Your presence on this page indicates that you operate a gambling website. If you’re looking for organic growth for your gambling site, this article will greatly assist you.
SEO, in general, is difficult. But iGaming SEO, such as sports betting SEO, online casino site SEO, poker SEO, or an affiliate site built on the gambling promotion model, is particularly difficult.
It is no secret that gambling sites or casinos have faced intense competition in recent years, and it is safe to say that impressing Google is not impossible but highly challenging.
In the following lines, we will explain how to rank higher than your competitors in Search Result Pages, so keep reading!
Table of Contents
Why Is SEO For Gambling Sites So Difficult?
The short answer is that there is a lot of competition and little to no organic online coverage.
Operators and affiliate companies compete for the same customers, and few publications cover gambling without being affiliated with or paid to write about a brand or game.
P.C: PEXELS
This means that in order to rank well in Google, you’ll need to improve your SEO game significantly. It is not sufficient to cover some aspects of SEO and try to get away with a semi-optimized website.
To win the SEO game in the online gambling industry, your SEO must be central to your digital marketing strategy, and your website performance and user experience must be exceptional.
The Importance Of Taking Care Of Players’ Needs
Google now favors websites that provide a great all-around experience to their target audience. When it finds these sites, it rewards them by ranking them higher in search results than its competitors.
A few years ago, you could get a page to rank well simply by responding directly to a user query. However, that is no longer sufficient. You must now ensure that visitors are satisfied with the response you provide.
If you fail to do so, they will move on to the following result. When that happens Google will take note, and your page will not rank as well because it did not do its “job.”
This is especially important in the gambling industry. Most online gamblers of any kind are:
1. Impatient and want to get started as soon as possible
2. Frequently searching for gambling-related queries at specific times or in specific moods
3. Have an increasing number of options to choose from
So, if Joe searches for the ‘best poker signup bonus’ at 11 p.m. and is feeling flush, that’s exactly what you have to offer him. And quickly.
Users should have access to detailed information such as ratings, bonus details, payout speed, promo codes, sportsbook and casino reviews, and so on.
However, more than just the search query must be properly answered.
How to Satisfy User’s Expectations?
We will now list the most important SEO factors you must consider to even have a chance to rank on Google.
1. Well-Structured Home Page
The homepage is a hub page where you must pique not only a browser’s interest, but also gain their trust. The majority of gambling sites provide two options: free play and paid play.
Obviously, the goal is to gain a lot more of the latter than you do of the former. The numbers do not support the theory that free play will eventually lead to paid play ‘overtime.’
As experience showed us, if a player converts from free to paid within 24 hours, it is likely that they will do so in the future. If not, they likely never will.
As a result, everything on your front page must encourage players to spend their pot with you rather than your competitors.
2. Write Engaging Page Title
The page title is the first thing a potential customer sees, and you must capture their attention right away. You have an opportunity to entice them by making a promise to pique their interest.
The page title is more than just a ranking factor; it should be viewed as a small text ad because it is the first point of contact with a new potential visitor.
3. Increase CTR With Meta Descriptions
Google attempts to understand what people like by measuring click-through rates, and it is considered a ranking signal. So you want as many SERP clicks as possible.
There are a variety of strategies for increasing CTR, ranging from better headlines to getting the gambling SEO keywords right in the 160 characters you have to work with; letters, numbers, emojis, and other visually appealing elements.
Regrettably, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. A/B testing will be required to get it right. SEO for gambling websites is not a one-time event; it is a continuous process that requires time and patience.
3. Improve Page Load Time
In a mobile-first index world, Google considers speed to be a crucial ranking factor.
This means that if you are slower than your competitors, even if you have checked all of the other SEO boxes, you may not outrank them.
This is something that any SEO company that specializes in the gambling industry will tell you.
Google’s Pagespeed Insights Tool can help you determine how quickly your site loads. Enter a few of your competitors’ URLs to see how they compare.
Take note of the suggestions for improvement that are made to you, and if you are not sure how to implement them, hire someone who does.
Typically, the things that matter for speed are the number of requests sent to the server, the quality of your CDN, the number of scripts you have, the level of compression you have on images, and whether scripts are kept to a minimum in both quantity and size.
4. Create Genuinely Unique Content
For gambling site SEO, unique content is essential. Google expects websites to have unique content, so there’s not much you can do about it except, well, be unique.
However, maintaining unique content is a challenge for all websites.
This is especially difficult for affiliates in the casino industry, as they must write massive amounts of content for each game and operator they review.
The solution is to have dedicated content production resources, for which copywriters are needed. Your content should be keyword-driven but not keyword-stuffed, as well as informative and engaging.
That is a tall order, and only a seasoned gambling SEO copywriter can get it right sometimes (most of the time).
5. Create a Good Backlink Profile
We’ve heard of gambling site affiliate operators who build thousands of links each year and those who build far fewer but rank higher and stay on Google’s good side.
Why? Because of the former’s thousands of links, only a hundred are often worth anything.
The rest are pointless. So, even if it takes time, the person who takes the time to build good links – by creating great content and developing genuine relationships with publishers and influencers – will win.
That is why creating backlinks for your gambling website is so effective. A knowledgeable gambling SEO agency will know exactly which links to build.
Also, remember internal linking. Internal linking is a frequently overlooked SEO strategy for a gambling website.
This is a technique that will provide you with the best results without the cost and is an excellent content optimization strategy. Pages with proper internal and outbound linking rank higher in search results.
SEO For Gaming Websites Summarized
When users arrive at a casino games page, they expect the page they visit to be:
- Load super fast (ideally less than 3 seconds)
- See game snippets and previews
- Play a free version of the game
- Pick free bonuses
Explain the purpose of the game, as well as the odds, payouts, and all other legal requirements.
To be compatible with all devices. And being mobile-friendly means being on par with desktop in terms of the overall experience.
Are you considering going mobile-first? You ought to be because Google is focused on mobile-first design, structure, and speed. SEO for gambling and betting works in the same way as other niches.
Therefore, it is critical to be familiar with the subject matter and industry when copywriting and combining the semantic kernel.
If you optimize properly, you will be able to break into the top of the SERPs in a matter of months.
Quick Links:
