SEO Tracker: Mecca Bingo still leads but searches fall in online bingo

As the UK has opened following the latest round of lockdowns, online search activity appears to have declined in the bingo market and although Mecca Bingo continues to lead, the brand is generating less traffic from organic non-brand search since April.

Non-brand search volume for the online bingo sector has fallen 14% since we last looked at the market in April 2021, dropping by 31,940 to 199,150.

It means that many brands – including market leader Mecca Bingo – are seeing reduced traffic levels, despite improving their overall search rankings.

Mecca retains market leadership and stems some of the decline in search volume

Mecca Bingo’s organic visibility has decreased by 10.6% since April 2021; less than the 14% overall in the sector, but still a drop from 30,355 monthly clicks to 27,119.

The market leader holds ranking positions for 322 search terms and has a higher weighted average rank when compared to April, showing that the brand has strengthened its grip of the search results pages despite the fall in traffic. The brand remains in position one for the term “bingo” – still the biggest keyword in the market despite a drop in search volume from 74,000 to 60,500 – as well as number one rankings for three out of the four terms with the largest volume. For the fourth of those terms, “bingo sites”, Mecca Bingo has improved from position 20 to position two.

Foxy Bingo makes large gains in smaller market

One brand that has spectacularly bucked the overall market trend is Foxy Bingo, which has seen a 120% increase in estimated monthly clicks since April. While the brand hasn’t seen organic rankings quite recover to where they were at the end of 2020, it is back to ranking in the top three for the three highest-volume search terms, retaking position one for “bingo sites” – one of 13 terms the company now holds a top ranking for. Back in April, the brand was on top for just two keyword terms.

With a combination of improved rankings for high-volume keywords and newly ranking for an additional 85 terms, Foxy Bingo has been able to overtake Buzz Bingo and Gala Bingo, both of which have seen decreases in traffic, to once again be Mecca Bingo’s closest competitor.

While Buzz Bingo’s drop in traffic was similar to the overall decrease in search volume across the sector, Gala Bingo lost 47% of its traffic and has gone from second to fourth most visible brand; a similar fall to that which Foxy Bingo experienced last winter.

Although Gala Bingo has lost 11 first position rankings, the situation is far from bleak for the brand as it still ranks in the top three positions for high volume terms such as “online bingo” and “bingo online”, while also ranking fourth for the sector’s most important keyword, “bingo”. With the volume that these keywords have, an improvement towards position one for these would have a big effect on traffic. As the brand is already ranking for more keywords than it did in April, it will be looking towards Foxy Bingo as an example of how to improve visibility after a drop in organic rankings.

Which Bingo strengthens while other affiliates suffer

As they did in April, affiliate sites make up three of the top 10 most visible bingo sites, and WhichBingo is the strongest of them having seen a 25% increase in organic traffic. WhichBingo holds 24 first position rankings, which is a dramatic improvement from the four that the brand held five months ago, as well as now including higher volume terms such as “new bingo sites”. On the other hand, BingoPort has dropped out of the top 10, with a large portion of the lost traffic coming from the keyword “bingo sites”, for which the brand has fallen from position two to seven.

New normal for online bingo?

That the online bingo market has seen a fall in organic search volume that coincides with the reopening of the UK economy from lockdown is perhaps no surprise. The easing of restrictions, as well as improvements in weather, does tend to result in lower online activity in many sectors and online gaming is no different.

Google Trends data shows a marked difference since the early part of the year, showing notable troughs in the summer months.

After a lockdown boom this could be online bingo’s new normal, but companies will be hoping for another spike in interest as we reach the winter months.