, credible, and high authority. They are from ranking publications that have significant clout in the blockchain arena and within the digital currency community. These are precisely the types of links that ICO’s /STO’s and blockchain companies should be pursuing as part of a strategic growth initiative. It’s important to know how to get these links, where to get these links, and when to get these links.
• Removing harmful links is key to preventing any damage to things like search visibility. For example, SEO professionals can inform search engines, like Google, that your digital operations do not want to be associated with harmful links. This can improve your website ranking.
• Protecting link profiles is core to the success of your long-term strategy. It’s important to know how links impact your website, and where they’re coming from. Powerful links from leading cryptocurrency sources such as CoinMarketCap, CoinDesk, BitcoinTalk, TokenMarket, and TradingView, are paramount. You can do damage to your link profile by adding low relevance links, and that’s precisely why a well-structured SEO plan is essential. The only way to ensure success with your link profile is enlisting the support of a professional and highly experienced team of consultants. This should be factored into your marketing budget.

2017 also revealed some interesting findings regarding on-site optimization issues. For the most part, many ICO / STO websites neglected elementary SEO best practice methodology. It indicates a lack of understanding in how digital marketing should be implemented within the blockchain and ICO community. Fortunately, there are solutions to this dilemma:

• The simplest SEO actions are the most effective. The elementary nature of these activities is probably the reason why so many blockchain and ICO / STO startups fail to implement them. If the basics are not implemented, the foundations are absent and there will be no effective long-term ICO / STO growth strategy.
• Various cases exist of digital assets that passed from one marketing agency to another, without any attention paid to optimizing URLs, keyword research, meta-titles, meta-descriptions, on-page optimization techniques, or any targeting of clientele whatsoever. This lends credence to the concept that many ICO / STO companies fail to see beyond the short-term capital generation of the ICO / STO. To gain traction and stay relevant online, ICO / STO companies must fully optimize their digital assets. The absence of effective SEO optimization indicates that the company has a short-term focus of typically three months after the ICO / STO has launched.

There are ways to avoid the pitfalls of poorly optimized, or unoptimized websites. The best of which is constructing a start-up website. These activities are costly and time intensive. It’s important to have in-depth analytical data of services being provided, products offered, and the target audience. Many of the world’s leading marketing organizations spend millions of dollars annually to develop these growth and marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, we are not seeing this level of investment, or interest in ICO / STO websites. The short and sweet of it is the following: ICO / STO businesses should focus their efforts on building a fully optimized website that will ensure the long-term viability of their brand and their blockchain operations.

Busting the Myth That the Brand Does Not Require an Online Presence for Success Post ICO / STO

As we have indicated in our guide, it is foolhardy to assume that any online business would not need to optimize its operations for long-term success. SEO is a failsafe means of ensuring compliance with all aspects of search engine functionality, ranking and success. As soon as an ICO / STO is completed, that blockchain company will seek top rankings in search engines. The company will also try to get its coin or token listed on multiple cryptocurrency exchanges. This ensures that traders will be able to buy and sell digital tokens and increase the value of the company. This added exposure is a powerful incentive to push for a strong online presence. Investments do not stop growing at the ICO / STO stage – that is the base from which they continue their growth prospects. That’s why it behooves companies and their marketing departments to make a concerted effort to look beyond the ICO / STO launch for long-term success.

The Good Things That Happen Post ICO / STO

Market research indicates that once an ICO / STO has been completed, the brand will generate significant online publicity. Naturally, this is to be expected if token sales generate millions of dollars in a short amount of time. However, how will the raising of millions of dollars impact the digital assets of the company? For one thing, it generates greater publicity among traders, investors, and industry aficionados. Stakeholders will be frequenting the website of the ICO / STO company, resulting in greater brand exposure.

An ICO / STO platform that starts linking a ranking digital currency website like this one will see traffic increases within the first month. This is the single best way for potential investors to evaluate the authenticity, viability, and profitability of potential blockchain companies. These links will generate even greater traction within the cryptocurrency community. Even if links are removed, the overflow remains positive for an indefinite period.

The value added by linking to high-ranking/high authority websites is significant. Many of the most successful companies in the world spend big money to achieve similar results, yet this can be done through mere mentions and link building from top-ranking websites. High traffic volumes are instantly available from websites that generate hundreds of thousands of unique visitors every month, sometimes even millions. Other benefits include:

• High levels of targeted traffic from ranking websites to a domain
• High authority back links prove valuable for future investors
• Increased brand recognition builds interest in the company

The Bad Things That Happen after ICO’s

The success of ICOs / STOs depends on the consideration given to optimizing the company’s digital assets. Scant attention to SEO can negatively impact the long-term growth prospects of startups. As a rule, it is important to safeguard successful ICOs / STOs from low authority links post-ICO / STO. Failure to do so indicates a lack of knowledge about search engine optimization. The most basic aspects of SEO must be adopted pre-ICO / STO and post-ICO. ICOs / STOs require the use of content marketing platforms.

Poorly executed digital marketing for your brand or website will negatively impact long-term growth strategies. In other words, the brand will be functioning at a sub-optimal level and not be generating the type of traffic, trade, and value-added benefits that investors expect. Poor insights into long-term growth prospects can negatively impact businesses in multiple ways including the following areas:

• Costs: Driving investors, traders, and customers to an ICO / STO website is expensive and time-consuming. Consider that 60% of the pages that have a top 10 ranking on Google have had an online presence for more than three years. This goes to show that organic growth and search engine optimization is a time intensive process.
• Trusted Reputation: Most of the hype that is generated with a blockchain company is in the pre-ICO / STO stage of operations. What happens next?  The only way to ensure ongoing success is to retain and grow digital visibility. The most important thing that a company can do at this point is maximize all mentions, content, links, and money spent during the start-up phase and post start-up.
• Market share: If a business does not optimize its digital marketing assets from the get-go, it will forfeit valuable market share. Post ICO / STO, a company stands to lose significant market share with a sub-optimal website.

Expert Blockchain & ICO / STO Marketing Advice

While there is plenty of professional marketing advice available for the blockchain and ICO / STO market, many of these companies are not listening. Too many ICO’s / STO’s view their digital assets as a vehicle to get them to launch, and pay no mind to the post-ICO / STO phase of operations. This indicates that the knowledge of smart contracts and innovative technologies supersedes their understanding of elementary SEO functionality.

Perhaps it is the tedious nature of building a successful digital presence that raises the ire of the cryptocurrency and ICO / STO elite. However, there are effective ways to maximize spend and improve the long-term success rates of these start-up companies. With the right SEO strategy supporting your company, your ICO / STO will be able to lead your company down a path of continued growth.