iGB Affiliate 63 June/July | Page 15

TRAFFIC However, one interesting outlier is ‘online bingo sites’, which returns 14% fewer bingo affiliates on mobile as it does on desktop. into new gambling verticals, such as slots and casinos. How can Google tell the difference? Top-performing bingo affiliate sites Despite the obvious challenges, there are some bingo affiliates achieving success across a range of generic keywords analysed, although exposure is far more limited for the unmodified phrases. WhichBingo is the most dominant affiliate across all generic keyword groups and devices, followed by Bingoport, BestNewBingoSites.co.uk and OnlineBingo. co.uk (see Figures 4 and 5). There is still a lot of ground to make up in the battle for generic search equality. Even WhichBingo occupies only 25 of 2,000 possible ranking positions on desktop and just 34 on mobile. Two key questions remain: 1. Why (and how) are affiliates being excluded from broader generic search results? 2. What can affiliates do to overcome the inherent search bias? I do not believe that the answer lies wholly in branded keywords, but in our ability as affiliates to serve a wider range of player intents with our content and to diversify Figure 4: Top performing bingo affiliates (all generics/desktop) SITE In his article, Nick argues that SERP click- through rates are most likely responsible for the filtering out of affiliate sites from pure generic keywords. This may well be a contributing factor, but in order to measure the relative click- through rates of operators and affiliates, Google needs to show both. The fact that Google doesn’t return a single affiliate result for the term ‘bingo’ and only returns three for ‘online bingo’, suggests that other forces are at play. If not, you would have to agree that Google is using historic CTR data, possibly years old, to rank sites. Given the frequency that Google tests and tweaks its algorithm, it’s hard to believe that is the actually the case. The myth of good user experience and CTR You’ll often hear that if you focus on your users, SEO will take care of itself. This is analogous to saying that if you’re driving a car and focusing only on the wellbeing of your passengers, you’ll get to your destination without looking at the road. Figure 5: Top performing bingo affiliates (all generics/mobile) NO. OF RANKING KEYWORDS SITE NO. OF RANKING KEYWORDS 1 whichbingo.co.uk 25 1 whichbingo.co.uk 34 2 bestnewbingosites.co.uk 16 2 onlinebingo.co.uk 16 3 bingomum.co.uk 15 3 bestnewbingosites.co.uk 15 4 onlinebingo.co.uk 15 4 bingomum.co.uk 15 5 bingoport.co.uk 14 5 bingoport.co.uk 14 6 bestoffersbingo.co.uk 11 6 boomtownbingo.com 14 7 bingotastic.com 11 7 bingotastic.com 12 8 freebingo.co.uk 11 8 busybeebingo.co.uk 12 9 loquax.co.uk 11 9 loquax.co.uk 12 10 twolittlefleas.co.uk 11 10 bestoffersbingo.co.uk 11 The truth is, you can’t on one hand argue that it’s click-through rate causing the generic exclusion of affiliates and, then on the other, argue that good user experience is the key to achieving it. That particular point of view assumes that there is no situation online where an affiliate site could provide a good experience for users searching for pure generic keywords. This is simply not true. An affiliate website appearing for the term ‘online bingo’, could indeed offer a lot of value to a user. Affiliate sites would (in most cases): - Provide a simple way for players to compare site quality and bonus offers - Provide detailed information and advice about playing bingo online - Provide specialist insight into the experiences players can expect (Google is not a bingo expert) - Allow players to tailor their search to their personal bingo preferences Compare this to many of the operator sites currently ranking on page one for the term: - Basic bonus-orientated landing pages with limited supporting content (except T&Cs) - Single brand options with no way of comparing value - The same white-label experiences shared across hundreds of other sites on a network It is very hard to imagine a scenario where an affiliate site offers such little value to searchers, compared to operators, to the extent that its CTR, bounce rate and other usability factors are impacted significantly enough for it not to rank in the top 100 results. The success or failure of an SEO strategy is never due to a single ranking factor. Rankings are the consequence of an algorithmic analysis of multiple data points across multiple site areas. To suggest that CTR, site usability, links or content are magic bullets is to neglect the fundamentals that have underpinned search since the beginning. iGB Affiliate Issue 63 JUN/JUL 2017 11