Lloyd Cooke
Key Sections in this Article
As a Crypto publisher, your website is usually pretty large and so it requires a lot of attention when it comes to having a best in class SEO strategy implemented on it.
In this article we cover all the key areas of SEO strategy you should focus on to ensure your Crypto media content site achieves the best organic search presence possible.
Gaining Maximum Search Engine Indexing
For any large websites with a number of URLs that need to be indexed, you cannot guarantee that 100% of your URLs will be indexed all the time, so it’s important that you monitor the indexing performance across all sections of your website to identify any potential technical SEO issues that may stop certain URLs from being indexed in search engines like Google and Bing.
Leverage the Sitemaps and URL Inspection Services in the Google Search Console API
Monitoring performance in Google is the most crucial of course with the vast majority of user search queries coming through Google worldwide (unless your website focuses on Crypto media in China, Russia and or South Korea), using the Google Search Console APIs can help to provide technical and performance insights on a large scale with efficiency.
URL Inspection Service
As shown at https://developers.google.com/webmaster-tools/v1/api_reference_index, the URL inspection service, using index.inspect can enable you to gather indexing information about each URL
To use the inspect method and URL inspection tool service in the Google Search Console API to check all website URLs in bulk, you can follow these steps:
- Set up the Google Search Console API: You will need to enable the API and obtain an API key or OAuth 2.0 credentials to authenticate your requests.
- Authenticate your requests: Depending on the type of credentials you obtained, you will need to include the authentication token in your API requests.
- Retrieve the list of URLs to inspect: You can obtain a list of URLs from your website using various methods, such as scraping your sitemap or crawling your website.
- Loop through the list of URLs: Iterate through each URL in your list and send an API request to the URL Inspection API endpoint for each URL.
- Check the inspection status: After sending the API request, you will receive a response containing information about the URL inspection status. You can use this information to determine if the URL is indexed, if there are any issues, or if the URL needs to be indexed.
- Store and analyse the results: You can store the results of each inspection in a database or analyse them in real-time to identify any patterns or common issues across your website URLs.
It’s important to note that the URL Inspection API has a rate limit of 2000 requests per day. If you have a large number of URLs to inspect, you may need to spread the requests over multiple days or consider using other tools or services to handle the bulk inspection.
There are a few solutions that have been created to help analyse URL data using the Google Search Console API data with free solutions such as:
- Google Bulk Inspect URLs
- MyDomain.dev
- Google Sheets Template for Bulk check indexing and coverage reports
Some Paid Crawler Tools also have functions to integrate the Google Search Console API and visually review data in a specific section of the software, such as:
2. Sitebulb
Sitemap Service
Using the Sitemaps service within the Google Search Console API can also help to identify how well your website is being crawled and indexed by Google. It can help to optimise Google’s indexing process by providing a structured list of URLs for the search engine to crawl. It allows website owners to identify indexing issues, track the percentage of indexed URLs, and improve their website’s visibility and ranking in search engines.
Use SEO Crawl Audit Software Geared for Large Websites
There are many third-party software tools that leverage the Google Search Console API and provide monitoring and analysis of website indexing. Some of these are::
Ahrefs: One of the most well known SEO tools in the SEo industry that offers comprehensive website analysis, including indexing status and insights derived from the Google Search Console API data.
SEMrush: Another widely used SEO tool that integrates with the Google Search Console API to provide indexing and ranking data, along with other SEO metrics.
Moz: One of the first SEO analysis tolls in the industry, offers a suite of SEO tools, including features that utilise the Google Search Console API to monitor website indexing and provide insights on crawl errors, index status, and more.
DeepCrawl (Now Lumar): This cloud based website crawler tool integrates with the Google Search Console API to provide detailed indexing reports, crawl analysis, and website optimization recommendations.
Sitebulb: An SEO auditing tool that utilizes the Google Search Console API to analyze website indexing, identify crawl errors, and provide comprehensive insights for SEO optimisation.
These are just some examples, and there are many other third-party software and tools available in the market that utilise the Google Search Console API to help monitor website indexing and provide valuable insights. It’s recommended to explore and compare the features and capabilities of different tools to find the one that best suits your specific needs.
Other software tools that are geared towards analysing websites at a large scale from an SEO perspective are:
Audisto: an advanced technical SEO crawler for technical and structural analysis. It provides Comprehensive reports of crawling errors, enabling you to quickly identify impediments for search engine robots and resolve them. It can also help to segment large websites, creating scalable pattern-based clusters for technical page types, strategic groups, or business value.
