GM! GE! Hello lionsden! This is the first of 2 or maybe 3 posts on the topic on how to maximize your LEO experience. This guide has the goal to show #newlions answers to the questions that get asked most frequently. 
According to the prompt for this task by @leo.tasks these are the following: 
> "How do I increase my engagement, how do I grow my account, how can I reach a wider audience, and how can I maximize my post rewards"

[Source: Tell n00bs how to maximize the leo experience](https://leofinance.io/@leo.tasks/task-tell-n00bs-how-to-maximize-the-leo-experience)

These questions are important, and they are intertwined, you will realize that as you read on.

**What is important to know:** 
Neither Leofinance nor HIVE are a get rich over night type of thing. So this is not the guide for how do I get the most juicy upvotes on my posts, but if you follow the guide you might find one or the other whale upvote on your blog in the future. No guarantees though! I will not talk about how you can get big upvotes, I will talk about how to have a full feeling for the "LEOverse" with many aspects from engagement to marketing your blog to putting your earnings to work and much more. **This is a guide that assumes that you know how to make a post on Leofinance.io** if you do not know how to post go here:<br>
*If you want to check out how to write a blogpost on leofinance.io check out this handy guide: ~~LEAVE LINK HERE~~ https://leofinance.io/@leo.tasks/task-make-the-best-guide-to-posting-on-leo Note this is still an open task that can be claimed as soon as there is a post I will put it here.*


**Without further ado let us jump right into it:**<br>
![Maximize your leo experience 1.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmeeogDQFwD1CEAzJUBhMGRe15QQvinvfineetU72PSH1p/Maximize%20your%20leo%20experience%20(1).png)

image made with stable diffusion AI and finished in [canva](https://www.canva.com/join/lcy-cms-lxk)

# How to maximize your LEO experience – a newbie guide to the LEOverse

This guide will be published in more than one part, make sure to follow me and bookmark this post so you can later check it out if needed.
This is not a beginners guide, this is for the intermediate lions who want to up their game by a few steps to maximize their LEO experience. I will discuss several aspects of our very unique social media platform we have at our hands. The main parts of this post will be designing your posts and images, engagement on leofinance.io, curating others authors content. In the second part of this series we will look at what tools you can use to maximize your experience by getting your post shown to a wider audience.  
![LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmV1PkJ4qmUQbb1HkYD69PgQb1P5MSpJtc42hSYoTAvQLo/LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png)
Assuming you already know how to make a blogpost, I will go into the things you can do to improve your posts quality and overall performance. There is no recipe for what to write about, I think each topic however niche it might be has a place on your blog as long as you can identify with it. But there are some steps you can apply to each of your posts to make their visual quality better. You can apply SEO to make your posts more visible for a wider audience and to rank your content on google searches.
<br>

![designdeckq2.jpg](https://images.hive.blog/DQmVN3Z9CpDDTatNcHidYY7NsGqRqLCwXiUSztkhYLizHAf/designdeckq2.jpg)
Source: The Design Deck by Ben Barret-Forrest. Photography by me. The design deck can be obtained [HERE](https://www.forrestgoods.com/shop/the-design-deck) (this is not paid advertisement I just want to give credit to the owner of the original design on the playing cards)

## Design your posts!
All humans are visual beings. Even people who have problems with their eyesight or are completely blind visualize things in their mind, although they have never seen them. All humans like nice visually pleasing things. This also works with blogs. 

The users scrolling through their leofinance feeds will likely only look a split second on your headline and picture, if you fail to catch their interest in that split second they will scroll over it and thats it then.

Let us suppose you know what you want to write about and you have the rough outlines for your content. What next?

### Whats your headline like? 
It is of utter importance that your headline catches the interest of your reader, it must inform them about what they are going to read and also make them curious for more. In other words your headline must appeal to your target audience and also make them think they are going to get value from your writing. 

If you don't know how important headlines are check out this post on The New Yorker: [How Headlines Change the Way We Think](https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/headlines-change-way-think)

> Psychologists have long known that first impressions really do matter—what we see, hear, feel, or experience in our first encounter with something colors how we process the rest of it. Articles are no exception.

