SEO is the most important marketing channel for internet gambling affiliates. As a new affiliate trying to enter the space it can appear like a very daunting task. There are thousands of affiliates battling for Google search visibility for high-value online gambling keywords. This article will detail tips on how a new affiliate can enter the hyper-competitive and hugely profitable online gambling space using these search engine optimization tactics as a blueprint.
Do your Keyword Research!
If you decide to launch an affiliate site and are going to target the online gambling niche Casino specifically you’ll want to enter with an SEO roadmap and the genesis of this should be your keyword research. There are some naive enough to think they can launch a site with no keyword research and road map thinking they will find success – these people will sadly be very disappointed. Prior to launching a new affiliate website into the hyper-competitive i-gambling space, you’ll need to do a deep dive into the particular niche you choose to focus on – let’s say online casino. To understand the online casino market you should create a road map of each sub-niche (for example; online casino bonuses, online casino reviews, online casino games) of the market you intend to target and extract all the related terms, searches, questions (what users ask Google) for this using an SEO software like Ahrefs & SEMrush and compile them into your keywords research road map. Why are we doing this? This is to attain a blueprint for when you begin to create pages/posts and video around these search terms for your new i-gambling affiliate website. Having a robust keyword research road map will assist in populating your copy with the correct keywords to give your website a chance to rank for low hanging fruit “long tail” keywords while your site builds authority to rank for high-value keywords down the road. The affiliates who do their keyword research and find the “long-tail keywords” will find success faster than an affiliate who does not do the research. The reality is that 99.9% of affiliates who do the minimal amount of keyword research before launching an affiliate site are not going last as the online casino marketing niche is a grind and ranking for top-level terms in the first 6-8 months is nearly impossible.
Content, Content, Content!
Now that you’ve done your keyword research and are ready to build the copy for your affiliate site you must have a goal in mind when doing so. The best strategy is to ask yourself is this copy providing something useful to the user? Put yourself in the user’s shoes, who is searching for a “real money online casino” are you providing them with the information needed to make a decision to sign up and deposit at a real money online casino. Your copy needs to take your keyword research and expand on the topics you created and make it relatable and informative to the user. This is no easy task, if you’ve done your keyword research and outsource the copy to an English second language speaker you have found on a gig work site you are not going to find success. The copywriter must understand the i-gambling market and write in a pure manner that is relatable to the user. The keyword research should give the copywriter a road map of the topics they will touch upon and the headings and meta titles can be tweaked to better cater to your target long-tail keywords but, the copy must be natural and informative – any keyword stuffing will have a negative effect in the long run. Creating great copy is no easy task, each page/post submission must have a clear plan of the target keywords and particular niche you plan to focus on and execute it in a natural manner.
Link Building Time!
Now that we’ve got the copy created and the site is has been indexed in Google it’s time to build links! This is the most difficult part of being an affiliate as you’ll find no website ranks at the top of the search results without strong domain authority. How do you build your domain authority? By attaining high authority links pointing to your website through either outreach or creating amazing content that high authority websites will add a link to. Let’s start with the easier method – outreach. Once you have your site built you will need to start contacting site owners preferably in the casino industry to link to your site. Similar niche content will help your ranking and the next step is to create a target list of casino sites to approach for a link and measure the results of each email campaign. Next is creating content that industry sites will want to link out to – this is easier said than done as you’ll find a lot of affiliates who are trying to attain natural links through copy with little success. The best angle in this approach is to create the copy you think is interesting/informative to the casino user and build a blog post around that. Once you are ranking for long-tail keywords affiliates will search these terms to link out to in their posts and embed your link so that their users can attain further quality information on that particular topic.
Time to get started!
If you are on the fence about creating an i-gambling affiliate website the best advice we can give you is to fully commit. I-gambling is not the market to enter if you are not willing to put in the work as you’ll find yourself with little to no return in the long run. By doing your keyword research, creating great copy around that keyword research and building an effective link building strategy you can achieve success in the market. Good Luck!