Along with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, SEO is one of the twin pillars of an affiliate’s SEM strategy. The more effectively an affiliate search-optimises their website, the higher it will be listed in the organic search results of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! Obviously, the higher an affiliate’s ranking, the more traffic it will receive, which can then be driven on to operator websites – resulting in greater revenue figures for everyone involved.

The Basics: What’s in a Word?

First of all, let’s get down to basics. How do affiliates optimise their websites? The foundation of all SEO is keywords. These are the group of words people type into search engines when looking for websites and information online.

To optimise their websites, affiliates need to select the words that most appropriately represent their site in general, its individual pages and the brands of the operators with which they’re affiliated. This is accomplished by first analysing their offering and then conducting research using, for instance, Google AdWords’ Keyword Tool.

Don’t Let People Search in Vain:

Newcomers to SEO are often tempted to take the term ‘keywords’ literally and limit their choices to one or two words with high traffic in the relevant market. Almost as bad as these ‘fathead’ keywords are longer keywords where the additional words continue to reflect the affiliate’s website in only the vaguest way. For example, if an affiliate’s site specialises in advertising sportsbook brands, the temptation is to come up with broad terms like “sports betting” and other equally unfocused sets of words.

Known as ‘vanity’ keywords, these general terms end up getting the affiliate’s website buried by search engines due to the fierce competition from other websites for these keywords. And SEO that leads to low rankings for a website is worse than no SEO at all, which at least doesn’t involve wasted time and resources.

Longtail Keywords: A Long-Term SEM Solution:

So if ‘fathead’ keywords and vague ‘vanity’ keywords aren’t effective as an SEM solution, what is? A Slingshot SEO study found that keywords using three or more targeted words generated 3.5 times more organic monthly traffic than ‘fathead’ keywords. Keyword phrases featuring three or more keywords, though preferably no more than five, are known as ‘longtail’ keywords.

Developing ‘longtail’ keywords involve finding an affiliate website’s niche, where competition is lower. Returning to the sportsbook example we mentioned previously, if we carry out more detailed research we ascertain that the affiliate offers players the chance to check sporting odds and also gives them betting advice. As a result, we replace the vague ‘fathead’ keywords of “sports betting” with ‘longtail’ ones like “betting odds, daily bookmaker tips”.

‘Longtail’ keywords like this will drive targeted traffic – the right sort of traffic that’s likely to convert. Indeed, another SEO study suggests that ‘longtail’ keywords are 2.5 times more likely to convert into a sale – or, in affiliates’ case, registration with an operator – than their ‘fathead’ counterparts.

The choice is simple: cut out ‘fatheads’ and ‘vanity’ keywords and use ‘longtail’ ones instead for a long-term SEM strategy.

Along with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, SEO is one of the twin pillars of an affiliate’s SEM strategy. The more effectively an affiliate search-optimises their website, the higher it will be listed in the organic search results of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! Obviously, the higher an affiliate’s ranking, the more traffic it will receive, which can then be driven on to operator websites –resulting in greater revenue figures for everyone involved.

The Basics: What’s in a Word?

First of all, let’s get down to basics. How do affiliates optimise their websites? The foundation of all SEO is keywords. These are the group of words people type into search engines when looking for websites and information online.

To optimise their websites, affiliates need to select the words that most appropriately represent their site in general, its individual pages and the brands of the operators with which they’re affiliated. This is accomplished by first analysing their offering and then conducting research using, for instance, Google AdWords’ Keyword Tool.

Don’t Let People Search in Vain

Newcomers to SEO are often tempted to take the term ‘keywords’ literally and limit their choices to one or two words with high traffic in the relevant market. Almost as bad as these ‘fathead’ keywords are longer keywords where the additional words continue to reflect the affiliate’s website in only the vaguest way. For example, if an affiliate’s site specialises in advertising sportsbook brands, the temptation is to come up with broad terms like “sports betting” and other equally unfocused sets of words.

Known as ‘vanity’ keywords, these general terms end up getting the affiliate’s website buried by search engines due to the fierce competition from other websites for these keywords. And SEO that leads to low rankings for a website is worse than no SEO at all, which at least doesn’t involve wasted time and resources.

Longtail Keywords: A Long-Term SEM Solution

So if ‘fathead’ keywords and vague ‘vanity’ keywords aren’t effective as an SEM solution, what is? A Slingshot SEO study found that keywords using three or more targeted words generated 3.5 times more organic monthly traffic than ‘fathead’ keywords. Keyword phrases featuring three or more keywords, though preferably no more than five, are known as ‘longtail’ keywords.

Developing ‘longtail’ keywords involve finding an affiliate website’s niche, where competition is lower. Returning to the sportsbook example we mentioned previously, if we carry out more detailed research we ascertain that the affiliate offers players the chance to check sporting odds and also gives them betting advice. As a result, we replace the vague ‘fathead’ keywords of “sports betting” with ‘longtail’ ones like “betting odds, daily bookmaker tips”.

‘Longtail’ keywords like this will drive targeted traffic – the right sort of traffic that’s likely to convert. Indeed, another SEO study suggests that ‘longtail’ keywords are 2.5 times more likely to convert into a sale – or, in affiliates’ case, registration with an operator – than their ‘fathead’ counterparts.

The choice is simple: cut out ‘fatheads’ and ‘vanity’ keywords and use ‘longtail’ ones instead for a long-term SEM strategy.