Let’s define our terms – what do we mean by ‘content marketing’? Basically, ‘content’ encompasses all the different forms you can publish like high-quality articles, blog posts, guides, videos, and images – in this case, related to iGaming. By making content that is captivating and informative and resonates with your target audience, which our team has ongoing experience doing for our iGaming clients like PowerPlay and Olybet, you can establish your brand as a credible and authoritative source of iGaming information. Engaged users mean longer sessions of time spent on your site and help improve search engine rankings.

Content marketing offers the chance to optimise your iGaming site with targeted keywords in mind. One of the very first things you should do when it comes to content marketing is to work backwards from keyword research.

Carrying out keyword research, using tools like SEMRush, Keywordtool.io, and AnswerThePublic, you can assess which keywords have the highest search volumes and are going to be your choice to tap into and rank for. The selection of keywords via research is similarly crucial for Voice Search optimisation. 

The best approach is to, for each page on your iGaming site, choose a primary target keywordthat will feature in the page’s meta title and meta description, the H1-Heading and within on-page text. Note down any variations of this that also have volume and that you want to target as secondary phrases. These should be put in H2-Header positions and incorporated naturally throughout the body of text.

For any pictures that you add to the page, you should save the image on your device beforehand with the primary target keyword within the file name. Once uploaded, include the relevant keywords in the image’s ‘alt-text’. This will all signal to Google exactly what your content is related to and improve its visibility in search engine results.

Our previous blog post highlighted how massively important link building is for iGaming SEO, and any site for that matter. So, we won’t go into too much detail here.

In this context, though, content marketing creates opportunities for earning high-quality backlinks. When you produce valuable and shareable content, other websites, influencers, and bloggers in the iGaming industry are more likely to link to your content, thereby improving your website’s authority and credibility. Gaining these topically-relevant backlinks from reputable sources is a significant SEO ranking factor and can boost your iGaming site’s visibility.

Content marketing on your site goes hand in hand with social media engagement. By promoting your content onto social media platforms like we do (see example above) on our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Threads, you can reach a wider audience and encourage social sharing. Including relevant hashtags will get you seen by the right users. All of this increased social engagement leads to more visibility, traffic, and potential backlinks. Moreover, search engines consider, to a certain degree, these social signals as a measure of your brand’s popularity and authority in the iGaming niche.

Whilst content marketing focuses on providing valuable and engaging content, this will also improve the overall user experience (UX) on your site. When users find your content helpful and informative, they are more likely to spend more time on your site, navigate around various pages and potentially engage in contacting you or commenting on a page. Internal linking is vital here, where you should include links within your text (like we have throughout this post) that point to other relevant pages on your site, facilitating users digging deeper into issues that you cover.

By embracing and utilising content marketing’s potential, you can produce ‘evergreen’ and fresh content that remains relevant and valuable as time goes on. ‘Evergreen’ content, like comprehensive guides or educational articles, will continue to attract organic traffic and backlinks and help with longer-term SEO success. To supplement this, you should regularly publish fresh content to signal to Google that your site is active and up-to-date.

As you’ll have figured out by now, content marketing is a massively important tool in a marketer’s kit, offering numerous benefits for an iGaming business making a name for itself online.

Our SEOs see the tangible and direct benefits on rankings and engagement that a well-executed content marketing strategy can have for any website. By creating captivating and informative content; optimising it with primary and secondary targeted keywords; attracting strong backlinks; engaging with your audience on social media; enhancing UX; and creating evergreen and fresh content; you can nail your SEO. If you’re in the iGaming industry and want to pick our brains, here’s where to get us.

Using tools like KeywordTool and SEMRush, the first port of call in an SEO project should be to find out exactly what users are searching for, and which terms are getting the most searches that you can tap into. Conducting thorough keyword research specific to the iGaming industry. Will then let you map out all the different routes you can go down for targeting search terms. Identify relevant keywords and phrases related to casino games, sports betting, or poker, for example. Hone in on long-tail keywords that have high search volume and lower competition – like ‘free football betting offers in Canada’. The more specific you go, the more targeted you are in generating visibility in front of these users. Assign a target primary keyword per page and incorporate them naturally throughout this page’s content, including its headings and meta title and description.

Using your keyword research, you should focus on optimising each page on your iGaming website in order to improve rankings on Google, Bing, or elsewhere. Generate a ‘crawl’ of your website using the tool ScreamingFrog and this list of pages can be used to map out the meta-data and headings for each page. Ensure that every page has a unique and descriptive title tag, meta description, and URL structure all featuring target keywords. Within your on-page text, organise it intuitively to guide users and search engine bots smoothly through the sections you cover. Optimise images by using descriptive alt tags and compressing file sizes for faster loading times.

Draft up high-quality, informative, and engaging content that will resonate with your target audience. Create in-depth articles, guides, and blog posts, just like this one, that offer a hub of valuable insights, tips, and industry news. Include targeted keywords naturally within all this content and aim for a good balance between keyword optimisation and readability – avoid obvious ‘stuffing’. Engaging content attracts visitors, encourages longer sessions, and improves rankings.

Using a tool like SurferSEO is a smart way to determine whether your content is effective enough compared to your iGaming competitors, or perhaps misses the mark and needs improvement. This tool scores your content out of 100 and nudges upwards into the green zone as you add the keywords they suggest.

Be proactive in creating a strong presence online, so much so that you earn backlinks from other reputable and relevant sources within the iGaming industry. Reach out to iGaming influencers, bloggers, and industry publications to inquire about options for guest blogging or collaborations. Engage with online communities, forums, and chat rooms, sharing valuable insights with them that link back to your site. By using the tool Majestic, you can pop in a competitor’s site and it will show you their list of ‘Ref Domains’ that are linking to them. Use this to identify these types of potential link sources.

High-quality backlinks, that are ‘dofollow’ as opposed to ‘nofollow’, will signal your website’s authority and trustworthiness, helping improve rankings. To read deeper into this, why not check out our post highlighting the importance of building links for iGaming SEO?

Mobile usage continues to rise with haste in the realm of iGaming. It is therefore imperative that your website is well optimised for mobile devices. Ensure your website is responsive, loads quickly, and offers a seamless user experience across various screen sizes. Implement mobile-friendly design elements, like easy navigation and clearly visible and clickable ‘Sign up’ and ‘Login’ call-to-action buttons. Mobile optimisation is not only essential for SEO but also for user satisfaction and conversion rates.

By implementing these five essential SEO strategies, you can finesse your iGaming website and enhance its visibility and rankings, and attract organic traffic. It’s important to stay abreast with the latest SEO trends and monitor your website’s performance, particularly after major algorithm updates by Google or Bing that may have tanked your rankings.

It’s key to remember, SEO is an ongoing and long-term process, and by continuously refining your strategies, you’ll position your iGaming website for success. At Big Pond, our team always starts every iGaming SEO project with the caveat that patience is required as the optimisations can take weeks or months to come into effect. Even longer so against established iGaming platforms. From Olybet to PowerPlay, our clients in the iGaming industry have undoubtedly seen the benefits of investing in an effective SEO strategy.

If you’re reading this and work in the iGaming industry, why not get in touch? We’d love to hear your thoughts!