With a growing number of online casinos in the market, it has become a need for marketers to have knowledge about igaming and casino SEO. IGaming, which is also known as the internet gambling market, requires a different set of SEO techniques. It is one of the most competitive fields, which includes some of the most common niches like lotteries, online casinos, virtual poker and sports betting.
Most of the time, internet gambling gets a very bad reputation with the search engines, and therefore the online casino requires a strategic and foolproof SEO technique. So, it is necessary for marketers to have relevant and popular trends in this industry to stand out and get a chance to acquire ranking on the search engine pages.
There is no doubt about the fact that the iGaming and online gambling industry is a lucrative and fast-growing market that can easily pay off when you use a skill application. There is a need for proper techniques by the professionals to make sure that you are able to acquire great benefits from the iGaming SEO. So if you are someone who is willing to offer SEO service to the gambling industry, you definitely need to have a look at this comprehensive guide.
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A lot different from the typical SEO campaigns
Casino SEO requires a set of different techniques which involves some of the most common and competitive niches in the marketing sphere. Therefore, it becomes very tricky for marketers to promote gambling websites compared to different other kinds of businesses.
Unlike the common and conventional SEO techniques for e-commerce or other common websites, iGaming SEO Is mostly characterized by cutthroat competition. They were also characterized as spam websites and which is why it becomes very difficult to acquire backlinks, find keywords that are constantly evolving and get legality in different states of the US and some other parts of the world.
There are many marketers who prefer staying away from this industry for some of these mentioned reasons. However, a person who has the experience and courage to step into this market might succeed with constant hard work and meticulous attention to detail. However, in order to acquire results and achieving goals, it requires extensive research and continuous hard work. Not to forget, you would need the perfect SEO strategy.
If you take keywords, for example, new phrases and keywords or continuously being coined every year. So this actually increases the competition among the keywords. Something that you were doing in the previous year will be changing in the next year. So, you have to continuously stay abreast with the trends and make changes in your marketing strategy.
If you initially take the most popular keywords of this industry, you can stay sure that it is very challenging to get them ranked in the search engines. You cannot even think about outranking the renowned and reputed gambling sites that have achieved the ranking with the top keywords if you are just entering this field. So you have to be realistic about your keyword choice. I would always recommend you to target the specialized niche and then create a strategy.
Competitor analysis is inevitable when creating a casino SEO strategy compared to SEO for other competitive industries. It would be best if you spent a lot of time analyzing the competitor backlinks, progress tracking and identifying techniques that can be useful for you to rank the keywords. This way, you will be able to get a thorough knowledge of this industry and how to proceed with the keywords.
When it comes to link building, there is no doubt that it is already challenging for other industries, but when it comes to casino websites, it is far more complicated. The reason why is you will not be able to find a site that would want to collaborate with the casino service providers. Most of the Webmasters would refuse to accept your request.
Last but never the least, Google will always have a huge expectation for authoritative and relevant backlinks in order to build trust in the website. So, if you don’t get quality backlinks, it will not help your website to get the rank. So, if you’re thinking of acquiring low-quality backlinks or from shady sites, it would not provide any help to your marketing strategy.
However, this does not necessarily mean that you have to give up, as ultimately, the agenda of SEO IGaming remains the same for every domain. Even when you Choose an igaming SEO agency, The ultimate agenda remains the same.
- It is all about getting higher ranks in Google as much as it is possible to improve organic traffic and visibility
- You have to focus on natural link building.
- You need to gain credibility to make your website trusted by Google.
- You need to engage the target audience and get them hooked to your website.
So now you know that the ultimate agenda remains the same; however, the process might differ from other industries. Here we will talk about the best ways or some effective tips that you can use to improve your igaming SEO.
Choose an aged domain
It is always advisable to consider buying the old domain in order to make a kickstart on link building. It would be more effective if you chose a domain that is created in a specific niche.
A good and aged domain can be easily understood when it has a good link profile. Make sure that the domain was created several years ago and does not have any spam links with it. This is a bonus if the specific domain is already being listed in the business directory.
It is critical to start the site either by updating the targeted relevant keywords or with a content overhaul. Make sure that you only include keywords that reflect the current trend of this industry. Even when it has a minimum ranking benefit, when you have an old domain, it can help you to gain trust along with generating traffic for the foundation of your business.
Make proper keyword research
When it comes to doing keyword research for these gambling sites, it is not as simple as finding the keywords that will be sprinkled across your website. You have to be very specific as you need to identify the different phrases or search terms. You also have to make sure to find out the competition and how they will be able to offer the best ROI.
Since the search terms are continuously evolving in competitiveness and popularity, you have to make sure to be informed about them. You also must know that the consumer preferences and laws of the igaming industry continuously change, which is why you have to be very vigilant about it. Like any other competitive niche, keywords that you found profitable a year ago will probably not yield the best results in the current year
Most of the keywords you will find observe a decreased popularity over time. For example, if you take “poker online”, it would currently give you a hike of 10%, but “sports betting” is another keyword that has been consistently performing for 10 long years.
So it is always recommended to find keywords in the specialized niche and find out how they are performing. Take a look at the search volumes, competitive levels, CPC rates and much more. You will always find a lot of longtail and medium keywords that you can choose from an event target from the website. Medium tail keywords are a good choice as it offers a proper balance between profitability and challenges.
You have to make sure that you need to use and implement keywords in the most natural way on your website. It is also recommended to avoid keyword stuffing along with using unprofitable techniques that can result in penalizing your website by the search engines. However, whichever keywords you prefer to choose to optimize your website, you can only rank as much as it is possible as your business requires maximum visibility for better performance in the long term.
Make a proper competitor analysis
When it comes to a vital part of the casino SEO strategy, competitor analysis is one of the best ways to find effective ways to rank. It means that you have to choose the top 10 competitors in your vertical and learn in detail about them. When you make the competitor analyses, you will be able to learn about the ways they are building links and how they are performing over time.
It would help if you kept in mind that you need to outperform the direct competitors for the keywords that are relevant to your niche and by making a better website. Ensure that you are not trying to beat the biggest competitor in the online gambling sites, as it would not work when you are in your initial phase.
You should also pay attention to the overall site structure of your competitor. In case they are hosting casino games, you have to check if each game has an optimized page. So make sure that you explore every site and get complete knowledge about their UI and UX design.
Website optimization
You must know that there are multiple elements in a website that require optimization. A properly constructed and fully optimized website will always have done half of the work required to rank on the search engine ranking pages.
Each and every page on the website that is associated with online gambling might rank individually. You can always do that in the search engine ranking if you wish. So you have to make sure that you are optimizing every page with the long tail and medium keywords to acquire great results
It also means that you have to decide which page you want to optimize for the relevant terms. It is advised to choose one or two keywords which are unique for optimizing. Remember that stuffing keywords can result in spamming your website.
- Off-page SEO: It is a vital part of optimization as it includes elements from external pages or other websites that can improve ranking. It mostly includes social media marketing, backlinks, content distribution, etc. Out of all the things mentioned here, link building is the most effective way to optimize your website.
- On-page SEO: On-page SEO actually means every element available on the website. The elements that describe your website. It must be your priority. Even before the off-page SEO, you have to ensure that your on-page SEO is perfect. You need to check the SEO titles, content, headings, meta description and images. Also, ensure that the keyword positioning is properly throughout the website and there is no overstaffing of keywords.
Make sure of your site structure
You must know that the user experience and website construction are extremely vital. It is true when the casino site hosts virtual gambling games. Even when this can be challenging and an expensive endeavour, you can achieve it by creating a proper strategy.
You must know that SEO is something that you have to keep doing consistently, but it is a one-time investment when it comes to this site structure. You have to invest your time and resources in creating a fantastic UI to improve your customer user experience. You have to make sure that your website can be easily accessed by anyone and looks great to the users.
While creating the design of the website, you should also pay attention to the page hierarchy. Make sure that it is efficient, clean and logical. It would be best if you always kept in mind that every user, from teenagers to adults, whoever comes to your website can easily find the games that they want to play. Avoid errors and any faulty layouts.
In case there are multiple casino games, you should always choose to build a site structure in a way that will help them to understand where to find which games. Also, use the keyword-optimized page to improve the search results in an organic manner.
Add informative content
When it comes to creating content for your casino website, you have to make sure that it is informative and well written. It is always a better choice as it offers improved chances of ranking in the SERPs. However, you have to make sure that the content adds value to the users along with sound authoritative. You can always hire a seasoned casino writer who understands gambling and can always post better content that does not have any jargon.
While you create content, it is always advisable to create relatable casino content. Depending on what your site is focusing on, you have to choose the topics. If you are providing casino games, you can offer instructions and information about the way to improve the chances of winning the casino games. Apart from that, if you’re an information-based website, you should always offer the best information that can help audiences get back to you whenever they require any information about the gambling industry.