Maria Konnikova [The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/headlines-change-way-think)

The article points back to 2014 but it is based on actual scientific studies and if you want to dive deeper on the matter you can do. All papers are linked in the article.

**Long story short, your headline matters**

You can find out a lot more about blog headlines in this article by  Ryan Scott on hubspot:
[13 Types of Blog Headlines That'll Get You More Traffic [+ Examples]](https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/types-of-blog-headlines)

### How does your title image look like?

As I said before you only have a split second before your audience scrolls over your post to the next one in row. In this split second your title image has to grab the readers attention and make them curious. Get creative, there is plenty of free tools you can use to make visually sexy title images. For the title image of this post I used the stable diffusion discord bot by @ausbitbank and afterwards I went to [Canva](https://www.canva.com/join/lcy-cms-lxk) to put the glowing punchline into the image. Is it catchy enough? I don't know but I think it fits the theme and will stand out from most other posts in visuals. If your picture just stands out a bit from the crowd you will have better chances of readers coming to your post.

### How does your post look like?

This is important to keep your audience on your post and make them actually read whatever you are writing about. If you use a good amount of pictures and dividers and headers you will guide your readers eye to the right spots. If you need a good guide on how to format your text and images in a post then check out [this handy guide](https://peakd.com/tutorial/@carrieallen/ultimate-markdown-tutorial#@creyestxsa94/re-carrieallen-ultimate-markdown-tutorial-20180406t074410577z) and you will find everything you need to make your posts good looking and easy to read! 

This is a screenshot from the guide above by @carrieallen:
![Bildschirmfoto 20221011 um 07.35.15.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmdRDD6sajzkZVhr6Vfh3sVJnPWrWVwxyp9LFTJeTtqD9e/Bildschirmfoto%202022-10-11%20um%2007.35.15.png)

# your headline is this big: How to maximize your LEO experience – a newbie guide to the LEOverse Part 1
it should contain the the same words as you used in the title of the post
## your punchlines are smaller

### your subtitles are even smaller
#### you can do this! (even smaller titles)
##### its easy! (tiny titles)

Your text body looks like this.

### do you do SEO?

The importance of using headers comes in if you put the SEO (search engine optimization) into play. I am absolutely not a SEO expert and all I learned about it I learned on this platform. We have a real SEO specialist @hitmeasap check out their blog! Read!
#### [Generate TONS Of Traffic W/ Optimized Content Despite Absence Or Writer's Block(!) - REAL Growth!](https://leofinance.io/@hitmeasap/generate-tons-of-traffic-w-optimized-content-despite-absence-or-writer-s-block-real-growth) 

or if you want a basic guide on SEO and how it works you can go to [learn the basics of SEO](https://leofinance.io/@niallon11/learn-the-basics-of-seo-search-engine-optimization) by @niallon11

Your Headers will help google to find your post faster.
If you repeatedly us the keywords you want to concentrate on in the posts headers google will like that.
Before you start ranting against google: 
billions of people still use it although they would have other options. Billions of people need to know about Leofinance and Hive. You can not safe someone from the ocean if you are searching for them in the woods...
Ultimately every person coming to your article because of google could become a potential new member of our web 3 environment. Every new user could be a potential whale that might remember that it was your profile bringing them to Leofinance.<br>
**If you do not want this to happen you have the wrong mindset! We only can grow the community by bringing in more people from outside of hive.**<br>

If you want to see what a really well optimized article can do check out this post by @finguru : 
#### [My Articles Got 8.9K Page Views To LeoFinance From Google](https://leofinance.io/@finguru/my-articles-got-8-9k-page-views-to-leofinance-from-google)

@forexbrokr is generally doing very good and has a lot of helpful tips for #newlions 
#### [How to make money blogging on Hive](https://leofinance.io/@forexbrokr/how-to-make-money-blogging-on-hive)
#### [Why cant I get upvotes on Hive?](https://leofinance.io/@forexbrokr/why-cant-i-get-upvotes-on-hive)

As I said I am absolutely not an SEO expert but if you follow the above mentioned accounts and look at their posts you will learn a lot. 