Audisto can easily crawl 50M URLs or more. The very fast crawler cluster offers up to 24 parallel threads and uses an intelligent overload protection to protect your server.
OnCrawl: a professional website crawling and SEO auditing software that is well-suited for large-scale projects. It offers in-depth analysis of technical SEO issues, content optimisation, and website performance. OnCrawl can handle millions of pages and provides detailed reports on crawlability, indexability, and ranking factors. The tool allows users to store their projects in the cloud, making it convenient for cross-team collaboration and data accessibility. OnCrawl is known for its comprehensive feature set and advanced data visualisation capabilities.
Screaming Frog: Is another popular crawler tool that enables you to crawl website straight from your desktop and save data locally however being a desktop based crawler this can present challenges when crawling large websites, particularly if your local computer running the software does not have a large amount of memory.
Include Thorough Internal Linking Throughout Your Website
One of the most under-utilised elements on a large news based website is often the main menu. Search engines typically give more SEO value to pages that are prominently linked throughout a website and part of the main website navigation, so including 2nd and 3rd tiers in your main menu navigation menu should always be implemented.
Using a “mega menu” type setup can also help as this helps to include links to more pages within a main menu level category.
The key point to note though when it comes to optimising your main menu navigation is that it is the mobile version menu configurations that matter for SEO internal linking strategy because Google has a mobile first indexing directive meaning that Google will crawl the mobile version of your website and rank both it’s mobile and desktop search results based on the mobile setup.
So including a main menu on the mobile version of your website that has a menu tree with multiple levels and as many links to the most important pages on your website is a key requirement.
Analyse Large Performance Data sets in Depth
Use Google Search Console Performance API
The Google Search Console API is a powerful tool that you can use to analyze large data sets from a large website. The Search Analytics query function is particularly helpful in this regard.
Here’s how you can use it:
- Access the API: First, you must gain access to the Search Console API. You’ll need technical skills to do this, as it requires using programming languages like Python or JavaScript.
- Query Method: The SearchAnalytics.query() method allows you to access all the data available in the Performance report on Google Search Console. This method is particularly useful for running queries on Google Search data to improve search performance.
- Data Analysis: The API can help you see how search traffic changes over time, understand which queries are made on smartphones, and determine the click-through rate from search results. You can also extract data for further analysis in Python or another language.
- APIs explorer: Google recommends using the APIs explorer to test queries. This tool helps to verify the presence of data before running a query.
Use the Search Analytics for Google Sheets Add-on
Another more simple but still very effective way to analyse large data sets from your Google Search Console performance data is to use the Search Analytics for Google Sheets extension.
This allows you to feed in data tables in Google Sheets quickly whilst using specific filters that are more extensive than within the Google Search Console interface, such as being able to use regex filtering. It returns large dataset table very quickly that can then be filter within Google Sheets in an easier way than using the Google Search Console interface.
Using this add-on is particularly good for:
- Analysing search queries by specific pages at scale
- Analysing page performance for a large number of pages within a specific category
- Identifying pages and search queries in the best average positions to be improved to gain the most incremental increase in organic search traffic
- Filtering data using large regex filters for content that does not have very logical subfolder structures
Prioritise Google News Optimisation
Register Your Website in the Google Publisher Center
Registering a website in Google’s Publisher Center can provide several SEO benefits.
One of the primary advantages to enhanced organic search visibility (mainly in Google News” is to submit your quality content to Google News through the Publisher Center, as the content can potentially appear in the “Top Stories” section of Google’s search results, and therefore increase your website’s exposure.
Another important benefit is improved branding control, as the Google Publisher Center allows you to manage how your content is presented in Google News, enabling you to maintain consistent branding. This can potentially and indirectly contribute to your SEO efforts by improving brand recognition and trust, which can lead to higher click-through rates.
Whilst the Google Publisher Center can provide these benefits, it does not automatically guarantee higher rankings. You still need to ensure that your articles and other content types adhere to Google’s content guidelines and other key SEO ranking factors.
Have a Dedicated Google News XML Sitemap
Creating a Google News XML sitemap is highly important for publishers for several reasons. Firstly, it allows you to control which articles you wish to submit to Google News, which can help in improving their ranking and visibility.
A sitemap also helps Google understand the relationship between pages, making it easier for web crawlers to find new content. It provides important information such as publication date, title, description, language, image, and author which aids Google in discovering news articles faster and indexing them more effectively. For an example of what a Google News XML sitemap looks like, see https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/news-sitemap.
