TRAFFIC
as the Bleacher Report and BuzzFeed who
offer advanced contributor programmes.
Step two: creating compelling
casino content
I challenge the assertion that gambling
affiliates are starved of ideas for interesting,
linkable content. Gambling has a crossover
with several industries and disciplines:
psychology, sport, entertainment, travel
and business to name but a few. Gambling
behaviour, addiction and strategy, along
with casino design, tie in with psychology.
Contemporary debates over fixed odds
betting terminals, operator taxation
and regulation have corporate and
political resonance.
Viral scientist Jonah Berger provides
a question formula4 that can help you
generate ideas. Take the term ‘roulette’;
very mundane and uninspiring on its own.
But once you start asking questions such
as, ‘What types of roulette are there?’;
‘What can we learn about the type of
person who plays X version of roulette?’;
‘Are people from region X more prone to
gambling?’; ‘Are men playing the ‘live’
version more?’; ‘Is this because they are
physically attracted to the croupier?”; then
you begin to spawn more intriguing and
contentious ideas for content.
Another simple formula I use is
‘subject + random category or buzzword’.
‘Roulette + films’ brings me to the iconic
Russian roulette scene from The Deer
Hunter; ‘roulette + social’ brings me to the
webcam-based phenomenon chat roulette;
‘roulette + magic’ brings me to Derren
Brown’s Russian roulette trick, and so
on. This is all ammunition for linkable,
shareable content.
For guest posting to work, you
need to develop your website’s linkable
assets. Depending on your budget, there
are a multitude of content types to
explore: surveys, infographics, videos, apps
and even quirky on-site features5 such as
f unny 404 pages and team descriptions.
There are a number of affordable services
such as Sparkol (videos), Appy Pie (apps)
18
and Google consumer surveys that
make these viable. To create compelling
content, you need skilled writers, and I feel
affiliates should look beyond copywriters to
journalists and feature writers. Copywriters,
in my experience, are adept at re-writing
existing content and tailoring it for SEO,
but they aren’t necessarily proficient at
sourcing original stories. Journalists,
meanwhile, are conditioned to source their
own stories. They have the initiative to
arrange interviews with authority figures,
and know how to forge emotive human
interest stories that get shared. Rather than
scouring affiliate forums and freelancer
websites, I suggest posting on Gorkana.
co.uk, Journalism.co.uk or StudentGems.
Step three: outstanding outreach
Historically, guest post outreach attempts
have been nothing short of tragic. One
particular post6 outlines some of the
worst, characterised by poor spelling and
grammar, zero credibility and explicit
mentions of the need for a link.
A well-constructed outreach email
should contain the following: an explanation
of who you are and why you want to
contribute, examples of your published
work, and most importantly, an article
attachment. The latter reflects urgency
and commitment, and when coupled with
flattery, can be the start of a fruitful editorial
relationship. Should the editor accept my
article but remove the link upon publishing,
I’ll politely ask for it to be re-instated as it
credits some of my previous work.
If I’m content marketing around a
newsworthy linkable asset, I use PR service
MuckRack to pitch journalists. For $99
per month, you get access to a database of
journalists – who you can filter through by
industry and territory – along with their
contact details. It’s less risky than paying
£300 for a single press release on PR
Newswire, which is never guaranteed to
receive traction and links. Jess Champion
from Distilled suggests emailing
journalists7 before you release your story to
pique their interest and make them feel like
6
Limitations and concluding
thoughts
Given that gambling affiliates continue to
pay upwards of £150 to £200 for mediocre
gambling links, my approach is certainly
worth considering. In my first few months,
I was executing all the aforementioned
processes by myself.
But there are limitations to my strategy,
and it might not be practical for all
affiliates. You’re at the mercy of editors
and editorial calendars, and there is never a
guarantee of a link. Lending your name to
articles on lots of different sites, spanning
several different sectors, can undermine
your reputation as an industry specialist. It
doesn’t make sense to pour resources into
writing excellent content for other websites,
when the content on your own sites is thin
or sub-par. Remember, there are successful
affiliates such as PokerStrategy, tradimo
and Oddschecker who have developed
such large, diverse content bases that they
acquire natural links, and this diminishes
the need for manual link building.
Going forward, my team has recognised
the need to make this link building part of
a holistic content and marketing strategy
that incorporates social and supports a
legitimate brand. Google is attributing more
authority to proper brands, which is why
we’ve switched our focus from game-specific
gambling domains such as Roulette.co.uk
to a brandable domain name,
RightCasino.com.
SAM MIRANDA is Head
of Content Strategy and
Marketing at Right Casino
Media, having started his
career in iGaming working as an
editor for PokerStrategy. Follow him on
Twitter @samjazzed or connect with him
on LinkedIn.
4
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/science-of-virality/
http://www.hitreach.co.uk/blog/how-to-make-your-website-more-interesting-and-linkworthy/
http://www.searchable.co.uk/revealed-outreach-campaigns-from-some-of-the-biggest-seo-firms/
7
http://moz.com/blog/8-step-plan-to-get-pr-driven-links
5
iGB Affiliate FEBRUARY/MARCH 2014
they’re getting the scoop. I like to stockpile
satellite articles around a linkable asset,
each with their own angle, and offer them
to journalists and editors to prod them in
the right direction.