Author: Sebastian Scheplitz
There are bucket loads of information regarding off-page strategy on the www.
Way, waaaay too much for your averagely iGaming off-page SEO optimization-interested casino mortal that probably has better things to do than to sift through numerous and massive articles (+confusing infographics) on the subject of iGaming content marketing.
Let us at Translation Royale cut to the chase and give you a brief-yet-comprehensive and, most importantly, industry-relevant how-to for creating an iGaming content marketing strategy, including off-page SEO tips for sportsbook.
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So, what exactly is off-page SEO?
iGaming off-page SEO optimization is just as important as on-page SEO. But what exactly is it?
Well, as the name suggests, it’s everything you can do away from your actual page to improve SERP rankings, boost social shares, and become backlink behemoths within the iGaming industry.
iGaming off-page SEO optimization can be thought of as a person-to-person real-world chat between two friends over a cup of coffee (or tea, if you’d prefer). A recommendation from friend A could send friend B towards a particular restaurant/casino blog/behavioral therapist for chinchillas.
This is the very essence of off-page SEO and should be at the heart of your online casino marketing strategy.
Alright, alright. So how do we do it?
À la pretty much any song from early ‘90s hip hop, let’s break this down. iGaming off-page SEO can be reduced to the following elements:
- Backlinks
- Email outreach
- Guest blogging
- Influencer marketing
Without further ado, let’s don our oversized iGaming content marketing strategy sportswear, lay out the dance mat, hit play on the boombox, and teach you how your SEO strategy for iGaming websites can make you some serious cheese.
1. Backlinks
A word often used but less understood, backlinks are links that link to your content from another site. The absolute key to your off-page SEO strategy for iGaming websites, this approach can be defined as backlinking and how you apply it.
Ever been someone’s plus-one? Google’s ranking algorithm works similarly to that of being the host at the party.
If someone vouches for you, you’re allowed in, or in Google’s case, it legitimizes your site. The best thing about backlinking vs. house parties? No hangover.
As with parties, some are better than others, and this also holds true with backlinks. Getting linked from a backwater sportsbook affiliate page compared to a high-quality, well-known sportsbook site will also influence your ranking ability.
Quality, not quantity, plays here.
2. Email Outreach
Sounds exciting, right? Well, perhaps not, but email outreach could be just what you need to help your page into SERP hyperspeed.
Off-page SEO tips for sportsbooks and online casinos would not be complete without stressing the importance of email outreach, even if the mere mention of the words ‘email outreach’ causes you to glaze over and head to your favorite subreddit.
There are good ways and bad ways of approaching people in the hope that they’ll be kind enough to provide you with a backlink.
DON’T DO this:
“Hey!
I was surfing the ‘net and came across your blog article:
www.genericarticle.com/blog
I noticed you linked to:
www.anoutdatedsource.com/blog
Classic! I’ve actually recently written something more updated with a unique twist:
www.recentarticlewithauniquetwist.com/blog
Keep up the good work!
Thanks!
XXXX”
Moreover, automated send-outs are incredibly easy to flag and will not convert to improved ranking. Oh, and it’s not 1995, so you probably shouldn’t use the phrase “surfing the ‘net”.
So, instead, DO this:
“Hi Adam,
I was knee-deep in SEO research when I discovered your article ‘Where to play FREE
casino games this winter’. A really informative spot, and I particularly liked the way it was uniquely tailored to the iGaming niche.
I recently wrote a piece on a similar topic that includes more recent data that you and your audience could find interesting. You can find my post here:
www.postwithmorerecentdata.com/blog
As an iGaming industry professional, it’d be great to hear your opinion on my personal take regarding the subject.
Happy reading,
XXXXX”
Definitely less spammy, this approach won’t have your recipient clicking *Delete* faster than Kylian Mbappe can reach the penalty area.
In this example, the sender has clearly read the article and is showing understanding and empathy.
Another important element to writing an effective outreach email is to give your recipient a bit of an ego massage, without sounding overly sycophantic. Not the easiest tightrope to walk, but it can be done.
Oh, and always remember to personalize your email with the recipient’s name.
