In the iGaming sphere, search engine marketing is vital. Each position given up on search engine results pages (SERPs) is a missed opportunity to drive more traffic to the gaming site. In fact, studies have shown that as much as 33% of search traffic goes to the site in the number one position.

With so many factors affecting your rankings, including content and keywords, visitor behaviour, inbound and outbound links, and overall website performance, optimising your SEO strategy can often be quite challenging. The ideal strategy aims to find the perfect balance between each variable, all while keeping up with algorithm changes.  Yet as we know, these change regularly, and a tactic that was once very influential to rankings is now almost obsolete.

To ensure your SEO strategy is up to date and your site is ranking well in SERPs, it is important to regularly perform an audit to check if any SEO mistakes have occured. To help you do so, we have outlined three common pitfalls and explained how your iGaming brand can avoid these mistakes.

Do You Know Your SEO Audience?

When writing content, your target market should be kept in mind. Yet in terms of SEO, your ideal audience is not simply this carefully defined segment, but rather a much broader group.

SEO algorithms look at user data, such as incoming traffic, how long users stay on your site and how many backlinks you receive. In short, content that appeals to more visitors gains better SEO momentum, as more people are engaging with your content. If a blog post is too specific and targeted, those outside of the target market may be alienated.

For example, a sportsbook may have an article that covers predictions and outlines odds for the upcoming Premier League season. Though this is an interesting read for punters in particular, this content is likely not interesting to the greater population. This can limit the reach the content receives, seeing as punters may feel this niche content is not relevant to friends and followers.

Instead, try this:

Create content that is targeted at a larger audience by promoting your brand without necessarily diving into specifics.

For each segment outside of the target audience a piece appeals to, it is that much more likely to be shared, therefore driving more traffic to your site. When readers remain on your site, search engines are more likely to increase your rankings because they will consider this content more relevant to users.

Take this Paddy Power video, for example. It is entertaining to both avid betters and sports fans alike, which is a contributing factor to the 1.5 million views the video has accumulated so far.

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VP7k1QkkhZk" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Are You Making the Most of Your Endorsers?

As a general rule, quality trumps quantity, even in the world of SEO. A well placed backlink can have significantly better results than twenty misplaced ones. Actually, bad backlinks can have a negative impact on your rankings.

For example, an online poker site may spend money on obtaining backlinks on a myriad of non-specific poker sites.  Though the backlink stat will be improved, numbers like click through rate and page visitors will likely not increase.

Endorsers, on the other hand, can help your brand rise up in SERPs. In the era of the internet celebrity, bloggers, social media stars, journalists and even celebrities have a very large online reach. These influencers should definitely be considered.

Instead, try this:

Allocate a bit of extra resources to finding a strong influencer to build a long-lasting partnership with. Some of your players might have a large social following and therefore be the best brand advocates! For example, you can encourage certain players to share their story on social media by offering them VIP bonuses.

PokerStars successfully snagged Twitter’s most followed athlete, Cristiano Ronaldo. With over 44 million followers, one promotional Tweet from him gets outstanding reach.  Though this particular partnership likely generated quite the cost, the list of affordable influencers is nearly endless.

 

Are You Sacrificing Readability for Keywords?

Though inserting SEO keywords into your website content does benefit SEO, keyword stuffing likely outweighs the benefit, as readability is negatively impacted.

For instance, a bingo site may write an About Us paragraph that reiterates “online bingo” multiple times.Ex. We are Bingo XYZ, an online bingo brand that provides online bingo games for players who love online bingo. Though this keyword density is high, clearly readability is low.

As a matter of fact, keyword density plays a fairly small role in rankings give Google’s current SEO algorithm. It is also important to consider that the majority of visitors actually spend less than 15 seconds on your site. In order to truly capture their attention, content must be interesting and relevant to their needs.

Instead, try this:

Focus on writing readable content that includes a variety of relevant keywords.Soolve is a handy tool to discover complementary keywords by ranking common search words for each major search engine.

Here are the results for “bingo”:Given this, the About Us paragraph for a bingo site can use a few of these alternative keywords to mix up the content and create a user-friendly reading experience.Ex. We are Bingo XYZ, a brand that provides online bingo games for players who want to experience the action of a bingo hall from the comfort of their own homes.

Is your SEO strategy optimised?

Looking to see if your site is committing any of these SEO faux-pas? An SEO audit is an ideal place to start. By outlining where your strategy currently stands, it is even easier to determine where it is headed.

Reach out to our team to see how we can help.

Get Your Free SEO Consultation