TRAFFIC perspective, this needs to be:
●●fast. Yes, we know Google likes to rank fast pages
●●immediately relevant. Yes, we also know Google likes relevance
●●obvious from the search results that this page is the one to click. Yes, we know that CTR indirectly affects rankings
Figure 1: Linkdex term-tagger tool
have. And of course, the question is often“ where can I get free money?”, and the answer is on your webpage.
In this case, to be engaging a user doesn’ t want huge in-depth reviews of the casino, along with a plethora of user feedback. Users just want to know the bonus figures on your list are current and relevant.
The best example of this in my opinion is thebigfreechiplist. com( not to be confused with bigfreechiplist. com).
Other great examples of list providers are sites such as Oddschecker and Easyodds. Fundamentally, they are data grids to help you make more efficient bets. If you want to compete as a list provider, you need to be appropriately engaging.
And to be engaging, it’ s also a question of your understanding user intent around key phrases. Once you have a grasp of the customer intent behind different key phrases then the rest is straightforward; you build a site to meet that need.
Tool time! An excellent tool for understanding the intent of keywords is http:// labs. linkdex. com / term-tagger /( free to use of course).
This gives you a useful mental framework around the intent of key phrases. It’ s only a beta / experimental tool, but that’ s okay because it gives you a real sense of how different phrases have different intentions behind them.( see Figure 1)
Let’ s take‘ casino bonus codes UK’ as our specimen phrase. It has the following properties:
●●it’ s a location phrase( UK specific)
●●it’ s in a niche, casino
●●the buying cycle is around consideration and research
●●the search behaviour is is‘ couponing’ i. e. collection of a code
●●it’ s geographic research( see Figure2)
For me, looking at key phrases within this mental framework gives me a nice clear roadmap. And to save you some thinking time, this is what it tells me:
I should build a list of UK casinos bonuses and maybe focus on keyword‘ couponing’, because it’ s a fairly low traffic, fairly high intent niche, i. e.‘ UK casino Coupon Codes’.
Tip / insight: Google uses the term‘ satisfying’ in it’ s Google quality rater guidelines( a must-read if you want to understand what the perfect website looks like according to Google), which you can find by searching for‘ Google search quality rating guidelines 2016’.
When embarking on this process, it’ s worth taking a moment to think about what’ s satisfying for you as a user when it comes to the search experience. From my
Figure 2: Linkdex term tagger tool results
At this stage you will have:
●●a clear idea of which niche you want to work in
●●played around with‘ term tagger’
●●read the Google quality rater guidelines
●●understood where you can be engaging, useful and satisfying to users
●●used tools like https:// ubersuggest. io to come up with lists of key phrases very relevant to you
●●and, for the sake of discussion, you’ ve now built your first WordPress list website.
The next step in this process is PageRank.
To put PageRank into context, I generally think of three elements which make a website rank on Google, of which PageRank is just one:
PageRank – the raw force of a domain, determined by the volume of qualified links.‘ Qualified’ is the important word here, because once upon a time links were not qualified and any link would have PageRank. Now, with Penguin, links are aggressively qualified.
Based on tests with the agency I founded, 90 Digital, they built a basic site and spammed it with millions of cheap links. The idea was to kill the site. The site carried on ranking in its niche, which just validates that links hit by Penguin have neither positive or negative value. In other
20 iGB Affiliate Issue 62 APR / MAY 2017