iGB Affiliate magazine issue 61 Feb/March

NEGATIVE SEO AND HOW BEST
TO PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS
IN THE
SHADOWS
ISSUE 61 FEB/MAR 2017
PLUS:
2017: THE PREDICTIONS
IGB AFFILIATE SURVEY: KEY FINDINGS
THE GREAT BRAND PHRASE GOLDMINE
THE HIDDEN COST OF MATCHED BETTING
INFORMATION, INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS FOR THE BUSINESS OF INTERACTIVE GAMING

3iGB Affiliate Issue 61 FEB/MAR 2017
Welcome to the LAC issue of iGB Affiliate.
This is the time of year when we map out the
opportunities for the 12 months ahead, in both
established and emerging channels. From PPC
to social video, from voice search optimisation
to brand phrases, our expert contributors have
it covered (from p11). Another essential read
is our cover article on increasingly pervasive
negative SEO tactics (see p22).
The same focus on actionable insights also
informs the refreshed conference format at
LAC, reorganised as themed tracks rather than
by industry. This cross-fertilisation of ideas
and bringing together of delegates working in
the igaming and financial spaces reflects the
real-world experience of today’s affiliate now
working across multiple sectors, one of the
many key findings of the inaugural iGB Affiliate
Survey (see p9).
Look out for the red speaker boxes at the end
of articles for when and where to catch some
of our expert contributors during the LAC
conference. In the meantime, iGB Affiliate would
like to wish you all a highly successful 2017 and
we look forward to welcoming you all at LAC.
Stephen Carter, Editor
FREE SUBSCRIPTION email: alex.pratt@igamingbusiness.com
Printed in the UK by: Pensord Press, www.pensord.co.uk
Published by: iGaming Business Ltd, Bedford House,
69-79 Fulham High Street, London SW6 3JW, UK
T: +44 (0)20 7265 4227 F: +44 (0)20 7265 4214
www.iGamingBusiness.com
© iGaming Business 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature without
prior written permission, except for permitted fair dealing under
the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. Application for
permission for use of copyright material including permission to
reproduce extracts in other published works shall be made to the
publishers. Full acknowledgement of author, publisher and source
must be given. iGaming Business Affiliate Magazine is published
by iGaming Business Ltd, Bedford House, 69-79 Fulham High
Street, London SW6 3JW, UK. The views expressed by contributors
and correspondents are their own. Editorial opinions expressed in
this magazine are not necessarily those of the Publisher.
The Publisher does not accept responsibility for advertising
content. Cover image: istockphoto.com. ISSN 2041-6954.
Editor in Chief: Michael Caselli
michaelc@iGamingBusiness.com
Editor: Stephen Carter
stephen@iGamingBusiness.com
Publisher: Alex Pratt
alex@iGamingBusiness.com
Designer: Jem Kargi
Production Manager: Craig Young
craig@iGamingBusiness.com
Head of Business Development: James King
james.king@iGamingBusiness.com
Senior Sales Executive: Ed Grundy
ed@iGamingBusiness.com
Sales Executive: James Harrison
james.harrison@iGamingBusiness.com
CONTENTS
http://on.fb.me/1CGEIgk
@igbaffiliate
www.igbaffiliate.com
Events Calendar 04
News 06
News special: iGB Affilate survey findings 09
The great brand phrase goldmine 11
All you need to know for moving to HTTPS (Part 1) 15
Negative SEO tricks part 1: influencer reviews 22
Organic search trends: casino, bingo and poker 25
Using UX design to drive your conversion rate 28
Paid Search predictions for 2017 34
2017: the predictions 38
Going native 42
The hidden cost of matched betting 45
Building authority: SEO and PR 49
Digital media and marketing: what’s next? 51
Diversify your affiliate marketing strategy in 2017 55
Top of the bots 58
4 steps to drive your affiliate business forward 60
4 strategies to engage those elusive Millennials 64
Surviving and thriving in the age of AI 67
Bitcoin and the igaming future 70
Data Centre, including European regulation, H2 Dashboards 73
03-Contents_KY.indd 3 01/02/2017 13:52

