SEO Tracker: 32Red pulls away from the crowd in slots market

Last time we visited the slots market, competition for visibility within the sector was high, with multiple brands competing for the top spot in terms of organic clicks.

A quick glance at the competitive landscape graph for March shows us that this is no longer the case, as 32Red has built a convincing lead over the other brands in the sector.

Often when we see such a large increase, it’s partly caused by overall market interest going up. However, on this occasion, the slots market has seen interest remain consistent, with only a slight increase from 325,000 to 335,000 monthly searches.

This makes 32Red’s increase in traffic all the more surprising, with its 118% increase in organic traffic far outpacing any other brand and seeing it move from being the second-most visible brand in the sector to being by far the most visible.

On the other hand, previous leader Betfred has seen visibility drop significantly, to the extent that it has dropped out of the top 10 brands in the sector.

How has 32Red seen such dramatic growth?

While 32Red’s increase in organic traffic is striking, there has been no single silver bullet behind its organic search growth.

The largest single contributing factor has been an improvement in their ranking for ‘slots’, which is naturally the largest keyword in the sector. The brand’s improvement in ranking position from third to first coincided with an increase in search traffic for the term from 27,100 to 40,500 monthly searches. The result for 32Red has been an additional 7,185 monthly clicks from people searching for ‘slots’.

While this is a significant boost to the brand’s organic visibility, it makes up less than half of the increase in monthly clicks that 32Red has seen.

The big driver for overall visibility increases has been the fact that the brand has kept the number of keywords it ranks for consistent, but improved the average ranking for those keywords from 10th to fifth .

As we have covered in previous columns, improving your brand’s average ranking position is the best way to bring more organic traffic across the board. We see lots of brands receive a sudden boost of visibility through ranking for a high search volume keyword, only to see that disappear when their ranking changes, because despite a strong ranking for one important keyword, their average ranking position was poor.

32Red’s strong ranking profile ensures that this won’t be the case, as even if the brand lost all of its traffic for ‘slots’, it would still be the top-ranking brand in the sector as a result of its other keyword rankings.

Contrasting fortunes for Betfred

While 32Red has seen strong all-round growth in terms of visibility, previous sector leader Betfred has seen the opposite.

The brand has fallen just outside the top 10 in the sector, having seen its ranking position fall across its keyword profile, but most notably for a number of high-volume keywords. Lower rankings for the terms ‘slots’, ‘UK slots’ and ‘slot’ have cost the brand 9,618 monthly clicks.

These keyword rankings make up the majority of Betfred’s lost traffic, but as we can see from the change in the brand’s weighted average ranking from 15 to 33, these lower rankings across the board are significantly affecting brand visibility.

The positive for Betfred is maintaining position one for the keyword ‘free spins’, which is one of the most searched-for in the sector. However, with that keyword now bringing in 97% of the brand’s monthly clicks, it leaves Betfred vulnerable to any further ranking changes having a large impact on overall visibility.

New brands among the most visible

Showing how quickly things can change in the slots market, the second and third most visible brands in the sector have made giant leaps in terms of the organic traffic they’re generating.

Buzz Bingo and Gala Bingo have both seen significant growth in organic visibility, with 89% and 296% increases in monthly clicks respectively, as Buzz Bingo has risen from the ninth to the second most visible brand, while Gala Bingo wasn’t in the top 10 for our last analysis.

Buzz Bingo gives us a great example of what Betfred will be hoping to do in the coming months, having previously seen the majority of its traffic coming from a single position one ranking. While it has benefitted from an increase in searches for that keyword, ‘slot’, it has improved rankings considerably beyond that crucial keyword, now ranking in position one for 11 search terms (up from two) and seeing a 50% increase in the number of terms it ranks on the first page for.

This has contributed to an improvement in the brand’s average ranking position from 25 to 15 and leaves it in a strong position to improve its organic traffic by broadening the range of keywords it ranks for. Doing so would give Buzz Bingo a chance of narrowing that gap to the current runaway leaders, although 32Red’s dominance leaves a lot of ground for any brand to make up.

Overall, here are three key takeaways from what we have seen in the slots market: 

1. A wide-ranging keyword profile means that you improve your chances of benefitting from increased interest in a particular term.
2. Maintaining rankings is a balancing act between holding rankings for the keywords that bring in the most traffic, while also not neglecting the more numerous, lower-volume search terms that your brand ranks for.
3. A strong ranking for a high-volume search term can be a catalyst for improving wider rankings. Building strategies around keyword clusters allows brands to focus on hero terms, such as slots, while also impacting the associated, smaller-volume terms within one strategy rather than creating single strands of activity for each term.

To find out more about how Stickyeyes could help your brand to establish and maintain organic growth in the slots market and beyond, please reach out to William Conboy, director of igaming at Stickyeyes at William.conboy@stickyeyes.com.