WordPress hosts more than 60 million unique websites and sees over 70 million fresh posts a year. With so much competition, you may be struggling to attract more visitors to your own site on the platform—and encourage them to stay for longer. To cut through the noise, it can help to ensure it has plenty of the characteristics a successful WordPress site should have, such as a user-centric design, engaging features, and a secure environment.
Integrating emerging technologies like Web3 can give you all the functionalities necessary to give your site these characteristics—and, ultimately, the competitive edge it needs. Though relatively new, blockchain technology is seeing more widespread adoption because of its decentralized nature. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons why crowded industries like online poker are seeing a surge in traffic. The online poker site BitStarz is a great example of how helpful Web3 is, as its adoption of blockchain technology helped it attract and maintain an audience of over four million regular users.
Given the success of Web3 adoption in online poker, it can serve as a great source of inspiration if you’re looking to similarly leverage its related technologies. Here are a few of the top brands in the industry that show why you should go all-in and integrate it into your own WordPress site.
More convenience
If your WordPress site sells products or services, you may want to look into how convenient it actually is to buy something on it. According to Raconteur, third-party issues that lead to payment problems are among the top five ways poorly designed websites can hurt business sales—any network errors on the end of your payment processor can cause delays and rejections that frustrate users and see them not pushing through with purchases. Online poker websites experience similar issues, and they’ve been proactive in fixing them given that players need to deposit their buy-ins before they even start playing. They do that by facilitating crypto payments. Because crypto transactions go through decentralized blockchain networks, they bypass middlemen like banks and don’t get delayed due to network errors.
One great case study here is ACR Poker. It was one of the first poker sites on the scene to adopt crypto—all the way back in 2014. After just three years, it was accepting over 60 different tokens, ranging from Bitcoin to Tether. It accomplished this by working with a number of reputable crypto wallets, including hardware like Ledger Nano X as well as desktop- and mobile-friendly ones like Electrum and Mycelium. Now providing faster and more convenient payment options, ACR Poker generates more than 60% of its business from crypto users, and it’s currently considered America’s #1 poker site—showing how simply using Web3 technologies like crypto can similarly boost the success of your WordPress site. We particularly recommend using crypto checkout plugins like CoinBase Commerce, which also provides multi-token support.
Better security
Cybersecurity is yet another common concern among WordPress site visitors. In 2024, Patchstack found a whopping 8,000 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem. Only a few of them were found in WordPress itself—most of them came from plugins and themes. That’s another reason you may want to integrate Web3 technologies into your website. As seen in the online poker industry—where users playing for real money are vulnerable to breaches that divulge their personal information and can affect their funds—you can easily use the blockchain to plug any security gaps so you can attract and retain more site visitors. In particular, you may want to consider implementing smart contracts, blockchain-hosted, self-executing protocols that can’t easily be tampered with.
Wallet analysis platform SuperDAO’s Pokereum site exemplifies just how effective blockchain-based security can be. Hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, Pokereum uses multi-tiered smart contract technology to hide all player information and transactions behind two layers of encryption. The protocol can also detect click fraud and instantly distribute winnings among successful players via micropayments, allowing Pokereum to safe keep their information and deposits. As a result, Bitcoinist considers it to be the most mature online poker program on the Ethereum blockchain. To reap similar benefits, consider using the WP Smart Contracts plugin. Considered one of the most complete smart contract suites for WordPress, it’s specifically designed to enhance security for both site visitors and administrators like yourself. It’s also updated regularly, ensuring that it’s a safe plugin to use—especially since Patchstack only found vulnerabilities in abandoned plugins that no longer receive security patches.
Enhanced transparency
Whether we’re talking about affiliate marketing for lifestyle blogs, editorial policies for news sites, or legal compliance for business domains, visitors appreciate WordPress sites that provide more transparency about what they do and how they get it done. By clearly communicating what you offer, you’ll prove your value to your intended audience—which can see readers frequently coming back for updates, buyers making repeat purchases, and even other individuals and organizations contacting you for business opportunities. This is another aspect where Web3 technology can help, as blockchains are essentially digital ledgers that contain information anyone can view. That feature has been particularly useful in online poker, where websites aim to provide fair gameplay for everyone at the digital table.
CoinPoker is definitely the standout in this regard. Though it also facilitates crypto transactions and leverages blockchain-based security protocols, it takes additional steps to uphold fair gameplay through its unique decentralized card shuffling tool. Powered by Ethereum’s cryptographic hash function, it lets all users verify the randomness of the hands they’re dealt at any point during gameplay. If that wasn’t enough, CoinPoker also periodically releases proof of reserves reports showing where player deposits are stored, reassuring site visitors about the state and security of their funds. One example of a great blockchain plugin you can use for added transparency is WordProof Timestamp. After installing it, it will immediately timestamp all your site’s posts and store them on the blockchain, where they can be used for copyright protection and proof of existence—and, ultimately, to enhance reader trust.
If you’re ready to design your site but aren’t a developer, see what WP Reset’s features can do for you.