TIP: go back to your old posts and try to optimize them by creating backlinks to other posts and by refining the usage of keywords!

### what hashtags do you use?

A lot of people on HIVE make the mistake to overuse tribe tags. Tribe tags can earn you other 2nd layer tokens that might be interesting to obtain. 

The most important thing though is to categorize your post with your hashtags this again helps you with visibility. You can use 10 tags in total on each of your posts. Make sure to categorize your posts with the first 5-7 tags and only use the other free spots for tribe related tags.

It will make it easier for everyone to find your content if they are looking for those specific keywords.
Do not overdo tribe tags. Some of the tribes are really picky about what you can post about if you use the tag. 

The tags you can always use and might be of and advantage for you are #hive-engine and #ocd the first will ensure you also earn BEE rewards on your posts, the second one gives you access to a wider audience, it is not guaranteed that your post will be curated, but OCD is a very large and active community and they are also looking out for people who just have recently started. 

A few of the many options out there are these tags depending on what content you are posting.

|TAG|Topics|
|-|-|
|#leofinance|		Finance|
|#oneup|Blockchain Games, NFT|
|#ctp|Finance, Marketing|
|#splinterlands|	Splinterlands|
|#cine|Film & TV|
|#palnet|General|
|#proofofbrain|General|
|#vyb|General|
|#neoxian| General|
|#hive-engine| Unspecified, HIVE|
|#weedcash| Cannabis|
|#creativecoin| Art|
|#meme|Memes & Humor|
	
These are just a few and there is many more you can utilize, but be aware, it does not make any sense to use tags if they are not related to your content and you could end up getting downvotes or worse, losing your reputation.
<center>
<a href="https://imgflip.com/i/6wd5a4"><img src="https://i.imgflip.com/6wd5a4.jpg" title="made at imgflip.com"/></a><div><a href="https://imgflip.com/memegenerator">from Imgflip Meme Generator</a></div>
</center>

Hot tip: You can basically post a meme in any type of content and use the MEME hashtag to earn $MEME on hive engine!

### Hide your affiliate links
Depending on what you write about you can place links to your affiliate programs in your post! Make sure write a disclaimer, that it is an affiliate link. You can also just put you affiliate link in a clickable picture! It is no shame that you want to make a bit on the side but don't overdo it. I will come back to this when I talk more about marketing your blog and marketing on your blog.
A nice example would be to embed the link you want clicked in your text:
>Lorem Ipsum bla bla bla and here you will find a way to protect your privacy with a secure VPN connection. Nord VPN is the best choice since it offers really cheap 2 Year plans and you can install it on 5 devices with only one account. Protect your privacy, change your location! [CLICK HERE FOR A DISCOUNT](https://ref.nordvpn.com/PabvFMAYcjV) (affiliate link thanks for supporting me)

A small example on how to overdo it can be found at the end of an old post of mine [HERE](https://peakd.com/hive-121566/@solymi/die-tribetokens-auf-hive-und-die-dazugehorigen-communities-ein-uberblick)
![Bildschirmfoto 20221010 um 16.10.18.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmeSvbipC6F96kKqeePjKPxn8sSinQ7fR1jZDtt5iqhgfT/Bildschirmfoto%202022-10-10%20um%2016.10.18.png)




### Summary
- Have a good headline and title image
- make your post good looking and easily readable with use of different headers, and use advanced mark down techniques
- optimize your content for search engine visibility, use specific keywords to rank better in google searches!
- use the right tags to categorize your post and earn other tokens next to LEO and HIVE
- hide your products or links in the text body but don't overdo it and leave a disclaimer that your post contains affiliate links





![LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmV1PkJ4qmUQbb1HkYD69PgQb1P5MSpJtc42hSYoTAvQLo/LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png)
## Engagement
Engagement is key on every social media platform, not only on web2 but also here on the frontier of web3! Actually here it is even more important, by making connections on leofinance and all over HIVE we are working on the network effect and you should read the post about it on the blog of  @taskmaster 