To generate a Google News XML sitemap for a large publisher website, you either need to:
- Develop a script for your website that generates a custom dynamic XML sitemaps that automatically includes new news article URLs
- Use specialist third party XML sitemap generation tools such as https://www.microsystools.com/products/sitemap-generator/help/google-news-xml-sitemaps/ or https://dynomapper.com/news-sitemap
- If your website is built on a WordPress platform then you can include and configure certain SEO plugins that can generate Google News XML Sitemaps for you such as https://aioseo.com/docs/how-to-create-a-google-news-sitemap/#video or https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/news-seo/
Once your Google News XML Sitemap is optimised and configured correctly, you can submit your sitemap through the Search Console.
You can either extend your existing sitemap with news tags or create a separate sitemap specifically for news articles. If you create a static Google News XML sitemap then you need to put in place a manual process to keep updating it with fresh articles at a frequency that is relevant to how often you publish new content on your website.
For most Crypto news websites this is everyday, so this means updating your Google News XML sitemap al least every week should be a standard process.
Optimise Your Search Results with Rich results
Apply Relevant Schema Code to Content Entities
For a Crypto focused publisher website, the most suitable schema markup to implement would be Article schema.
This type of schema is specifically recommended for publisher sites, as it can help your content appear in Google News and in-depth articles search suggestions, thereby increasing the visibility of your articles in search results.
It’s important to remember that structured data alone doesn’t guarantee improved rankings, but it does make your site’s content more understandable to search engines and can potentially lead to the generation of rich results.
You may also want to consider using Breadcrumb schema to mark up the breadcrumbs on your site. This can further enhance search engine’s understanding of the site’s content and structure and enable search engine users to click on a specific breadcrumb section on the search results to access a specific content category.
Work with Experienced High Quality Content Writers
If you are one of the main Crypto news websites in the industry then the chances are having the best writers in the industry at your disposal is probably one of your top priorities. From and SEO perspective this is a critical requirement as pages that have the best and most authoritative content is most likely to rank the best in the organic search results because search engines such as Google is very likely to incorporate E-E-A-T and YMYL algorithm elements for content in the Crypto industry, so having high quality writers are most likely to naturally incorporate content that scores well against these algorithm elements.
Be wary of padding out your website with content written by AI writing software, The amount of AI writing software on the market claiming to optimise for SEO is obscene at the moment and it’s probably not a good idea to heavily use an automated AI content writing strategy to populate content on the majority of your website.
Create Content Based on Search Demand
As well as creating content related to the latest and biggest industry stories, part of a Crypto publisher’s content strategy should be to look to attract users who are searching for Crypto related information in different areas of the industry at different knowledge levels.
Websites that help build and contribute knowledge to the industry are likely to be rewarded with higher organic search rankings and
Some good examples in the Crypto publisher space of content aimed at providing audiences with insightful knowledge are:
Guide Content
https://cryptosavingexpert.com/guides – Provides a concise set of guides on subjects such as Exchanges, Trading, Wallets, Tax, Online Safety and more.
https://cryptopotato.com/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-guides-101/ – Provides a set of article guides focusing on subjects such as Crypto 101, Altcoins, Defi, NFTs, Play-to-earn, Technical Analysis, Exchanges and many other niches
https://beincrypto.com/learn/ – Includes content focusing on B2B, Bitcoin, Defi, Exchanges, Mining, NFTs, Investing, Trading, Wallets and much more
Course Content
https://cryptosavingexpert.com/courses – Providing free courses Crypto basics, Trading, Bitcoin specifically, and Blockchain fundamentals
https://academy.learncrypto.com/ – a free learning platform introducing users to the world of cryptocurrency, with separate courses academy area offering courses at a foundation level on different aspects of the Crypto industry
https://www.coindesk.com/learn/crash-courses/ – providing 101 level courses on Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi, NFTs and Price Metrics
Glossary Content
https://www.coindesk.com/learn/glossary/ – A comprehensive glossary with an A to Z menu complete with a Flashcard view
https://cointelegraph.com/glossary – A glossary that acts as a sitemap linking to various articles, tags and content categories across the website
https://cryptosavingexpert.com/encyclopedia – Glossary format with links to various articles including some with video explainers
Ensure In-Depth Long-Tail and Question Focused Keyword Research is Conducted
It’s quite typical for a Crypto publisher to receive a large amount of unique search queries due to the amount of in-depth information it houses on a large number of web pages. Also due to the nature of the Crypto industry people are always searching for specific information and often also in question format.
Due to these traits it’s important to conduct a thorough keyword research process to build a target keyword strategy that targets all long-tail and question-based based search queries that are relevant to the content and pages housed on your website.
