Gambling SEO Case Study: +180% Increase in Conversions

Is the primary goal of SEO to bring more organic traffic to your website?

Short answer – Yes.

But:

If the organic traffic you bring to your site doesn’t convert into real leads and sales – it’s basically worthless.

Optimising your website is one thing, but getting it to convert is something else.

In this SEO case study, you’ll see how we more than doubled our gambling client’s monthly sessions from 52k visits to over 77k:

But that’s not all…

We’ll also show you exactly what we did to increase the site’s signups from 4.6k to 13k during the same period.

Below we have outlined every step we took to deliver these results for our client so you can follow along and get similar results for your own website.

Let’s get into it!

A Closer Look At The Case Study Site

The client runs an online gambling site.

At the beginning of the campaign, they primarily targeted the Asian market.

But they wanted to increase their online presence and eventually expand to the North American market.

Not an easy thing to do.

The client joined SearchLogisitics with two goals-

While this seems pretty straightforward, the truth is that the online gambling industry is competitive.

You are up against large, established sites with big SEO budgets.

Our team had to be strategic and focus on delivering quality results using proven SEO strategies.

The Biggest Challenges We Had to Overcome

The client’s site already had an established blog.

Most of the articles provided information about different casino games that the client offered in their online casino.

The problem was that these articles struggled to rank for essential keywords.

That’s not a good sign!

In a competitive industry, quality is everything. Without quality content that matches the search intent of the keyword – there is almost no hope of ranking.

Our team quickly realised that we needed to optimise the blog content by:

But this was just the tip of the iceberg…

The blog page structure needed significant improvements.

For example:

The pagination was incorrectly implemented and directed the user back to the top of the blog homepage rather than the next page or piece of content.

This created a disjointed flow that meant the visitor was more likely to leave the site than sign up for an account or read the next piece of content.

The final major challenge we had to overcome was to improve the site’s overall conversion rate.

This is a big task, but also a really important one.

Our team needed to analyse and identify issues that would prevent users from setting up an account or downloading the games from the client’s website.

It also involved carrying out a complete CRO (conversion rate optimisation) audit of the core landing pages on the site.

At the end of our initial analysis, these were the 3 main challenges that needed to be dealt with:

1. Optimise legacy blog posts to ensure that they contained up-to-date information and were aligned with the top-ranking competing pages for the target keyword
2. Improve the usability of the blog section by implementing pagination, adding an author bio to improve E-E-A-T and improving internal linking by adding a related posts section
3. Carry out a CRO audit to identify how to improve the core landing pages on the website to increase conversions.

It’s always important to identify the main issues of a site before you start SEO.

If you diagnose the wrong issues at the beginning of your campaign, it doesn’t matter what you do – you won’t get the results you’re after.

Create A Plan Of Attack

With the 3 main challenges identified correctly, it was time to implement our plan of attack.

Each SEO fix we implemented on this client’s site are universal SEO principles. That means you can use the same steps on your own site to get similar results.

Step #1 – Optimising Blog Content

At the beginning of any SEO campaign, there are always many things to fix.

That’s why it’s so important that you prioritise the SEO issues that will make the biggest impact first.

For our client, the priority was to improve their blog content so that it actually ranked for key search terms in Google.

They had a ton of content just sitting on their site but not really adding any value or even being seen by visitors.

This is called “legacy content”.

Most sites older than 2-3 years will have legacy content on their site that isn’t performing well.

Instead of producing new blog content, you can optimise and improve your existing content.

And that’s exactly what we did with our client!

Here’s what you need to consider when optimising your blog content:

1. Check The Search Intent

Most content on your blog is likely to be informational.

But informational content isn’t always what Google ranks and prioritises in the search results.

Perform a quick Google search of your target keyword and see what content/pages Google ranks.

If Google isn’t ranking blog posts like yours, it suggests that your page’s content doesn’t align with the search intent of the keyword.

2. Identify Content Gaps

Open up similar pages to yours ranking in the top results from the same Google search. Note any differences between your content and the top-ranking content.

Your goal is to identify topics you haven’t covered but your competitors have.

You should also look for overlapping areas and see if the competing content has gone more in-depth or offered a better perspective.

3. Check The Formatting

Pay close attention to the formatting of the content on the page.

For example…

Has the competitor displayed specific content differently – such as a table or infographic?

Google is clearly rewarding the kind of formatting that the top-ranking pages have. That means your own formatting should be similar.

This also applies to other page elements such as:

…because they all impact the user experience.

4. Check The Heading Structure

Having a clear heading structure improves readability and navigation for users.

It also helps search engines understand the hierarchy of your content. Ensure that your page follows a clear, organised heading structure.

5. Check For Rich Content

Look to see whether the competing pages have included images or videos to break up and support the textual content on their page.

Even if they haven’t – you should!

6. Internal Links

Ensure that your page has internal links from other relevant pages on your website pointing towards it.

This is a great way to encourage Google to continue to crawl and index your content while guiding users towards other relevant pages.