This deserves a full post on its own but I will try to narrow it down a bit:

### Engage by answering comments on your posts

This is the easiest part and yet so many authors do not make use of this powerful tool. 
We are on a social media platform and this means you gotta be a little bit social and you don't have to be a platform at all...
Answer to each and every comment on your posts! Excluding the bot command replies. But if someone sends you a PIZZA or BEER as appreciation then at least say thank you! 
Really this is the easiest way to retain people clicking on your posts and to win them as followers! 
Answer to all the comments, try to be encouraging and show gratitude to the people interacting with your content. After all they have taken the time to put together a comment, the least you can do is to take the time and answer them. 
Tip: leave small 10-20% upvotes on the comments, this will encourage users to comment on your content more often. You also might get some upvotes for your comments.  
### Engage by commenting on others blogposts

This is level 2 of engaging. Your LEO experience will not be maxxed out if you don't do this part! As I already said we are on a WEB3 social media platform. If we are not engaging with other users content we loose out on a great opportunity to tie nots in this net. Every one of your comments could end up being the reason for someone clicking on your profile and following you. Each time someone comes to your profile they will see your blog. If they see your nice headlines and cool title images they might want to read some of your posts. This could lead them to leave an upvote on those articles. Even better it could lead them to reblog your posts. A reblog by an account that has a lot of followers might bring even bigger growth to your account then just one juicy whale upvote.
The best thing, you can decide what type of content you want to comment on. Look for posts that interest you, look for topics you want to discuss about and search for those authors that write about these topics. 

Read more about why engagement is key:
You could end up making the top of the list in the hive and leofinance engagement leagues put together by @abh12345
#### [Leofinance Engagement](https://leofinance.io/@abh12345/leofinance-engagement-6mvass)
#### [The Hive Engagement League 🏆](https://leofinance.io/@abh12345/the-hive-engagement-league-4yxlux)

If you want to know what other users think of the importance of engaging with your audience and you engaging with other authors and their content read this post by @forexbroker: 
#### [Daily commenting strategy on Hive](https://leofinance.io/@forexbrokr/daily-commenting-strategy-on-hive)

> The second way for users to make money through rewards is to read and interact with authors.
On the Hive blockchain, you are able to comment and provide feedback or commentary on a post.
This enables users to interact with the author and ask questions or provide further information that is relevant to the original content.
If these comments are deemed to be relevant to the original post, users can upvote comments and reward these in the same way posts are rewarded.
Just keep in mind that as it’s less work and provides less value, comments will usually attract lower vote percentages than posts do.

Source: @crypto-guides
#### [What is HIVE crypto (HIVE)](https://leofinance.io/@crypto-guides/what-is-hive-crypto-hive)

Find out all about how to make money blogging on HIVE, all the basic information applies to the LEO experience as well. This one is also by @forexbroker
#### [How to make money blogging on HIVE](https://leofinance.io/@forexbrokr/how-to-make-money-blogging-on-hive)


### Engage by commenting on other peoples comments

Easy! You can also comment on other authors posts by answering directly to one of the comments underneath the post. If you feel you have valuable input for the commenter, then go for it and write a comment! You might find new connections like this and maybe some of these users will follow your account as well!


### Summary
Engagement is key! If you are not willing to put in the work here you will never have the full Leo experience! Just have a look at my pending comment payouts from the past few days to make it clear what I mean. This is only the financial side. There is the other effect of you gaining followers and widening your audience! 
This is a screenshot from Peakd.com because it lists your payouts nicely:
![Bildschirmfoto 20221011 um 09.42.23.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmSJM9TEYEbG36jxpBsWg1L2NfFLAsSwbEJKXypyNNG8hb/Bildschirmfoto%202022-10-11%20um%2009.42.23.png)

![LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmV1PkJ4qmUQbb1HkYD69PgQb1P5MSpJtc42hSYoTAvQLo/LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png)
## Curation
If you want to maximize your LEO experience you will have to make use of your stake or you will miss out on potential rewards. Curation costs time, you need to read posts that you find interesting and decide if the content adds value to our community. If you like what you see drop an upvote.

