SEO Gambling Guide, Part 6: Project Strategy

Part 6 is one of the most important in this guide because it affects the fundamental component – the project strategy.

I should emphasize that this is not a checklist. This info will help 100%, but it reflects my personal experience.

I will try to go through all the points that need to be taken into account before starting to create your project in this niche after you have chosen a GEO and your semantics.

All other parts of the guide are here – SEO Gambling Guide.

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Let us start! 

First, answer a few questions:

1. Who are you and how many people do you have? Are you one person, a company, or a team of enthusiasts with ambitions and cool hard skills? Are you perfectly aware of technical tricks like redirects? Do you know how to build cool article links? Or, maybe, you are good at PBN? In the gambling niche, everyone who knows something about it will find their place.
2. What experience do you have in challenging topics? Have you worked in niches where the first normal traffic is received in 4-6 months? Are you ready for something like this?
3. How much money do you have? 10, 20, 30 thousand? Are you ready to say goodbye to them? The matter is that if it is your first experience in gambling, everything is likely to end in nothing. It is like the first sex – fast, confusing, and embarrassing. You should consider when you want to reach profitability because not everyone can steel themselves for working long in the red. If you want to work in this niche, you need to know that your neighbor competitor in the TOP 100 may have a million-dollar budget yet still get stuck in the TOP 100 for some reason. However, they have a million to spend without even noticing it, and you may not have that sum. 

Strategic Things to Think About

About the Number of Sites

SEOs often think this way: “One site or many? If we build one site, Google may ban it. If we build many, we may run out of money. Well, but it is not interesting to tinker with one site. Maybe, we should try something in that GEO. And this cluster does not seem to be challenging….”

It is difficult to advise something, but I will try to give the most adequate and neutral recommendations, which can help you generate your own ideas.

• Creation of one site. You can take a certain cluster, for example, “new casinos,” and create a site for it specifically. You will need to buy a domain with such a keyword. That is, it is the main cluster + other types of queries but with the “new” marker, such as “new PayPal casinos” or “new live casinos”. If you are narrowly focused on a specific keyword marker, it will be your killing feature. What is the downside? You can simply choose an unprofitable cluster, one that will not cover your costs even if getting in the TOP or will bring you little FTD in principle.

Another option is to create a large general site about casinos, such as casino.org, where you can find everything about everything. What are the cons? It is very expensive and time-consuming. What are the advantages? First, do something with the cons, LOL. Well, if you are not limited by domain, you can take, create, and upgrade any cluster.

You can make one site for several GEOs on subdomains/folders — both ways work well. Creating one large site for many clusters and GEOs is about quality, costs, and a long and difficult path. However, if you succeed, you will be happy with the result. On the flip side, keep in mind that in this case, you will lack diversification and risk putting all your eggs in one basket, which is dangerous when you depend on Google.

• Creation of several sites. Here we deal with a certain number of different requests and buy EMDs based on the queries and targeted at different GEOs. The most common variant is shown schematically below. It is when we make flagship content for typically 2-3 GEOs and launch several additional sites. Leaping ahead, the flagship content contains no links from those sites. They are just other sites. 

It often happens that the flagship site turns into an ungrateful child who receives the most love and attention yet doesn’t grow. As a result, some one-page satellites for Eritrea bring the main profit, and you are ashamed to admit this to others.

This is a really good approach since it allows you to test different GEOs and clusters while believing you are a great diversifier. Under certain conditions, this approach is not much more expensive than the option of creating one site. What are the cons? More sites bring more work, costs, people, and problems.

• Creation of large networks of sites. This is a completely different world. And it is about the questions I asked at the beginning of the article. This option will be suitable only for tech-savvy people who are not perfectionists. Networks are usually created for a specific offer by prior agreement with a brand. For example, the casino brand “SMEREKA777” allows you to do anything from transmitting brand-related traffic to creating copies of the official site, so you build many sites under this brand.

About EMD Domains

Exact match domains (EMDs) are domain names that include the exact keywords you’re trying to rank for in Google’s search results. They worked in the past; they keep working now, and they will continue to work for some time.

But it is no longer a panacea and a key feature. After all, plenty of such sites have already been launched, and the more this feature is used, the less effective it is.

The pros of EMD domains include a small boost in the ranking for the keyword from the name in competitive GEOs, which can be strong in some cases.

In GEOs with poor competition, you can get to the TOP in a week or even a couple of days. If the competition is not significant, it will take you a month or two. 

Example:

In the middle of February, I made a shake-and-bake website myself. Believe me, it is a really bad site))) In April, it was in the TOP 10 list for its main keyword. 

And it got to the TOP list for secondary keywords in the first days of March. 

The disadvantages of EMD domains lie in the narrow specialization, which can become a millstone around your neck when promoting them in completely different clusters. It can have even a negative effect. Say, if you create a site a la “nolicensecasinos.com” for Germany, it will be difficult to promote it in search engines for the keyphrase “sites with German license.” The example is illustrative only.

