The Importance of Good Content in the iGaming Industry

The iGaming industry has emerged from launching the first ever online casino in 1994 to developing mobile apps that allow users to play and bet anytime from anywhere in the world. Traditional land-based casinos still remain as prestigious venues for exclusive guests, high rollers, and those who prefer the hands-on gambling thrill while online betting platforms have morphed to serve the players looking for quick and convenient on-the-go betting experiences.

Regardless of whether a casino is online or land-based, just like any other industry nowadays, one of the best ways to promote an iGaming business is through online content marketing.

In fact, there are two types of sectors which rely heavily on good iGaming content:

1. Casino operators publishing a variety of updates and information through their websites and
2. Affiliate websites that help advertise casinos and sportsbooks, and increase exposure through their casino ratings and slot reviews.

If you are from one of the two sectors as mentioned above, or planning to become either one of them, you should know that the competition for well-ranked online content is getting more and more fierce these days. Although it may seem like these two sectors work hand-in-hand for mutual benefits, one can still outshine the other if they are good enough.

iGaming Operators: While it is true that some big companies have rolled out big online marketing strategies, they are still far behind other affiliate channels in terms of quantity and sometimes even quality when it comes to different types of content.

Operators need to compete with the amount of content that affiliates put out as they usually publish more content per keyword. These big corporates can cut down a considerable amount of money spent on affiliate marketing if they can produce more fresh and engaging material, which in turn leads to more organic traffic to their websites.

Affiliate Websites: Affiliate websites usually put out content pieces that are more keyword-heavy so that they can be easily found by search engines and in turn drive traffic to the respective online casinos they’re promoting. However, they need to step up their game if they want to compete with the growing readiness of operators to produce high-quality content with big budgets.

The main weakness of casino websites is not putting enough content (as in written blogs, videos, tooltips on respective events, betting tips or sports reviews) out there. Since the payment system for casino affiliates is based on performance and progress, they can generate a more significant amount of income by publishing highly valuable information for both their clients and readers regularly.

Since content marketing has proven to be essential for iGaming businesses, we need to talk about how we can upgrade the quality of those contents to set the bar higher.

Be Precise: Correct usage of language is a primary factor in creating compelling pieces of copy for your websites. In the iGaming industry, casino operators are entrusted with a hefty sum of money from clients all over the world. Therefore, it is crucial to prove trustworthiness, and a single mistake must not be slipped through something that is as obvious as website content. It is said that 40% of visitors do not return to a website after facing a bad experience – and language plays a huge part in it.

Extra care has to be put into language usage especially when one’s website is multilingual. The website content has to be translated precisely (but not literally) to avoid any embarrassing translation failures.

Translating and crafting content for SEO in English can be relatively more straightforward compared to other languages. For instance, writing in German would need careful placement of prefixes, suffixes and other grammatical structures which need to be incorporated naturally. And oftentimes, if it’s short and sounds cool in English, it might sound very boring if it’s translated into German (or other languages) literally. Finding a new expression conveying the same feeling is rather considered transcreation (but we don’t want to get too technical here).

Machine translation is not exactly the most reliable tool as it cannot distinguish between localized content and human context, which is especially important when it comes to homonyms and homographs.

In addition to the word usage, details such as currency signs, date and time format all play essential roles for the localization of multilingual websites.

Be Up-To-Date: Having outdated content as the last content piece on your affiliate/casino blog is like displaying expired food items in a store. One should always keep the content fresh and current to increase the interest level on your site. According to Hubspot, companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5 times more traffic and 4.5 times more leads than companies that published zero to four monthly posts.

iGaming players and marketers are always on the look-out for the latest trends and updates. Fresh content such as recent sports reviews and sports betting news tend to rank high for SERPs – and producing such type of articles reflects originality. Some more examples include the latest industry-related reports, changes in rules and regulations in different regions, and even the release of new games.

Be Unique: Developing unique and captivating content can pave the way to attract new players and support the brand image, be it affiliates or casino operators themselves.

There are so many mediocre articles out there which are enough to overwhelm the users with all their low-quality spammy information. If you typed in a popular keyword, countless articles with the same title would pop up, and you wouldn’t even know which link to click.

Adding your own secret sauce with something we like to call “serendipity posts” which are out-of-norm or even useful tooltips can make you stand out from the crowd. Adding videos to the landing page, converting texts into eye-catching visuals and playing around with formats and colors will also make the context more interesting. It is said that including a video in a post can increase organic traffic from search results by 157%.

Be Visible: Content that is not visible to the audience makes all the effort that is poured into it to go to waste. Only awareness and interest stage can lead to consideration and in this case, it is whether to place bets on games that your website offers or not.

For your affiliate articles or casino-related blogs to be stumbled upon by the right online audience, your content has to include popular keywords which are the right fit for your content.

However, there are several ways to get noticed other than SEO. Paid ads in the right context, regular email newsletters, and social media platforms are also some of the channels that you can share your content across if it’s specifically tailored to it. Data suggests that Facebook is now nearly as influential as Google for content search. And yes, we know about the restrictions Facebook is putting on iGaming companies – but it’s all about the content that’s shared there.

Don’t Fool Google (or any search engines): Planning for keywords and trying to increase your SEO rank is excellent and in fact, it is crucial for any online businesses aiming for proper exposure. However, what happens when one tries a bit too much to reach the top? Well, Google can detect it sooner or later and will throw you off the rank way lower than where you already are. In the worst case scenario, your website will even be banned from some search engines.

People often misuse or often use the SEO strategies too aggressively by creating content that is optimized ONLY for search engines and not for human readers. This method is usually known as ‘Black Hat SEO,’ and some examples include keyword stuffing, inserting invisible text or irrelevant keywords, and creating doorway pages which redirect users to a different page.

High-standard content is always highly appreciated by readers, and as long as you provide “actual” value to the audiences, they will stay on your page. Informative and engaging articles are good anchor points to retain visitors whereas low-quality spammy words will lower the credibility of your website and will more likely scare your visitors off.

An iGaming website with unpromising quality is a website surely not worth betting on. Those who commit to publishing quality content to their online platforms will reap the biggest rewards in terms of website traffic and leads.