INSIGHT
“ At this stage the most important thing is to work out whether you were lucky or on point . And if you were on point , what were the things you did right ?”
If you believe that Google mostly ranks what its users want , then players must want thin affiliate sites . The only catch is that one thin igaming affiliate site is pretty much like another , so success will be had by presenting information in an optimal way and doing the other SEO components well ( something I ’ ll be writing about in the future ).
The why of success So you ’ ve got thin affiliate website that ’ s doing well . Congratulations ; you ’ ve got something people want . But Google may try to direct you by noting that “ good affiliates add value , for example by offering original product reviews , ratings , navigation of products or categories and product comparisons ”.
And this is where confusion creeps in . You ’ re supposed to have amazing reviews , product comparisons and so on – and as a thin affiliate you might have these things – but do players actually read them ? I doubt it . Those players are there because of the free money . Your reviews are probably not going to influence them that much .
You ’ ve made money out of what you know works and now you want to grow your business . You ’ re being influenced by : •Google telling you to do one thing , so by implication you will rank better if you follow their webmaster guidelines •the mega affiliates and their successful initiatives around player retention What do you do ? At this stage the most important thing is to work out whether you were lucky or on point . And if you were on point , what were the things you did right ? When you understand the why of success , it makes decisions on your future much easier .
The question of why opens up a huge subject and the answer varies massively depending on whether you get your traffic from organic search or emailers or black-hat PPC . I would say that 70 % of affiliate revenue originates from organic search , so that ’ s what I ’ ll focus on .
As I mentioned earlier , in my view Google ranks the websites its users want the most . This makes sense to me , because Google wants happy users coming back to Google again and again . Therefore , Google search results are essentially a popularity listing per key phrase , per country territory .
If you ’ re ranking , it ’ s because you are doing something better than your competitors . If someone ranks above you for a particular key phrase , it ’ s because they are doing something better than you . Maybe they have a better domain name , superior layout , clearer information or a more impressive look and feel . Start analysing your competitors as if you were a player looking for free money and you ’ ll begin to get some answers .
With the emergence of artificial intelligence around the turn of the decade , Google became progressively harder to game . Once you drop the idea that ranking is all about gaming Google , you ’ ll start to rank .
Destination brands and retention There are advantages to becoming a destination affiliate brand . It ’ s cost effective to retain players and have them jump from a mega-affiliate site into operators because it avoids the cost and uncertainty of reacquiring this traffic from organic search , mailers or other sources . That ’ s why so many of these big sites have their own communities . But having analysed search results for many
44 iGB Affiliate Issue 71 OCT / NOV 2018