High-quality, useful and original content is always the best. It must be good enough to encourage other links to get backlinks from your website. Apart from that, it should always have contents that can encourage visitors to engage with your website.
Some of the best content ideas for gambling websites include guides and tutorials, unique opinions, casino reviews, facts, industry trends, relevant information and a lot more that can be valuable for readers.
Create quality backlinks
As I have already mentioned, link building is a vital part of the igaming SEO. When you get high-quality and natural backlinks from authoritative websites, it will help you get a strong link profile and improve the chances of ranking on the search engine ranking pages.
You should pay attention to not spamming your link everywhere. You should know that quality is always better than quality when it is about link building about the casino website. Even if you get a single powerful backlink from any high-end website, it is always better than having 20 low-quality backlinks.
The better and the most profitable way is to acquire natural links by optimizing content that can attract traffic to your website. You can take guest post opportunities as this is an effective way to build quality backlinks, develop trust, and make your website authoritative.
Bottom line
It doesn’t really matter how much money you have spent on advertising if you do not have a solid SEO strategy for the gambling website. The strategy that emphasizes competitive analysis, does thorough research and offers great content is the one that will always outperform the competition.
Apart from this, you also have to make sure of the website design to get your users hooked to your website. You must know what your visitors are looking for, and hence you should be creating a website accordingly. No doubt that this is a challenging genre. However, if you are determined and well aware of the trends, you will be able to overcome the challenges.
You can always choose Digital Habibi as your igaming SEO Expert. I have been a part of casino gaming for years now, and I know the challenges that are offered to any igaming SEO consultant. However, you can always reach me to find out the best strategy and professional marketing approach.
So Thank you for reading. I hope I was able to offer ample information. Remember that casino gaming is a huge industry, and if you can carve out your path to success, no one can stop you from getting the success you deserve.
iGaming FAQs
iGaming SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization strategies specifically tailored for online casinos and betting websites. It involves optimizing the website’s content, structure, and backlinks to improve its visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s crucial for iGaming businesses as higher search engine rankings lead to increased organic traffic, better user engagement, and more potential players, resulting in improved conversion rates and revenue.
Several important iGaming SEO techniques include:
Keyword Research: Identifying relevant keywords and search phrases that potential players use when looking for online casinos or betting options.
On-Page Optimization: Optimizing meta tags, headings, content, and images to target chosen keywords and provide valuable information to users.
Mobile Optimization: Ensuring the website is mobile-friendly to cater to the increasing number of mobile users.
Technical SEO: Addressing technical issues, improving site speed, and ensuring proper site indexing for search engine crawlers.
Content Marketing: Creating high-quality, engaging, and informative content, such as game guides, casino reviews, and industry news, to attract and retain users.
Link Building: Building authoritative and relevant backlinks to increase the website’s domain authority and credibility.
Yes, promoting iGaming websites through SEO often involves complying with various regulations and restrictions, depending on the country or region where the website operates. For instance, some countries may have strict gambling advertising rules, and search engines might have specific policies related to gambling content. It’s essential for iGaming SEO experts to be well-versed in local regulations to avoid any potential legal issues.
The timeline for seeing results from iGaming SEO efforts can vary significantly based on several factors, such as the website’s current state, the level of competition, the quality of optimization, and search engine algorithm updates. Generally, noticeable improvements may start to show within a few months of implementing the SEO strategies. However, it’s essential to understand that SEO is an ongoing process, and continuous efforts are required to maintain and improve rankings over time.
Success in iGaming SEO can be measured through various key performance indicators (KPIs). Some essential metrics to monitor include:
Organic Traffic: Tracking the increase in organic search traffic to the website.
Keyword Rankings: Monitoring the rankings of target keywords on search engine results pages.
Conversion Rates: Analyzing the percentage of website visitors who complete desired actions, such as signing up or making a deposit.
Return on Investment (ROI): Assessing the revenue generated from organic traffic compared to the investment in SEO efforts.
While SEO is an integral part of any iGaming marketing strategy, it’s essential to have a well-rounded approach. Paid advertising, such as Google Ads or social media ads, can complement SEO efforts and provide immediate visibility. Additionally, content marketing, social media marketing, and affiliate partnerships can all contribute to the overall success of an iGaming business. A comprehensive marketing strategy that combines various channels and tactics is usually the most effective way to reach and engage the target audience.
