Patreon SEO and Digital Marketing Tips

I became a Patron on Patreon

Content creators looking to increase their exposure on Patreon and other crowd-funding platforms will find there are many ways to leverage both SEO and social media advertising to ensure users are easily able to find their content. The following tips outline a few ways one can help users find your content, as well as explore marketing for a range of crowd-funding platforms. 

Notes: 

  • This post supposes that readers have a basic understanding of SEO practices, if you are looking to brush up on basics check out our beginners guide to SEO.
  • Don’t neglect your own website in favor of optimizing your Patreon account. Keep in mind that the digital world is ever evolving, and a favored resource for content distribution or monetization (Patreon, YouTube) can quickly lose favor or drastically change format/policy, taking your hard work with it. Your website and SEO accrued keyword rankings are far more likely to be a consistent traffic resource.    

Search Engine Optimization on Patreon Pages 

  • Consider that Patreon creator pages and your posts themselves have the capacity to rank in Google, so when you are selecting your post names be sure to give thought to the key phrases in your title. 
    • Think about what users who would enjoy your content are likely to search for. Include this phrase in your post title, and throughout your post body content. 
      • Example: The Title, “Starting A Business Podcast: Where To Register Your Business,” has a higher search volume and likely more users who would enjoy your content than “Episode One: Dealing With Incorporation.”
    •  You are also given the opportunity to apply relevant tags for context; use these at a content category level which should boost your content to the proper users with matching interests.
      • If you’re unsure what tags to use, check out similar content that’s done well and see which tags they’re using.
  • Acquiring links to your Patreon page from outside domains will enhance its potential to show up in Google when users search for your channels name, your name, or content specific to your mission. NOTE: When requesting or creating links to your Patreon page you may be better suited to point those links to your own website and enjoy the keyword rankings increases associated with increased domain authority on a property you own.  

Promotion of Your Patreon through Facebook

  • Facebook algorithmically favors content that resolves directly in the newsfeed, rather than sending users elsewhere to convert. Because of this, it’s easier to obtain engagement and reach your whole following when your Facebook post content doesn’t link to resources outside of Facebook e.g Patreon, YouTube. 
  • For the same reason, video content that’s uploaded directly to Facebook performs better than that linked from other sources. If your objective is to get eyeballs on video content, in feed, upload the content directly to Facebook instead of sharing links to YouTube or other video sources.  
  • Consider the amount of posts you make in a given month that directly request patronage. The amount your following can bear is going to be unique to your brand and the composition of your following. To be safe, post no more than once per week.
    • Instead, make use of the platform primarily for branding and relationship-building, with intermittent posts requesting patronage.
      • Calls for patrons should mostly originate from your brand page rather than a personal one. 
  • Set up Facebook Business Manager. Business Manager has many audience management and targeting tools you can’t use with normal Facebook:
    • Add remarketing to your website: ads only shown to users who have visited specific pages on your website
    • Upload contact lists and create special ads for users within that list
    • Use demographic and behavioral targeting options to build ads for a look-alike audience.
    • Set up cost per click billing vs cost per impression in order to drive more users to your website.
    • This is just the tip of the iceberg. You can look into other Facebook Business Manager features as you go.
  • Develop three to four target audiences to promote your content to based on the objective of the content. Examples include current fans and people unfamiliar with your work who might become hooked.
  • Use a “people who like your page and their friends” audience to promote your rote postings in order to make sure they are being seen by your constituency.
    • Adding in the friends of people who like your page will trickle in new easy conversions. 
    • Boost these types of posts for a minimal spend, something like a dollar a day. 

After building an audience through both Facebook and Patreon, you may find that one source engages an audience faster than another. Facebook attracts new people primarily through the look-alike algorithm, while Patreon draws a new crowd through successful SEO as well as its internal tagging system. It’s important to note that both platforms are key to retaining the interest of the existing audience, so long as that audience exists on both media.