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The Unit Filip Podborschi is a SEO Strategist.
Our experience with SEO in igaming has shown us that there are many areas for improvement. We also see some common mistakes, which can be corrected. We’ll look at each of these aspects of SEO, and give you our best tips on how to maximise your search rankings and increase traffic to your site.
Keyword strategy
Operators should identify the top performing keywords for each post that will result in a higher volume of searches. Pages rank, not websites. You need to have a different search intention on each page. This will increase the number of keywords that you are ranking for.
This can be done by first checking the search volume and then implementing keywords in accordance with SEO best practices. This means using primary and secondary keywords, and adjusting the repetition according to the results.
We see a lot of companies make the mistake of not doing enough research when it comes to conducting a competitive analysis, especially if they are new in the industry. It’s harder than you think to identify what your competitors are doing in terms of SEO, and marketing agencies often get lazy. Some agencies may use tools that show their competitors’ services by algorithm. However, they will not crawl long enough to determine what they are offering and compare it with the service of their clients. It is important to know which sites are ranking higher than yours and why.
Also, we see problems with ranking sites based on a user’s location. You may have a site that is highly ranked in Canada. However, if I search for the same category as an individual based in Canada, I won’t get the same results. Use a VPN in order to see how your website is performing and ranking with your audience within your local geographical area.
SEO tags optimisation
The page title is the most important ranking factor in SEO tags. These are the page title and the description that you see on a search engine result page. Google checks the title of the page to determine what it’s about and which searches are relevant. The H1 will be checked, as well as the content. It may also look at the H2.
Some websites, particularly the inner pages, have templated SEO tag. This is more like a formula in the code that generates a random structure. The template is obvious and the operator does not care about length.
Tags are important, but you need to ensure that your titles don’t go over the recommended length. It is important to optimize your titles. Keywords can be used to optimize SEO tags. Prioritising your main pages is important. You should optimize the 10 pages that are part of your main menu before you optimise the inner pages.
It’s also important to identify duplicate pages, and make sure that meta inscriptions contain CTAs. These inscriptions do not directly impact rankings, but they can impact CTR. It’s important to not be spammy, so avoid using words such as “sale” or “CLICK HERE TODAY”.
Headings
Headings, especially H1s andH2s, must include keywords. Be careful not to overuse the H2s. They should be optimised and have a high content value.
When we optimize the elements that bring results, the title of the page comes first, followed by H1, the content, and then the H2s. Three H2s that are optimised for the same search intention as highlighted in H1 is preferable to three H2s optimised solely around keywords. Google will be confused by too many H2s. You can use H2s with similar search intent to H1s. H3s and even H4s are great for highlighting value to readers.
Interlinking strategy
Interlinking between pages is often missing. Interlinking is not what I am talking about, since every page allows you to return to the previous page. I’m talking instead about interlinking in the content. Google values this more, because they care about relevancy. Google will give pages with good content a higher authority.
We recommend that you use anchor links for both brand-named and non-brand-named keywords. Make sure that there is a link back to the parent page. For example, domain.com/blog is a parent for domain.com/blog/igaming-seo.
The parent page should link to all child pages. This gives the parent page more authority. This interlinked structure gives the parent page more authority.
Let’s take an example. You have a sportsbook with 10 child pages, each of which reflects a specific set of sports. Each of these 10 pages should be optimised to have authority, and linking them back to the parent would give authority to the parent. It is important to pass as much authority as possible to the child pages. Parent pages often have keywords with higher search volumes. It is common for websites to lack content on their child pages.
Experience needed for SEO in the future
We see AI as a major development in SEO. We are not yet able to rank AI user engagement, so it’s important to stay up to date with Google’s reaction.
Google may in the future offer additional options for those who want to qualify for certain results within that environment. Watch out for the features and types of sites that Google will be offering. Google could implement specific betting results, like displaying odds and comparing odds across three or four websites at once.
The Unit has the experience to help you with all of these challenges, especially when it comes down to conducting a very detailed competitor analysis. We have conducted competitor analyses in several industries and not only igaming. SEO can be a powerful tool if you know your competition well. You can adapt these skills to suit your needs.