7. Indexing Blockers

One simple (but crucial) reason why your page may not be ranking is because it’s not indexed. This happens more than you would think!

Do a quick Google search using the following site operator:

site:yourdomain.com/your-page/

Here’s an example of what you will see if the page is not indexed.

If you see this, then make sure that the page-

Remember: Quality is everything when it comes to content!

Think of the above 7 steps like a content quality checklist. Whenever you update older content, go through the checklist and re-optimise your content properly.

It will allow you to compete with bigger sites in the Google search results and even rank for more competitive keywords.

Step #2 – Improving The Overall Functionality Of The Blog

The next big focus for the campaign was to ensure that the blog section on the client’s site functioned correctly.

With the content optimised correctly and starting to generate traffic, we needed to ensure that new traffic would flow through the site nicely.

We also wanted to further optimise the blog by improving E-E-A-T metrics:

Here’s exactly how we did it.

Fixing Issues With Pagination

Our initial analysis of the client’s website showed that the blog’s pagination wasn’t implemented correctly.

Pagination is used to organise and display lots of information – typically articles.

But on the client’s site, when users clicked to see the next set of blog posts, the page refreshed and took them back to the top.

The next set of blog posts then loaded at the bottom of the page.

Pretty confusing, right?

This forced the user to scroll to the bottom of the page to view the new set of articles. Most people won’t (and didn’t) scroll to the bottom.

They just assumed the site was broken and left.

This was a huge issue that needed to be addressed quickly.

When implementing pagination for SEO, there are several best practices to consider.

Here are some fundamental guidelines to follow:

1. Use The rel= “next” And rel= “prev” Tags

These tags signal to search engines that the paginated pages are part of a sequence.

They help search engines understand the relationship between the pages and consolidate their ranking signals.

2. Implement A Clear URL Structure

Ensure each paginated page has a unique and descriptive URL.

Use consistent URL parameters, such as:

…to indicate the page number.

This helps search engines identify and crawl the individual pages correctly.

3. Set The Canonical Tag Appropriately

On paginated pages, use a canonical tag to indicate the preferred version (usually the first page) to search engines.

This helps consolidate ranking signals and avoids duplicate content issues.

4. Provide Straightforward Navigation And User Experience

Include intuitive pagination links or buttons on each page to facilitate navigation between pages.

Make sure users can easily navigate to the next or previous pages and have a way to reach the first or last page.

Here’s an example:

You can see that the above image shows clearly what page you are on the blog and how to get to the next set of blog posts.

This improves user experience and encourages engagement.

5. Optimise Meta Tags

Each paginated page should have unique and relevant meta tags – including the title and meta description.

6. Implement Structured Data Markup

Utilise structured data markup, such as Schema.org’s pagination markup, to provide search engines with additional information about the pagination sequence.

This can enhance the visibility of paginated content in search results. Our own SearchLogistics website uses

This also sounds complicated.

But the truth is that these best practices will significantly impact your overall user experience.

Not only will it be optimised for search engines, but it also provides a seamless experience for users.

That’s a win-win.

Adding Author Bios to Improve E-E-A-T

Google places significant weight on content that comes from credible sources.

This is especially true when it comes to Your Money or Your Life content that can affect a reader’s physical, mental or financial well-being.

For example:

Content related to:

…and more is scrutinised by Google even more.

That’s where E-E-A-T comes in.

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

One of the best (and easiest) ways to demonstrate E-E-A-T is to add an author bio to your blog.

This lets your readers and Google know that the article was written by someone they can trust.

Our client was missing author bios which didn’t give Google the trust signals they needed to rank the content.

This was even more important because gambling can be considered a YMYL niche.

When you add a bio to your blog posts, here’s what you need to include:

Here’s an example of what a great author bio should look like:

It doesn’t take a lot of work but can significantly impact your E-E-A-T and overall rankings.

Adding Related Posts

Want a better user experience?

Add a “related posts” section to your website at the bottom of each blog.

Adding related articles to your blog posts has two main benefits:

1. Better internal linking
2. Higher user engagement

Both can lead to a better user experience and ultimately – more conversions.

Our client didn’t have a related posts section which meant they were missing out on a huge opportunity.

When adding related posts (or a “You Might Also Like”) section, ensure that the selected articles relate to the current content and will be interesting for the reader.

It’s worth spending some time optimising your related posts to ensure they are relevant to your reader.

It will have a significant positive effect on your site user experience.

Step #3 – Improving Conversions On Core Landing Pages

Getting visitors onto your site is just the beginning.

Let me explain:

The ultimate goal of any website is to convert a visitor into a lead or sale. Getting the visitor to your site is really just the first step in the buyer journey.

The real secret is getting them to convert.

Our client’s user experience journey was very messy.

That means any visitors we did manage to get on the site weren’t converting into account registrations very well.

Here’s how we handled this challenge.

Reducing Intrusive Pop-ups

In 2018, Google announced they would devalue websites with intrusive pop-up ads.