3. Guest Blogging
As an iGaming content marketing strategy, guest blogging is an awesome shortcut to improving ranking and driving traffic to your site or page.
By finding an authoritative, well-known site and bagging yourself a spot on their blog, your online visibility can be improved dramatically.
How do you choose a blog to post on though? Ponder these points:
- Find a blog that is focused on iGaming. Remember that niche is nice, and you should aim for the most specific blog that is suitable for your iGaming needs, be it for bingo, casino, sportsbook, live casino, or esports.
- Know your audience. There’s not much point writing 2,000 words on Keno for a prom dress website.
- Ensure the blog owner is highly visible on social. Without an active social media presence, you won’t be getting the much-needed shares your iGaming business needs.
- Make sure they know their onions. In other words, they’re an iGaming genius and respected as one. Also, if you’re putting your content on a shabby third-party site full of grammar slips and punctuation errors, it’s not going to reflect well on your business.
Frank Scoblete, AKA King Scobe, is a casino game master and has penned countless books (well, okay, 35 to be exact) on subjects ranging from blackjack strategy to beating roulette. Frank guest blogs on the phenomenal 888 blog, sharing his brilliance and personal insight into all things casino-related.
You could also combine the email outreach and guest blogging approach.
Looking at the above example, you could reach out and place an article about “Top 5 things to do on a chilly winter evening” on someone else’s blog and then link back to your affiliate website. This can even work with smaller newspapers – we’ve done that too already.
Guest blogging is another way, similar to email outreach, that can give you brand exposure, and more importantly, backlinks that will help you climb the greasy pole of iGaming SERP ranking.
4. Influencer Marketing
Off-page SEO, on-page SEO, and technical SEO often operate less in isolation and are more commonly viewed overlapping, Venn diagram-style.
Influencer marketing is one of the trending iGaming Off-page SEO techniques for 2020 and beyond. Why is influencer marketing so valuable to your iGaming content marketing strategy? Let’s take a look:
- Influencers help create a sturdy link profile. The quality of your links, both internal and external, is a strong indicator as to how well your page will rank.
- Influencers have a unique insight. Google crawlers rate pages for overall quality of content, readability, and keyword usage. Not only this, but Google also looks at the number of times shared and the quality of shares on social media.
- Influencers improve content reach. With a huge following, influencers can reach those iGaming pocket holes that your content may not. Influencers also give your content legitimacy via shares.
While influencer marketing may not be the easiest to obtain in the iGaming niche or iGaming sub-niche, it should still be viewed as a valuable and viable avenue both for SEO for iGaming affiliate websites, providers, and sports betting marketing strategy for operators.
Rounding Up
To go back to our Venn diagram of SEO, there are a lot of moving parts, not just within off-page SEO but with SEO in general.
It overlaps, cannibalizes, does backflips, reverses what you already thought you knew, and then you’re back to where you started. It wouldn’t be so much fun if it were easy.
iGaming in particular has more hurdles than other areas to overcome, partly due to the nature of the business and partly due to a lack of publicly shareable content.
Gambling can be an intensely private affair, and to get shares, you need content to be not only informative, super readable, and uniquely insightful, you also need influential contacts on the iGaming scene.
Online casino content writing services such as those provided by the crack team at Translation Royale are here to guide your iGaming business down a tried and tested path; be it for your casino affiliate site, on-site casino and sportsbook content, provider blog, B2B or B2C marketing comms (and pretty much anything else you can think of). We’ve got this covered.
Further information can be found within the following Translation Royale blog posts:
- On-Page SEO Strategy: The Cheat Sheet for iGaming Marketers
- Why SEO Matters for Your iGaming Business
- 7 Reasons Why Your iGaming Site is Not Ranking (And How to Fix Them)
- What iGaming Companies Need to Know About Google’s Latest Core Update
Header Image Source: Photo by Myriam Jessier on Unsplash
How did you like Sebastian Scheplitz’s blog post “Close the Book: Off-Page SEO for iGaming Marketers in 2020”? Let us know in the comments if you have anything to add, have another content idea for iGaming blog posts, or just want to say “hello.” 🙂
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