Some recommended steps to follow as part of such as process are:
- Create a large spreadsheet with various tabs for specific categories you wish to group target search queries into
- Use specialist long-tail and question-based keyword research software such as KeySearch, Keywordtool.io and Answer The Public
- Identify similar content web pages online that target similar themes and see what questions and long-tail keyword variations they are including
- Map identified target keywords to the relevant existing page URLs on your website (where possible)
- List which keywords require a new web page on your website to target the relevant keywords
Having a dedicated process to identify long-tail and question-based keywords can significantly help boost your content ideation strategy as well to decide what new content to include on your Crypto news / information hub.
Include Multilingual Content with Best Practice International SEO Structures
Crypto is one of the most international industries in the world and whilst English as an international language is seen as standard in the industry there are great opportunities to gain a wider audience for your Crypto publishing website if you serve content on it in many different languages.
Common languages that some of the top Crypto news and publishing websites serve their content are Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Thai Turkish
How Crypto Published Structure Their Multilingual Websites
Having your Crypto publishing website in different languages can exponentially increase the amount of resource required to structure and manage your website effectively.
The majority of the Crypto publisher websites structure their multilingual content in the following ways….
Language Specific Subdomains
The most common technical setup for multilingual websites in this niche is using language specific subdomains to house content in different languages e.g. https://id.beincrypto.com/ and https://es.cointelegraph.com/
This format can provide the benefit of not having to host content on separate domains, which reduces the hosting and technical infrastructure requirements but can still allow to implement efficient multilingual structures such as international SEO configuration elements and semi automated translation processes.
It’s worth noting here that automated translations from one language to a number of other languages is not recommended as it typically results in content not reading well from a local contextual and grammatical perspective but having a process where content can be partially translate and then edited as required to localise can be a useful process and can be done across subdomains.
To use a subdomain structure on one domain, it’s best to use a domain that is recognised universally as a domain that can be used in any country, such as a .com domain.
Language Specific Subfolders on Main Root Domain
Including content in different languages within subfolders on the same domain is usually the most efficient way of managing multilingual content for a Crypto publishing brand.
This enables the technical management to be kept as efficient as possible and provides the most technically efficient way to duplicate technical and content structures across different languages e.g. https://cryptopotato.com/language/de/kryptopotato/. Having the language code as the next subfolder after the .com is the best structure here and ideally not having an extra subfolder for “/language/” would be better.
Like subdomains, to use a subfolder structure on one domain, it’s best to use a domain that is recognised universally as a domain that can be used in any country, such as a .com domain.
Separate Domains
Some Crypto publisher websites do have separate domains for their websites in specific countries, such as Coindesk in South Korea (https://www.coindeskkorea.com/) and in Japan (https://www.coindeskjapan.com/).
Having separate websites on separate domains is probably the most technically intensive setup for a Crypto publisher brand. However it can offer some international SEO advantages in countries such as Korea and Japan, where it does not have the same level of search engine share as in most countries. For example, in South Korea Naver is the most popular search engine, whereas in Japan Yahoo is as widely used as Google.
So having separate domains to implement slightly different SEO strategies on for certain search engine algorithm requirements can provide a benefit to localise specifically for one country and one specific set of search engines in that country.
Localise content if targeting different English speaking regions
If you wish to maximise the amount of organic search traffic you drive to your website, then you may wish to consider having separate subfolders, subdomains or country specific domains that target different countries in the same language. Particularly for English speaking countries.
For example, having subfolder structures such as /en-us/, /en-gb/ and /en-au/ if you plan to include more regionalised stories in English to specific countries.
If you are going to serve exactly the same content in the same language for different countries then creating separate subfolders for different countries may not be a good idea, as Google sometimes will only index one language version of a URL on a website targeting one country, if the content is exactly the same. So it’s only worth implementing this kind of URL structure if your content strategy will be regionalised enough in the same language.
Key Takeaways
Managing an SEO strategy for a Crypto publisher is a large task and requires coordination from developers, product managers, content writers and SEO strategists in order to ensure you are maximising the organic search traffic that is coming to your website (or websites).
Technical elements such as URL indexing management is crucial, along with having excellent visibility in Google News.
Having a vast, dynamic content strategy is also vital to achieving organic search visibility in the Crypto news and information space.
Ensuring that these key areas of an SEO strategy are working like like a well oiled machine is a necessity before attempting to scale out to other languages and if and when you start to focus on a multilingual strategy a business make sure you plan the website structure for the medium and long term, otherwise more URL changes may be needed in the future and this could disrupt the growth of organic search visibility for your content website entities.