AFFILIATE EVENTS CALENDAR
4 iGB Affiliate Issue 61 FEB/MAR 2017
Due to their popularity and wealth of information, analysis and discussion, conferences have become
an integral part of the affiliate industry and a key communications bridge between affiliates and affiliate
managers. Whether used for networking, education or just as an excuse to meet up with friends, the
affiliate conferences listed below provide all the tools you need to improve your business.
NORDIC AFFILIATE CONFERENCE
7TH APRIL 2017
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
www.igbaffiliate.com/events/nordic-
affiliate-conference
LONDON AFFILIATE CONFERENCE
9TH – 12TH FEBRUARY 2017
EXCEL LONDON, UK
www.igbaffiliate.com/events/london-
IGB AFFILIATE AWARDS
11TH FEBRUARY 2017
8PM – 12AM
THE BREWERY, LONDON, UK
www.igbaffiliate.com/awards/igb-
affiliate-awards
MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2017
27TH FEBRUARY - 2ND MARCH 2017
FIRA, BARCELONA, SPAIN
www.mobileworldcongress.com
AMSTERDAM AFFILIATE CONFERENCE
11TH - 14TH JULY 2017
AMSTERDAM RAI, NETHERLANDS
www.igbaffiliate.com/events/amsterdam-
SMX MUNICH
14TH - 15TH MARCH 2017
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS CENTER,
MUNICH, GERMANY
www.smxmuenchen.de/en
04-Events-Calendar.indd 4 01/02/2017 09:19

WEBMASTER NEWS
ECJ OPINION: UK AND GIBRALTAR SINGLE MEMBER STATE FOR SERVICES
IN THE OPINION of European Court
of Justice Advocate General Maciej
Szpunar, Gibraltar and the UK
territory are a single Member State and
European law regarding the freedom
to provide services between Member
States would therefore not be applicable
to the Gibraltar Betting and Gaming
Association’s (GBGA) challenge to the
introduction of point of consumption
(PoC) tax in the UK in 2014.
PoC meant that operators based outside
the UK mainland were to pay a gaming
duty for all remote games of chance placed
with them by UK consumers, regardless of
the tax paid in their own jurisdiction.
GBGA, whose members include most
of the major UK-facing online betting and
gaming operators, challenged PoC from
the outset, saying the tax went against the
freedom to provide services within the EU,
one of the key principles with regard to
trade in the EU. However, for EU law to be
applicable there must be trade between two
Member States.
HMRC on behalf of the UK government
argued that GBGA had no enforceable EU
rights as the provision of services between
Gibraltar and the UK was not covered by
EU law.
AG Szpunar agreed, saying that in the
event that the Court concluded that the
freedom to provide services does apply to
trade between Gibraltar and the UK, then
he did not consider PoC to be a restriction
to that freedom.
He also looked at whether a restriction
to the freedom to provide services would
be justified if the Court disagreed that the
situation was purely internal. Szpunar
explained that in this case it was for the
referring court to determine whether the
grounds of justification put forward by
the UK.
These include to “level the playing field”
between UK and overseas operators and
ensuring the UK could “exercise proper fiscal
supervision over its gaming market”. The
Advocate General’s Opinion is not binding
on the ECJ, whose judges then deliberate the
case and issue judgment at a later date.
PA LAWMAKER EXPECTS LEGALISED ONLINE GAMING BY MARCH
MARIO SCAVELLO, chairman of the
Senate Community, Economic and
Recreational Development Committee
in Pennsylvania, has said that he expects
the US state to legalise online gambling
by March of this year.
Pennsylvania is one of several states
considering introducing a regulated
market, and came close to legalisation
last year when a bill was approved by the
House of Representatives, but was not
passed in time.
However, earlier in January, State
Senator Jay Costa confirmed he will
introduce an online casino bill in the
latest bid to legalise internet gambling.
Scavello has now added further fuel to
the fire by suggesting that online gaming
could become legal in Pennsylvania as
early as March.
“Sometime in March, we’ll have
something done and passed in the House
and Senate,” Scavello said, according to
theCasino.org website.
“It looks like online gaming has
the support to pass; we can look at
other expansions.”
WESTERN UNION FINED $586M OVER ILLEGAL TRANSACTIONS
US FINANCIAL SERVICES company
Western Union has agreed to pay a federal
penalty of $586 million (€545.2 million)
after admitting to clearing transactions
related to illegal online gambling activities.
According to the Financial Times
newspaper, Western Union allowed agents
to send money to illicit internet gaming
operations in Costa Rica, thus violating
US laws regarding anti-money laundering.
Western Union pleaded guilty to the
named violations, which included
“aiding and abetting wire fraud”, as
well as failure to maintain an effective
campaign in regards to anti-money
laundering activities.
The company has also agreed to have
its financial transactions monitored by an
independent compliance auditor over the
next three years to help ease any lasting
concerns over its business practices.
In recent years, the firm has admitted to
processing thousands of transactions for a
host of global fraud schemes, with online
gambling the latest addition to this list.
Bill Chandler, chief communications
officer at Western Union, told the
Financial Times that the company has
“worked hard to put these investigations
behind us”.
As a result of the fine, Western Union
anticipates losses of $570 million for the
12 months to December 31, 2016.
FABULOUS BINGO UNVEILS NEW IMAGE
NEWS UK-OWNED Fabulous Bingo
has launched a new marketing campaign
to promote its revamped brand and
website proposition.
The online bingo brand is themed on
Fabulous Magazine, a supplement that
features in weekly newspaper title The
Sun on Sunday and the new site has been
designed to reflect this brand image.
Fabulous Bingo worked with Pulse
Creative, the in-house agency of News
UK, throughout the project, with the
campaign aimed predominantly at
females aged from 30-55.
The online bingo brand operates on
a platform developed by Playtech. Kate
Bird, chief marketing officer for The Sun
newspaper, said: “We’re thrilled with the
results of our brand refresh for Fabulous
Bingo, which is a welcome retreat from the
loud competitor sites. “Our recent move to
a Playtech platform gives us the opportunity
to grow the Fabulous Bingo brand as a
strong competitor in the marketplace.”
News UK agreed a five-year deal
for Playtech to power the brands in
November 2015.
06-07-News.indd 6 01/02/2017 09:20