Gold Standard 

Run the project and wait. The most common method is to launch 10-20 sites and put some links on all of them. You should start working more actively with those that grow better than others in the first month or two. A good rule of thumb here is to quit while you are ahead.

Dropped Domain or New Domain

Dropped. Of course, a domain with a history, which has been hosting some content with links for a long time, is better than a new domain. It is not easy to find such domains, but sometimes, it is the only chance to speed up the process. Try to start the project by searching for a domain. If you can’t find a dropped domain, get a new one.

Types of Sites

A website type is an equally important aspect, which should be mentioned right here. 

From previous articles or your experience, you know that there are several main types of sites in the niche. These are general casino review sites (casino.org) and sites falling into some narrow cluster associated with casinos, such as sites for slots (slotstemple.com), sites for bonuses (kingcasinobonus.uk), and sites like onlinegambling.com. 

I would like to share two tips with you. The first is that expertise is a decisive factor in the long run. From what I see, cool projects and teams keep their focus on certain things instead of switching between domains or ideas. They move to something else only after achieving a really cool result. However, they don’t come to this immediately. In the beginning, you will have to sweat and toil. That’s ok.

Each of these website types has specific characteristics and difficulties, which require attention.

Subdomain or Folder in Multi-Regional Sites

It works in both cases. It is enough to analyze search results in your GEO and find both options. Pay attention to such projects as https://casino.guru/ and https://www.casino.org/. 

It will be faster to deal with folders because Google perceives a subdomain as another site for some time.

However, an interlinking from a subdomain to another subdomain has a stronger effect than a link from one folder to another.

CMS and Website Design 

I will write a separate post about it, but it should be here as well. Right from the beginning, you should decide which CMS you are going to use and what your site will look like. I recommend refraining from making cool designs for your first sites because they won’t work anyway, and you’ll waste money. You simply take WordPress and buy the classic Mercury theme. It is enough for the first time.

I recommend checking out the functionality and features of your competitors’ sites scrupulously. Then, you can create your sites, decide on what you really need, and switch to custom solutions after that. Make the custom designs in such a way that you can copy them for your other sites in the future. 

Project Budget 

It is my favorite issue. For example, you can check out the TOP companies operating in the online gambling niche. They are among the TOP 10 largest affiliates in the world by volume.

Examples:

LCB Network (formerly LatestCasinoBonuses.com). Check out some of their sites:

https://casinoslots.net/ 

https://wizardofodds.com/

https://www.worldcasinodirectory.com/

https://www.gamblinggurus.com/ 

GiG Media 

https://www.wsn.com/ 

https://www.casinotopsonline.com/ 

Gambling.com Group 

https://www.gambling.com/ 

https://www.casinosource.co.uk/ 

https://www.bonusfinder.com/

I think it’s enough. There is no content created with DeepL and AI. Take a look and estimate how much money was spent on link building. And as you can see, even not all of them are in the TOP.

These are our competitors. They are powerful companies backed by capital. What is even more important, they are backed by serious people — businessmen serving as investors, partners, and directors. 

Therefore, your strategy should be tailored to the knowledge of who your competitor is. It makes no sense to organize a race with a cheetah if you are a sloth.

You will spend $200,000-300,000 in a couple of years and will not even notice where they go. Even when you have a strategy and everything is going well, something just happens suddenly, and everything ends up in a hole. 

Simple calculations 

• Calculate the content cost. Analyze the average number of words per page required on each typical page in the TOP 10-15. I mean, how many words are on an average casino review page, slot review page, and category page? Of course, you need to prioritize, as not all pages need to be cool and have a large number of words. You should find out how much 100 words of copywriting costs depending on the quality. For example, some pages can have cheaper content, and you can use more expensive and higher-quality content on prioritized pages, of course, if it is good value for money.
• Calculate the average cost of a guest post. It is the most powerful link-building method today. Calculate the average number of them and add another 30% to your budget.
• Calculate the cost of the website development, even minimally. You can do it based on developer hourly rates.
• Calculate the payroll budget if you plan to hire people. 
• Calculate the cost of tools. 
• Calculate your other expenses, which may include domains, other types of links, etc. 
• Add at least +30% to your budget because there will always be additional costs, commissions, content rewriting, more links, salaries, etc.
• Create a monthly cost calendar so that you understand when the most expensive periods will be.

Conclusion

Online gambling is about big yet not easy money. I don’t know what else to add. Most people complain they simply lack budgets. They start saving on content, for example, translations and AI, and the risk of sanctions or site pessimization increases. SEOs buy cheap links, which give nothing except the belief that they will work someday despite the lower price. However, it still turns out to be swings and roundabouts.

I advise you to start anyway, and you will figure everything out by yourself.