TRAFFIC
Figure 2: Device usage. Users are abandoning desktop in favour of mobile for gambling
your site for a short amount of time;
you want it to find as much as possible to
give you the rankings your site deserves.
Unnecessary dead ends load up on risk.
Mobile, mobile, mobile
Over the past six months Google has
released several updates to its mobile-first
indexing, which is now rolled out fully,
and the gambling industry is one of the
first markets to show dramatic switches
in user trends. Looking back, 2017 saw a
massive increase in the number of mobile
queries compared with other devices.
But the notion of a ‘mobile moment’
has long passed; mobile must be the
main consideration in all aspects of SEO,
rather than an afterthought.
Affiliates and independent operators
are already competing against some of
the biggest marketing budgets around.
Being behind the curve on mobile, page
speed and security adds unnecessary risk,
hinders your own performance and pushes
players away.
Making sure your mobile site is up to
scratch is the most important factor in your
SEO success. There are lots of tools around
for checking your performance but one
of the best is testmysitewithgoogle.co.uk.
This will give you an insight into how
your site is performing against competitors,
as well as offering insights into what
to improve.
Backlinks: get out of old habits
Identifying mistakes within your own
marketing strategy can be difficult but,
as with everything in SEO, nothing
stays the same. The days when paid
16
iGB Affiliate Issue 70 AUG/SEP 2018
Figure 3: the difference in the ‘roulette’ SERP over a 12-month period
POSITION JULY 2017 JULY 2018
1 en.wikipedia.org wikipedia.org
2 coral.co.uk skyvegas.com
3 skyvegas.com mrgreen.com
4 onlineroulette.org.uk 888casino.com
5 mastersofgames.com coral.co.uk
6 roulettegeeks.com grosvenorcasinos.com
7 youtube.com netbet.co.uk
8 mrgreen.com skycasino.com
9 grosvenorcasinos.com 32red.com
10 32red.com 777.com
Highlighted yellow cells are operators
Data via 3rd party tools – accurate as of 31/08/2018
link-building could be the backbone
of a successful strategy are long gone.
Thankfully, Google’s disavow tool is still
available; you just need to know which
sites in your backlink profile are helping
(or hindering) performance.
● ● The
link is within thin content
domain itself is suspicious
● ● Part of an article directory
● ● Extreme link velocity: sites that have
recently obtained large volumes of
links in a short amount of time
● ● The
“Being behind the curve on mobile, page speed and
security adds unnecessary risk, hinders your own
performance and pushes players away”
At Blueclaw we categorise a link as
suspicious/unnatural if it fits one or more
of the following criteria:
● ● Suspect anchor text: exact match
commercial anchor texts
● ● In-content with suspicious link patterns
● ● Low influence links
To maximise the effectiveness and
safety of off-site link earning, organic
strategies are important. One of the
most successful methods we currently
use is data-led content-marketing
campaigns that look to capture quality
over quantity of links.