Blueclaw Head of Business Development John Ward gave a presentation at the ICE gaming conference in February 2013 which considered some of the most recent developments in search and social marketing in the iGaming sector.

1. Get Your SEO Strategy Right for 2013
An iGaming Focus
John Ward
Head of Business Development
Blueclaw
ICE - 2pm- 7th February 2013
www.blueclawsearch.co.uk
Stand S1 212

2. What is Blueclaw and what do we do?
Competitive Marketplaces

3. Agenda
- Principals of SEO
- Google updates over the last two years
- Tools we use to analyse websites and their performance
- How to be Google penguin friendly
- Content marketing
- Importance of social media
- Identifying influencers
- SEO Process
- Questions and Answers

4. iGaming SEO 2013:
HIGH RETURNS + HIGHLY COMPETITIVE

5. What are the
principals of SEO?
Make your site search
And drive customers to your site!
engine friendly…….

6. Big Updates – Last two years
Google is Attacking Low Quality Sites and Web Spam
Penguin
Update
April 2012
Panda Update Feb
2011 Google DISAVOW Tool
Oct 2012

7. What is panda? And didn’t that
happen ages ago?
Panda Update 1, Feb. 24, 2011
The change aimed to lower the
rank of "low-quality sites" or
"thin sites" and return higher-
quality sites near the top of the
search results.
24 updates over the last 2
years!

8. What is penguin and do you
truly understand the update?
“Update in April 2012 to better catch sites
deemed to be spamming its search results, in
particular those doing so by buying links or
obtaining them through link networks
designed primarily to boost Google rankings.”
Search Engine Land

9. Google Updates
Exact Match Domain Update – Oct 2012
www.free-poker-bets-online.co.uk
EMDs Devalued*
*Google considers backlinks and content quality

10. Google Penguin – Potential Penalty
Penalty Indicator
17th Jan – Site now
on page 2 in Google for
“online casino”
DADI Award Winners

11. Google Penguin – Graph of Death!
Penalty Indicator
17th Jan – Site now
on page 2 in Google for
online casino

12. Google Penguin -Spammy Anchor Text
Target Brand
Anchor Txt,
Compound
and Brand
Citations

13. Google Penguin –Low Quality Links
Anchor text
“online casino”
linked on 201
domains.

14. Google Penguin Doesn’t Like These!
A Low Quality
Web Directory
Each Anchor
text link is a
Anchor text – money term ‘casino’ money term
Trying to ‘game’
Google’s
Algorithm

15. Google Penguin - or These!
• Thin Content – poor
grammar, spelling
and punctuation
• No Brand Mentions
in the content
• Paid Links in side
Bar
• Each post contains
an anchor ‘exact
match’ link
Money Term Anchor Text
• Multiple sites on
the same IP
Address
• No social shares

16. Google Penguin – If Your Site has a Penalty!
Manual or Algorithmic Penalty?
Manual – You tend get a
message in Webmaster Tools
Algorithmic – No message

17. Google Penguin - A Manual Penalty Message

18. Google Penguin
DISAVOW Tool
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?pli=1
• Only use the DISAVOW Tool when you have made a concerted effort to remove spammy
links
• Tell Google, via Webmaster Tools, a reconsideration request, you have done wrong and
be nice
• Create a TXT file and upload the offending links via the DISAVOW Tool
• If you fail in your reconsideration request then try again, remove more links if you can
• If you cannot remove the links and Google won’t relent then start a new domain
• Don’t 301 redirect your penalised site to the new domain – you’ll pass on the penalty

19. Google Penguin Failed Reconsideration

20. Google Penguin
Successful Reconsideration – Well Nearly!

21. Link Analysis Tools

22. How to be Google Penguin Friendly 

23. OBJECTIVES
1. CREATE MORE LINKS
2. CREATE MORE SOCIAL SIGNALS

24. OUTREACH
WHAT TO DO WITH THAT CONTENT
With all of this created content, the next step is to
undertake “outreach” in order to generate links and
engagement to help improve SEO and Social Media
visibility
“Outreach” is the process of using PR and Social Media
to contact and build links and relationships for your
brand on influential and authoritative websites.

25. COMMUNITIES: CONTENT SEEDING

26. CONTENT CREATION

27. ENGAGE OVER SOCIAL
BUILD LINKS WITH INFLUENCERS

28. SOCIAL MEDIA
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
1.43 billion
SOCIAL MEDIA USERS (19.2% rise since 2011)

29. RETURN ON CONTENT INVESTMENT?
1. BRAND AWARENESS
2. BRAND REPUTATION
3. SEARCH BENEFITS
4. ASSISTED CONVERSIONS

30. Linkdex Data – Our Research Partner
Gaming Networks

31. RealKidPoker
Klout: 84
MichealPhelps
Klout: 87

32. What story does this graph tell?
• Innovative link data about the people behind domains.
• A combination of finding and curating whole markets of authors and social
networks.
• In a world where link building / PR / social are becoming interdependent, it’s data
we all need.

33. RealKidPoker
Klout: 84
Tweet Frequency: 17.7 per day
Mention to Tweet Ratio: 1.2
MariaHo
TexDolly
Klout: 61
Klout: 83
Tweet Frequency: 1 per day
Tweet Frequency: 2.6 per day
Mention to Tweet Ratio: 1.6
Mention to Tweet Ratio: 0.9

35. Buying Links – YES or NO?
Sidebar Links, Footer Links, Page Rank, Guest Posts, Blog Posts, Image Links, Articles
Paid links are endemic
within iGaming SEO
Earn links rather than buy
If you do buy links then
‘know’ what to buy and
how to buy
Google isn’t stupid!

36. SEO…
…FOR MOBILE & TABLET
20% 30% 81%
Consumers spend their total time Consumers spend their time online Shopping via mobile devices
online using social networks via visiting social networks on mobile increased 81 percent in 2012
their personal computers

37. SEO Process

38. Keywords - Poker

39. Keywords – No Deposit Bonus

40. To Wrap-up
• Be Penguin and Panda Focused
• Create good quality content to attract authority links and social shares
• Remove links if required
• Use Google Authorship G+ - easy wins
• Engage with online influencers
• Try to Earn links - ‘buy’ links with caution
• Create citations and social signals
• Think mobile and tablet – responsive design

41. SEO JACKPOT