BALANCING ACT I was pleasantly surprised. Are the articles as good as they once were before being SEO optimized? Well, I hope we still have the same high standards when it comes to the reviews and the advice that we give is always accurate rather than “cheerleading” things. There is sometimes a bit more repetition of key words than I would like, and squeezing in several variations on saying the same thing can be tricky. All in all, though, it has been a great success. Sure, content is important, but if nobody is reading it what is the point? It is my current opinion that every affiliate must be optimized to have a fighting chance. Top 5 Ranking Factors Legalbet.uk SEO specialist Nikita Ivanov breaks down five keys to earn better rankings. Content is still king for Google At Legalbet.uk, we strive to create quality content. By that I mean deeply structured texts with H2 / H3 / H4 headings, a detailed FAQ section, etc. Each article (or rating page) covers all the main details of whatever the topic is. We try to write not only affiliate content (ratings, bonuses, reviews), but also more general content that can be useful for online gamblers in general (these are articles found in our Betting School section of the website). It is not just about new pages, but also existing pages that need to be updated time to time to keep them fresh. We try to keep a balance between our SEO requirements and the overall quality and interest of the content. The content editors are usually free to change the structure and to give advice regarding the content, because that is essential in the long run. Give users what they want Our pages always cover the real intent of our users. If they’re looking for a bookmaker’s rating, then we should provide the honest rating of bookmakers that really fit the main criteria. For example, the bookmakers with the highest odds are listed highest, lowest odds are lowest. We also provide the justification for our rating — which factors we evaluate, and why these bookmakers have this rating. It is the same for other types of content. The users should be satisfied with our content. If the user comes to our website, and then returns back to Google search, it’s bad for our website, because it negatively affects our rankings. Link building We pay a lot of attention to the link building processes. It’s quite hard to get natural backlinks for betting sites, so we have to reach out, using our link building department and using the help of third-party agencies. Our top priority for link building — authoritative U.K. websites with good organic search traffic, but we also use other websites in English for link building. Page experience We check our website on a weekly basis. The SEO specialist makes a regular weekly technical report based on a basic checklist. We check 404 errors, broken backlinks and internal links, the speed of loading, and structured data. Mobile usability In today’s world, it is essential to consider everything as if people will be using a mobile phone. About 70% of our users are using mobile devices. We pay high attention to how our website works and looks on mobile devices, including images, rankings, tables inside the texts and page speed. Andy Heaford, who is originally from Norwich, England, has been involved in the online gambling industry for almost 20 years in various roles. Currently, he’s the site manager for Legalbet websites in the U.K. Sure, content is important, but if nobody is reading it what is the point? It is my current opinion that every affiliatemust be optimized to have a fighting chance. G P W A t i m e s . o r g 22
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDIzMTA=