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Bad SEO by online casinos and poker rooms

Chatmaster asked 3 years ago
One thing that always amazed me was the fact that so many online casinos and poker rooms often takes the lead when it comes to bad SEO, or am I speaking out of place? I am just amazed that business that are generally reliant on the affiliate community have no idea how SEO works? However they are the people that must help new affiliates to get started and find their feet, in order to promote them successfully. Or am I missing the point. Please guys this is not a full out attack, by all means this is a discussion to understand why this is happening…

I remember looking at Platinumplay a few years back right after they launched and thinking, WOW! That is a stunning look and feel, only to discover that it can’t be indexed and the site structure are real bad. I believe they fixed that now… At least they removed the very bad drop down menu!

I also don’t know about you guys but how often do you have to go and change URL’s because the casino or Poker Room changed the page name during a redesign.

As far as online marketing are concerned do they have the relevant knowledge of specialists so they can address issues like conversion rates, latency and retention techniques? This is as far as I am concerned where the real money is for us and for them. What is the best retention ratio for a casino or poker room and what is the industry average? Any figures out there?

But this raise a question for me, are operators and affiliate for that matter going about web designs the right way? Do they actually involve the right people with the initial design of their websites or with redesigns of their websites? Do affiliate programs actually have the relevant knowledge to assist new affiliates in learning these basic principles or does the responsibility rest with forumites? Any opinions?

5 Answers
Dominique answered 3 years ago
It’s a hit and miss.

There are not very many top SEO people who would do SEO for a casino when there is much better $ in doing your own sites.

Retention etc – varies widely and is not so easily judged, some casinos do better with one type of player and some with another…

There is fierce competition for specialists. Fierce.

Chatmaster answered 3 years ago
Thanks Dom!

I guess I feel that many online casinos are ignorant towards true online marketing principles, almost like management are very uninformed or unable to understand the way the internet work. The irony is that the first one that wake up and smell the coffee will actually make a killing. 32Red is probably the closest to the real thing and I feel Spin is also performing greatly. Had a look at dreampoker when they launched and the first thing that crossed my mind was that I will not promote them for now. Their site couldn’t even be indexed and that frustrating old fashioned drop down menu, told me lack of online marketing experience when they planned their site. I also have a couple of casinos that seem to drop my players like flies after 2-3 months, and I am getting rid of them ASAP, I doubt they have a good retention teams in place.

My problem is why do I have an average lifetime of my players of only 2-3 months with some casinos? Or do you think the problem might be on my side? Due to my main source of traffic being SEO, my traffic are very targetted, good age group and pretty good rolers.

Dominique answered 3 years ago
Overall I see decent retention.

Thing is, if a player consistently loses the casino becomes “unlucky” to him and he moves on. Many players are very superstitious. In this case the casino group with several casinos that can crossmarket has an advantage.

It’s kind of funny, players often complain about rigged casinos. Meaning they are set for a player to only lose. This would make no sense for the casino, rigging the software to have more regular wins would be more profitable.

Also, the way you entice the player in the first place makes a difference, as well as how well the casino pursues the original path. If you entice players with bonuses, the casino hopefully offers them continuously to bring the player back.

If you entice them with new games, hopefully the software people keep putting these out.

So, retention needs to be in step with promotion to support the type player they attracted.

There are many aspects to this, and I am sure I only know a portion of them.

One thing I do know though: if the player comes back to you to find another casino to try his luck with, you win.

Greek39 answered 3 years ago
Hey chatmaster good post by the way. The trend has always been bad seo on the part of online casinos. But I also see a trend, many online casions are begining to better optimize their sites. They are adding more content to their landing pages. Bare in mind also, if we support them we also link to them, giving the ranks so desired.

I quess with drop down menus, I personally don’t like them. But I find some are workable depending on where you nest the elements in the source.

I never committ a url to a casino for the very reason you have explained.

I also agree most online casinos are ignorant of the internal workings of the internet. So are most webmasters, to truly know the interworkings of the internet pays big dividends. But some just don’t have the time too be bothered or just don’t care how it works. The internet is an ongoing process of learning.

Something I found disturbing was the fact some online casinos are promoting themselves via mail. I had received a CD in the mail with no aff tags attach to it. Perhaps this may explain one of the why player retention may be poor.

Just throwing around some ideas. About a week ago I did a search for the keyword “casino” on google. I found many online casinos on the first page of results. Now I find all have disappeared. Google is mopping up in a major way and finally I can say I am very please at that results I am seeing.

As the industry becomes bigger, so will the the shaddy practices some employ. I often wonder how much is enough?

In regards too player retention I don’t have no useable knowledge in this area. I have had many players just vanish. For example, one one casino I have 1500 players and not one deposit?

But not all is lost I have a few ideas spinning in my head.

greek39

Chatmaster answered 3 years ago
Since I last posted I noticed that Dreampoker have been busy with an update on their site. It really rocks and is a great improvement! Great job guys!

Greek some major issues,… we have to stop agreeing! Something major wrong here! lol <span title=” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

Thanks for your replies, I was just wondering if anybody are selective on promoting certain brands because of their website structures or lack thereof, maybe I am just going into to much detail in this regard. Maybe time to move on?