SEO Tracker: Big names benefit from increased football betting interest

Following a busy festive period, and a summer where the England men’s team so nearly (again) brought it home, it is perhaps unsurprising to see that keyword searches in the football sector are up by 5.8% compared to our analysis in June 2024, just prior to the summer’s action.

Another unsurprising fact is that oddschecker continues to lead the sector from Paddy Power, with the gap between the two remaining steady.

However, behind these brands there has been a lot of movement, with Sky Bet and William Hill distancing themselves from the remainder of the top 10 as the larger brands in the sector reaped the benefits of the extra searches in the industry.

Status quo maintained at the top

While the gap between the two leading brands remained stable, both saw traffic increase as the sector saw greater search interest. Oddschecker saw a 10.9% increase in estimated monthly clicks, while Paddy Power saw a 19.6% change. The fact that these changes outpace the overall market growth means that even though larger brands naturally benefit more from increased interest, it would be overly simplistic to attribute their traffic increases to this alone.

Instead, what both brands have seen is an improvement in average ranking position to position four (previously oddschecker’s average was position five, compared to position six for Paddy Power), while also ever-so-slightly increasing the number of keywords that they rank for.

A key difference between the football sector when compared to other markets we analyse is the lack of a small selection of key terms which see far more search interest than others. These have outsized impacts on overall brand visibility, as changes in rankings or search interest in these terms can greatly impact how much traffic brands that rank well receive.

They can also lead to brands having a much smaller keyword profile than others in the market, but obtaining greater visibility due to ranking highly for one or more of these specific keywords.

As the football market lacks this phenomenon and instead has a much wider range of keywords which all receive a medium search volume, brands need to rank well across the range of keywords to fully benefit from increases in market interest.

For example, in June there were 15 search terms that saw over 2,000 monthly searches, while in December that has increased to 25 terms. These terms included timely terms such as ‘euro odds’ and ‘euro betting’ since the analysis period covered this summer’s tournament, as well as generic terms like ‘betting on football’ and ‘football bets’.

The increased traffic that comes from ranking for one of these terms will be minimal, but ranking for multiple terms, as the top four brands in the sector do, will bring a much more significant increase in overall visibility.

A defined chasing pack forms

While organic visibility is still dominated by oddschecker and Paddy Power, Sky Bet and William Hill have formed a clear chasing pack as the third- and fourth-most visible brands in the sector.

William Hill has seen an 18.3% increase in organic visibility, while Sky Bet has seen one of the largest traffic increases in the market, with its 64.2% growth taking it above William Hill as the third-most visible brand.

These two brands seeing such large increases in traffic, partnered with previously close rivals like Ladbrokes and Bettingodds.com seeing organic visibility decrease, means that there’s now a clear gap separating them from the remainder of the top 10.

Sky Bet’s remarkable increase in visibility is a combination of overall search volume increasing, improving rankings across the board and making sure to improve rankings for the terms that are bringing the most traffic.

This is illustrated by the fact that in June, Sky Bet ranked in the top three positions for 27 keywords, which had an average search volume of 815.2 monthly searches.

In December, the brand ranked in the top three positions for 64 keywords, which received an average of 1,412.5 monthly searches. By improving rankings where it matters, Sky Bet has generated significantly more visibility than before.

Less visible sites suffer

While the top four brands have all seen visibility increases that outpace the market average, the other brands in the top 10 have struggled. The majority of brands outside the top four saw average ranking positions and the number of keywords they rank for drop, resulting in lower traffic.

An element of this comes from the strength of the brands above them. As the brands that dominate the sector benefitted the most from the overall increase in searches in the industry, and others like Sky Bet saw traffic increase as a result of moving up the rankings for a range of terms which receive a considerable number of monthly searches, it’s natural that the brands that already had lower overall visibility felt the squeeze.

In a situation like this, the brands that are missing out at the top of the rankings could have benefitted from broadening their keyword profile, looking for the areas where they aren’t ranking for terms which would generate visibility and more importantly, clicks.

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

In industries that don’t have individual keywords driving significant traffic, ranking for a wide range of keywords is essential to have strong overall organic visibility.

These industries also place an increased importance on identifying and capitalising on emerging trends, whether these are seasonal/event-related like ‘euro odds’ or showing a wider informational trend like ‘betting on football’. Identifying these trends and improving rankings for a number of related keywords can have a large effect on visibility.

For smaller brands that are seeing brands with better visibility continue to affect the opportunities to improve your rankings, assess where you can broaden your profile and rank for new keywords that can generate conversions.

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