You have heard you need links to rank on Google. Quality backlinks. But you don’t know how to find them. This is a common sentiment for many website owners in casino and sports betting niches.
Getting other website owners to link their content to a betting site can be hard. However, it’s not impossible. In this comprehensive guide to link building for gambling websites, we’ll break down everything you need to know to grow your website’s traffic.
What is Link Building?
Link building is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy that involves getting other website owners to link their content to pages on your website. These links act as votes that show your website provides quality content and deserves to rank higher on Google.
There are many ways to source backlinks for your gambling website. But first:
Why is Link Building for Betting Websites Important?
Every website wants to rank on Google’s first page to get the most traffic. And link building is one of Google’s three major ranking factors. Site content and Rank Brain are the other two indicators.
Rank Brain is Google’s machine learning program that uses AI to process search results. In total, Google considers 200+ indicators before it ranks a website. The fact that link building is one of the top three factors means it’s absolutely necessary.
Now, Google doesn’t just look at the number of links pointing to your gambling website. It also considers the quality of these backlinks. You see, every backlink is a vote in favor of your website.
A link from a well-known website like espn.com carries more marks than a no-name site. Also, a link from a sports network is better for your betting website than a link from a toy website. That’s because it’s more relevant to your niche.
What is a Quality Backlink?
For many betting websites, building backlinks can feel like a daunting experience. From sites rejecting your requests to not experiencing traffic growth—link-building for casino sites can be frustrating.
So, how can you find quality backlinks for your betting website? For starters, ask yourself if a link meets these requirements by Google:
- Page and Website Authority
Page authority is a score created by SEO agencies to predict how well a page will rank on Google. Likewise, website authority predicts the chances of the entire website ranking on the top page of Google.
Many SEO agencies have tools used to calculate the domain authority of different websites. However, most people rely on the tools created by Moz, SEMrush, and Ahrefs.
As a rule of thumb, the best backlinks come from web pages and sites with high domain authority.
- Website Relevance
Getting a link from an authoritative website is great, but it also needs to be relevant to the gambling niche. You don’t have to source links from your competitors—they might not link to your content anyways.
But find links from websites with relevant content. For example, ask for backlinks from sports websites if you run a sportsbook. On the other hand, find links from a iGaming website if you own a casino.
- No follow vs Do follow
Backlinks come with one of two major tags: Nofollow or dofollow. A “nofollow” tag tells Google that a website is not really endorsing your site to rank higher on its search engine result pages (SERPs).
A “dofollow” tag tells Google that a website endorses your content to rank higher on SERPs. In other words, you want “dofollow” backlinks for your websites.
- Link Anchor Text
An anchor text is the word or words you can click on a link. The anchor text appears in different colors than regular text. Google uses anchor text as one of its 200+ ranking factors.
As such, it’s essential to use relevant anchor texts while doing link building. If you want to promote a page titled “Best Casinos UK,” use a similar anchor text for link building.
Also, keep in mind Google looks at the words placed close to your anchor text. It uses the words as clues for why a website owner is linking their content to your page.
- A Link’s Position
Links are not created equal. Links positioned at a piece of content perform better than those placed in the footer or comment sections. What’s more, links positioned in the middle of a webpage are better than those placed in the sidebars.
- Editorial vs Self-promotional Link
An editorial link is one placed by the website owner because they love your content. A self-promotional link is a link you place on a random website’s comment section. It could also be a link you place on your social media profile or a business directory. Google values editorial links more than self-promotional links.
How to Build Quality Backlinks for your Betting website
Now that you know what you should look for in a quality backlink, below is a list of the best ways to source links for gambling websites:
- Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is one of the oldest ways of sourcing backlinks. It involves writing content for another website to earn one or more links pointing to your website.
Lots of websites accept guest posts. So, it shouldn’t be difficult to find a website willing to give you a backlink in exchange for an insightful post.
- Ask for Links
Guest blogging is great. But it requires that you publish content for every website you want a link from. A better way to find links is to ask for them. If you have a good reason, website owners may be willing to link their content to yours.
Usually, asking for links works when you have a piece of insightful content or a useful tool. Let’s say you have an article about the biggest online casino winners of all time. You could reach out to casino bloggers to ask them for links pointing to your article.
- Broken Link building
This process might sound like it’s a lot of work. But it’s worth it. Here’s how it works. You find content that’s similar to what you regularly publish on your betting website.
Find content from pages with high domain authorities. Also, ensure these articles rank high on Google. Read the content to find broken links—links that don’t work. Next, notify the content creators that they have broken links and that you have great content they can link to.
With the help of a good SEO tool, you could also check all the websites with links pointing to the unavailable page. Contact them for a request to replace the broken links with your links.
- Unlinked Brand Mentions
As your gambling website grows, there will be plenty of people who will mention it on their blogs. It could be a blog that talks about new casinos. It could be an article about sites with the best welcome bonuses.
Use an SEO tool to find websites that have mentioned your website in their content but have zero links pointing to your site. Ask them to link their content to yours.
- Advertise your Best Content
To acquire quality links, you need all the help you can get. Sadly, people will only link to your content if they know about it and if it’s quality content. This is where advertising comes in handy.
Create a detailed, properly optimized content guide on a topic in great demand. Include images, videos, and infographics. Then advertise the content on Google and social media.
The goal is to place your content in front of as many people as possible. In turn, you hope to get quality backlinks.
- Use Community Sites
Not every backlink will come from a high domain authority website in the gambling niche. Links come from all sorts of websites. And as long as they increase your site’s traffic and help build your link profile, they are worth it.
Now, you don’t need to leave links in the comment sections of random blogs. Instead, join community sites like Quora and Reddit. On Quora, find questions related to gambling. Provide a detailed answer and leave a link pointing to your website.
On Reddit, find a thread related to gambling. Provide a helpful comment on the topic in discussion and leave a backlink for your website.
- Use PR for Link Building
Public Relations is a popular way to market brands. The most popular PR tactic is to publish a press release and distribute it to news networks on the Internet. If it’s an insightful guide, some of the websites will publish your press release and link the content to your website.
Unfortunately, press releases are a dying marketing tactic. PR sites are on the decline. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t use other public relations tactics. You could sponsor a sports event and make it known to sports news websites.
- Buy Links
Let’s get one thing clear. Google is against buying backlinks. If it notices your link profile consists of paid backlinks, it could penalize you. Still, this doesn’t mean people don’t buy links.
Some websites are open about selling links more than others. They charge anywhere from $10 to $500. Should you buy links? Considering Google does not recommend it, you should steer clear of buying links.
Get in Touch
We have outlined everything you need to know about link building for a gambling website. Through our guide, you can hunt for dozens of links at the best websites in your niche without having to pay for them. It’s a time-consuming and frustrating experience, though.
If you would like assistance with link building for your gambling website, get in touch with us here are BetExposure. We are a betting SEO agency made up of a team of experienced link builders. Talk to us and we could help get more traffic by ranking your website higher on Google.