There’s nothing wrong with having pop-ups – in fact they are proven to be one of the best ways to get leads.

But you must be careful that they don’t impede the user experience or become too intrusive.

Here’s what I mean:

If you have pop-ups that cover up the whole screen and aren’t easy to close – this could be considered intrusive.

Our client had a bunch of pop-ups with different offers and promos.

That meant we first had to reduce the number of pop-ups displayed on desktop and mobile.

Here are some things to keep in mind with pop-ups:

Ideally, you should only have one really good pop-up with a “no-brainer” offer. This will increase conversions while not being intrusive to the user.

Presentation Of Information

How your content is presented to users impacts the usability of your website.

What’s more?

It will also significantly impact your conversion rates.

Imagine looking at a service page containing only information about the company’s offerings as large blocks of text.

Chunky text paragraphs make it extremely difficult to find key information quickly and are extremely disengaging.

Unfortunately, this was something that the client’s core landing pages suffered from.

Their core landing page conversion rates were low and bounce rates were high. That was a clear warning sign that we needed to improve these pages.

There are a ton of ways to optimise pages.

But here are 4 important ones:

1. Clear Heading Structure

Organise your content under clear headings so it’s easier for readers to find what they’re looking for.

It also allows Google to understand the hierarchy and structure of your page.

2. Table Of Contents

Have a clear heading structure within your page table of contents, which is excellent for further improving the readability and navigation of your web pages.

For example, here’s the table of contents from one of Ahrefs’ blog posts.

Want to take it up a level?

Make your table of contents more accessible by making it float whilst the user scrolls down the page.

That way, the user can always jump to any section of the content regardless of where they are on the page.

3. Data Tables

Our client’s casino games pages had lots of statistical information.

The problem was this data was presented in large blocks of text.

A more user-friendly way to present this content was to organise it into tables with clear headings.

Doing this made the content much more digestible for readers.

Tables are also a great way to present information, such as your pricing structure.

Information presented as a table is much more scannable and makes important details stand out to the reader.

4. Call To Action

Don’t underestimate the importance of CTAs (calls to action) on your pages. Make sure you have multiple CTA buttons/links presented correctly at the right time.

For example, adding just 1 CTA (such as a signup form) at the bottom of a page isn’t good enough.

What if readers never reach the bottom?

Your CTAs must be carefully positioned to have the best chance of being clicked on by the user.

Look at how Ahrefs positions their CTA at the right of their content:

Apply the same principle to your own site and watch your conversion rates increase.

Improving FAQs

Do you sell products or offer services?

Make sure that you include a “frequently asked questions” (FAQ) section.

A FAQ section should answer any objections or common questions your customers have before buying.

There are several places that you can add your FAQs:

1. Dedicated FAQ Page

If you have a lot of FAQs to cover about your business in general (i.e. shipping details, payment options, etc), then having a dedicated FAQ page is best.

2. Product/Service Page FAQs

Include FAQs about your products or services within the actual product/service page.

This allows users to quickly get the answers they need without contacting you or going elsewhere on your website.

That’s a big win for conversion rates!

3. Homepage FAQs

Use your homepage to answer the most basic or common FAQs you get asked about your business or website all the time.

4. FAQ Section On Blog Posts

Add any relevant FAQs at the end of your blog posts to provide additional information about the topic being covered.

This can also help you win featured snippets in the Google SERPs.

Our client had FAQs on each of their games pages and the homepage.

But the problem was the FAQs were scattered, difficult to read and weren’t designed well.

To improve this we-

People underestimate the importance of FAQ sections on their website.

But as you can see, a lot of optimisation goes into them and the results speak for themselves…

The Results Are In

Now for the exciting part.

After making all the optimisations for SEO and implementing good conversion rate optimisation, the year-to-year comparison was significantly different.

Take a closer look…

The client’s organic site traffic grew significantly:

But that’s not all…

The number of sign-ups to the website increased by a massive 180.45% – from 4,404 to 13,034.

This was a huge win for us and an even bigger win for the client!

It demonstrated that we were getting the right kind of traffic to the site and the conversion rate optimisation we implemented had a massive positive impact.

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What’s more?

The site is now ranking for 735 keywords in the top 10 positions of the search results compared to 188 last year – representing an increase of 291%.

And the overall keyword visibility across the top 10 pages of Google has increased by 157% from 3,478 to 8,943.

The campaign ultimately exceeded the client’s original campaign goals and positioned them perfectly to expand into the North American region.

Wrapping It Up

Getting visitors to your website is half the challenge.

Your main objective is to get them to convert!

The key is ensuring that your content is optimised for both humans and search engines, that means following best SEO practices to drive more organic traffic while implementing good conversion rate optimisation to encourage visitors to stay on your site and convert into customers.

Here’s a quick recap of the issues we addressed and the solutions we implemented:

Remember:

The principles, tactics and SEO strategies we used in this campaign are universal. That means you can take each of them and use them on your site to achieve similar results.

Need help with SEO for your own website? Get in touch with us here.