Your upvotes value will depend on different factors:
- your LEO and HIVE power<br>
![Bildschirmfoto 20221011 um 07.54.40.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmXCTX2dZS53HPqWZt1wkz7nwskP4AyAGigNfSmA1d2J8V/Bildschirmfoto%202022-10-11%20um%2007.54.40.png)<br>
- The weight of your upvote <br> 
![Bildschirmfoto 20221011 um 07.56.24.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmaSjM3uwVmyGnJSgNjfaaKfS5kgbKrXdangnkCWCCbqBS/Bildschirmfoto%202022-10-11%20um%2007.56.24.png)

Now as a #newlion you might not have that big of a stake yet, but as you grow your account you can and will make a nice APR% on your upvotes. 

If you upvote somebodies post they will earn and you will earn too. That is  what gives readers the incentive to use their votes. 

Now I understand that not everyone has time to do that. And there is different ways to not lose out on rewards. 

### Curation services

You can delegate your LEO or HIVE power to certain accounts that are actively managed by members of our community. They take the time to check for quality content and use their stake that is now bigger thanks to your delegation. After the payout you will receive your share of the rewards depending on the size of your delegation. Most curation services charge you a 5% fee for this. 
You will have to decide if you are willing to pay for it but it is better to pay 5% fee and get something then not using your vote at all and not getting anything. I am currently delegating to the curation service of the ONEUP cartel, a gaming guild on HIVE. But there is plenty of more options. And you for sure will find a project that will reward you for your delegations!
**HOT TIP:**
If you delegate your HIVE power to @leo.voter you will earn passive income on your HIVE stake and get about 16% APR on your delegation!

### Curation Trails


There are certain curation trails that you can follow and you will automatically vote with a set weight whenever that account upvotes somebody. 

This is a bit more advanced but also requires some knowledge about vote weights and numbers of votes you cast. 
If you follow too many of these trails you will vote a lot and drain your voting mana if you have not set up certain thresholds. 

Find out all about it here: https://hive.vote/ 
Today is Hardfork day so it might glitch or not work. Be patient they are working on it!
Note the site uses HIVE signer. Please be careful when setting it up!

### LEOFI

You can also decide to rent out your power to others and get a fixed percentage rate on that. 
You can easily lend and rent LEO power on [LEOFI.IO](https://leofi.io/)
![Bildschirmfoto 20221011 um 08.23.21.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmT271wgM8u76dDXCBbbCHetrhrcFEe7t7A83cWAbn4t3u/Bildschirmfoto%202022-10-11%20um%2008.23.21.png)
note it is hard fork time so displays on different hive frontends will do semi good right now. Normally you will find plenty of users looking for a lease and vice versa.


### Track your accounts progress!

You will find valuable information about your account and the return of your curation, by going to https://hivestats.io/@solymi just exchange my account for yours and see how you progress!
![Bildschirmfoto 20221011 um 08.58.11.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQme5QwCpB84DQB15jQrwt1D2hcihC1bR2iqaBrAc3hFvpn/Bildschirmfoto%202022-10-11%20um%2008.58.11.png)
![LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmV1PkJ4qmUQbb1HkYD69PgQb1P5MSpJtc42hSYoTAvQLo/LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png)
Thanks for reading part 1 of 2 or 3 of How to maximize your LEO experience.
I hope I could provide you with some valuable knowledge. I will come back to this post and edit in the links to the next parts. 

I will discuss more topics: 
- marketing your posts on leofinance.io 
- marketing your posts outside of HIVE
- Using the threads function 
- Leo power up day
- leo tasks 
- what to do with your earnings on HIVE and LEO

This list will probably grow as I discover more things I want to show you.

## How to maximize your LEO experience - a newbie guide to the LEOverse PART 2
## How to maximize your LEO experience - a newbie guide to the LEOverse PART 3

![LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmV1PkJ4qmUQbb1HkYD69PgQb1P5MSpJtc42hSYoTAvQLo/LEO_Icon_Post_Divider.png)

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[gaming4.coin](https://gaming4co.in/earn-crypto)
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