SEO Tracker: 888casino leads igaming sector but rivals are catching up

888casino remains the brand to beat in terms of organic visibility in the casino sector, but rivals are making up ground in a growing market.

Overall searches across the industry are up from 502,270 in August 2022 to 637,020 in February 2023 (a 27% increase), meaning that there is a lot of new interest for brands to capitalise on. Another effect of the increased interest across the sector is that ranking highly for the most searched keywords is even more crucial to overall visibility.

For example, ‘casino’ now receives an extra 25,000 monthly searches, and the monthly search volume for ‘slots’ has increased by 7,400.

888casino remains the most visible brand in the sector thanks to a slight improvement in traffic, in part due to an improved average ranking position, but its visibility hasn’t increased in line with overall sector growth.

The most significant reason for not matching the average growth seen across the sector is that the brand now ranks in position three for ‘casino’, rather than position one. This shift alone has resulted in 888casino receiving 19,683 fewer monthly clicks than if the brand remained in position one and benefitted from the increase in monthly searches.

As we mentioned, the brand has improved its average weighted ranking, and now ranks in position one for 20 terms more than in August, which shows that the brand’s overall organic strategy is working well.

If it can regain position one for ‘casino’ then its lead, and the sector as a whole, will look very different.

Paddy Power closest of rivals

Between August 2022 and February 2023 Paddy Power has seen a significant increase in visibility, with a 265% increase in organic traffic in that period.

The brand isn’t ranking for more keywords than in August and, despite improving the number of keywords that they rank in the top three positions for, the brand’s average ranking position hasn’t really changed, so that suggests that the change in traffic must be from ranking for high volume keywords.

From looking at Paddy Power’s rankings for individual keywords, it becomes clear where the majority of this increase in traffic is coming from. In August the brand saw next to no traffic from its rankings for ‘slots’ and ‘online slots’, yet a combination of increased searches for these terms and now ranking in position one for both means that the brand is seeing an extra 19,532 monthly clicks from these two terms alone.

Paddy Power has also improved its ranking for the key ‘casino’ search term to receive nearly 2,000 additional monthly clicks, and from position six there is room for further improvement and organic visibility gains here.

Increased traffic benefits most brands

Such is the increased search volume for terms in this sector that despite being overtaken by Paddy Power, Grosvenor Casinos’ traffic increased by 7,702 clicks. This represents a 27% increase in monthly clicks for the brand, matching the overall increase across the market.

Grosvenor Casinos also maintains best average ranking position in the top 10, which suggests that to further increase traffic the brand’s area of focus should be improving rankings for keywords with higher search volume such as ‘slots’ and ‘casino’.

NetBet also experienced a large increase in visibility, with monthly clicks nearly doubling (90% increase) to see the brand rank fourth in the sector for organic traffic. This comes as a result of impressive ranking improvements for medium to high volume terms. Not only is NetBet in a greater number of top three rankings, but ranking highly for traffic-generating terms. For example, the brand now receives 17,852 clicks from keywords for which it ranks in the top two positions, compared to just 881 clicks in August.

Meanwhile, the brand to benefit the most from 888casino’s lower ranking for ‘casino’ is Betway, which now ranks in position two for the term. Betway is a new name in the top 10 brands, but is now the fifth most visible with a 440% increase in traffic (now 25,706, was 4,755). It is important to clarify, however, that this isn’t simply a case of a brand benefitting from a space opening above it in the rankings, as Betway has improved its ranking for ‘casino’ from position 20 to position two. It has also improved rankings and increased traffic across the board, ranking in the top three positions for various medium volume terms.

Another interesting development when we look at the bubble chart is that there is now much less separation between the brands. Previously there were two clear groups based on keyword rankings but now the top 10 has merged into a larger group, suggesting a more competitive search landscape as we move forwards.