Online Casinos and Content Marketing Strategies
The online casino industry is a highly competitive part of the leisure sector. This is mainly because the online environment makes it very easy for gamblers to quickly jump across from one online casino in Canada to another. In such circumstances, it becomes very important indeed for the text and visual content on any online casino site to be useful and appealing – for both new visitors and returning customers.
Furthermore, all online casinos and affiliate sites also need to remain highly visible to those browsing the web in search of gaming portals. Essentially, that means all online casinos in Canada must try to reach a high position in Google search listings. In today’s online market, this can only be achieved by those establishments that offer useful, user-friendly content and take the trouble to ensure their website is properly SEO optimized, so that its content can be easily found, viewed and rated by search engines such as Google.
Creating a community for online casino fans
Many Canadian casino websites in the online gambling world are starting to understand the need to develop a community for online casino fans. The strategy itself is very simple: capture your target audience, work hard on maintaining their engagement, help them to keep on playing, and you gain endless ranks of loyal followers. But if that’s a good theory, the execution of the plan can be a little harder to achieve.
Those sites that rely on games alone are almost encouraging their visitors to move away once the novelty of a new game has worn off. Best practice suggests that building a community is all about things which support and give context to online casino games. That can mean topical content marketing pieces by great casino writers, which are preferably associated in some way with the game backgrounds and general interests of your target audience.
It can also mean offering content in the form of online casino guides, tips and other in-depth insights concerning standard casino favourites like blackjack, roulette and other games. The further advantage of such material is that it’s another good way of validating the experience of players at different levels, and thus showing they all belong within the community. Novices will appreciate a simple introduction to a basic game strategy (like those found at JackpotCity Casino), while keen players will want to hear about more technical stuff and opinions from top line players. But all will be more likely to become repeat visitors.
Competing for top positions in Google listings
Like most other search engines, Google always aims to deliver really useful content for those who use its search services. And because it uses machine-learning techniques to scan website content, it’s true that those experts who specialise in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can often tweak your online casino portal to get you appearing higher in the Google listings of search results. But the best performance your site can achieve will be influenced above all by your site content.
So if your site appeals to visitors, contains lots of relevant information they will find useful and generally offers an enjoyable experience they will want to repeat, then Google will also rate your site highly. In fact, as a site operator, you should always be focusing on your site’s users, and never just on Google. For instance, is your site easy for users to navigate? If so, that will improve the experience of every person who arrives on your landing page. And Google, in turn, will reward you for your efforts, but only because the enhanced navigation is good for visitors.
The importance of unique and useful content for casino players
Your first task is identifying the content your visitors love to see and use. This is rarely as straightforward as it may seem. But the task becomes much easier if you have gathered information about your typical user – what content markets refer to as a customer persona.
Assembling a customer persona means establishing demographic data. That will include: the average age of your visitors and their gender as well as information about their level of income and their marital status. And if you can also collect data on hobbies and common likes and dislikes, you will have an even clearer picture. For most gambling sites this information will produce a ‘typical’ customer, and your content will thus be most effective if it is designed to appeal to someone sharing similar attributes.
Unique content which appeals to the majority of online gamers also has some more general characteristics. For instance, most players want to hear about gameplay tactics and are also keen to learn about any data they can use to support in-game decision making. Previews of new games, like those offered by JackpotCity Casino, as well as insightful reviews of established titles, would also fall into this category.
Other topics most gamers will enjoy include sport, humour, popular culture and movie articles. Many also like the challenge of quiz type material.
Gamification in the gaming industry
The gamification of online slots and gaming in general is becoming a hot topic within the casino industry. Online operators are now looking to create a more immersive experience for customers in order to expand their enjoyment and thus encourage them to return again and again.
The millennial generation, for example, is very used to game environments where every action triggers some kind of reward, prize or penalty. So casino games and casino environments which cater to this mindset will capture more loyal customers. In a broader context, this might include ways customers can gradually acquire preferential VIP access and status in return for certain actions or achievements.
Adapting casino content to mobile devices
With so many online gamers now using mobile devices to access casino sites, either alongside or instead of PC and console platforms, no online casino can afford to ignore this form of consumption. However, not all casino mobile apps look equally good or perform equally well. So all casino portals should ensure that mobile optimization for multiple platforms and all handheld devices really is a top priority.
In technical terms, this includes aspects such as loading speeds and easy navigation as well as streamlined software and the rapid accommodation of different screen sizes.