GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 38 - July 2017

The content marketing myth Nick Garner is the founder and CEO of Oshi casino. Prior to that, he set up the successful iGaming SEO agency 90 Digital, and previously he was head of search at Unibet and search manager at Betfair. Image by Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock So, if you read one other thing in the next year, I suggest you read this. Search for “Google quality rater guidelines 2016,” and you will find the PDF document. Here’s a short extract from the guidelines: The purpose of a page is the reason or reasons the page was created. Every page on the Internet is created for a purpose, or for multiple purposes. Most pages are created to be helpful to users. Some pages are created merely to make money, with little or no effort to help users. Some pages are even created to cause harm to users. The first step in understanding a page is figuring out its purpose. Why is it important to determine the purpose of the page for page quality rating? • The goal of page quality rating is to determine how well a page achieves its purpose. In order to assign a rating, you must understand the purpose of the page and sometimes the website. • By understanding the purpose of the page, you’ll better understand what criteria are important to consider when evaluating that particular page. • Websites and pages should be created to help users. Websites and pages which are created with intent to harm users, deceive users or make money with no attempt to help users, should receive the lowest page quality rating. More on this later. • As long as the page is created to help users, we will not consider any particular page purpose or type to be higher quality than another. For example, encyclopedia pages are not necessarily higher quality than humor pages. The document is 160 pages of awesomeness. Reiterating a point Google makes: “As long as the page is created to help users, we will not consider any particular page purpose or type to be higher quality than another.” Therefore, if you just had a list of free bonuses from operators and it was useful to users, that would be more justifiable (in the context of a given keyword) than the White House website. What do customers want (from you)? We talked about this earlier: • “I want [type of gambling] bonuses.” • “I want to join an [operator].” • “I want [free money] and to join an [operator].” Keywords as a sign of intent Every keyword search is a question. Therefore, if you understand the characteristics of different queries, youunderstand their intent. From understanding keyword intent, you can answer the big question: “What do customers want from my website?” “Casino bonuses” — that will be a list of bonuses from casinos (obviously). “PayPal bookmaker” — pretty obvious once again, but here you can build an affiliate site around which operators are the best for PayPal payments and what kind of issues you’ll have paying with PayPal and how to avoid problems. “Best poker site” — they want a judgement on who is the best poker site or network to use. Therefore, it’s in-depth analysis of the pros and cons of different operators. Tip: Do some keyword research, and see what the subtext of the questions are behind those keywords and whether your website helps give them answers. Conclusion I think content marketing is generally the wrong framework for iGaming affiliates. But the foundation of content market- ing — i.e., “I need information to help me” — is unbelievably relevant to doing well with SEO and conversions. If you haven’t already, I urge you to read Google’s search quality rater guidelines, and next time an agency pitches you on content marketing, just ask them, “How will your content marketing help my users?” If you understand the characteristics of different queries , you understand their intent. From understanding keyword intent , you can answer the big question: “What do customers want from my website?” w w w . g p w a t i m e s . o r g 27