WEBMASTER NEWS
7iGB Affiliate Issue 61 FEB/MAR 2017
XLMEDIA HAILS ‘SIGNIFICANT’
PROGRESS AS FINANCES RISE
Ory Weihs, chief executive of
XLMedia, has said the company was
able to make “significant progress” in
2016 after posting year-on-year growth
across key financials.
In a trading update, the firm said full-
year revenue amounted to $103 million
(€95.9 million), 15% more than the $89.2
million collected in the previous year.
In addition, XLMedia said
adjusted earnings before interest,
tax, depreciation and amortisation
(EBITDA) increased 21% to at least
$34.5 million.
The company plans to announce its
final full-year results for 2016 in March.
“During 2016 we made significant
progress having now established ourselves
as a dominant player in the performance
marketing arena,” Weihs said.
“We continue to execute our strategic
plan whilst implementing our know-
how, expertise and technology in new
business verticals and key-end markets.
“We are very proud to have delivered
another record year of performance in
2016 and look forward to reporting our
full year results in March.”
KINDRED LAUNCHES NEW
HIGH-ROLLER CASINO FOR
NORWAY AND SWEDEN
Unibet parent company Kindred Group
has launched a Norway and Sweden-
focused online casino brand called
Storspiller.com aimed at those countries’
high rollers.
The group will target players who
spend £200 (€230) or more per month
in those markets.
Peter Alling, head of Nordic public affairs
at Kindred, said in a statement: “You will
find high rollers within all national and
international gambling companies.
“Instead of pretending as if this group
of players does not exist, we have chosen
to take their needs seriously, and are
launching a safer gambling environment
and a better reward system.”
Kindred stressed that Storspiller would
be the first online casino in the sector
to introduce third party affordability
assessments for all new customers.
This assessment is introduced on top of
things such as mandatory ID checks,
bank ID registration, and personal deposit
and loss limits.
SLINGO DETAILS MAJOR UK MARKETING PUSH
MOBILE GAMING OPERATOR Slingo
has announced the launch a multi-million-
pound television and digital marketing
campaign in the UK.
Slingo began the new marketing push
on January 27 with the launch of an initial
television campaign, which is due to run
until April 30.
Produced by SNAP and brokered by
Concord London on behalf of Slingo’s
holding company Gaming Realms,
the television campaign will feature on
channels in the UK after 9pm.
Slingo will support this with wider
digital activities and will work with
Buzzfeed to run a series of social media
competitions and live activations during the
first half of the year.
Patrick Southern, chief executive
of Gaming Realms, said: “Slingo embraces
moments of fun which people can
experience anytime and anywhere.
“Slingo is very much a ‘fun at your
fingertips’ product and our digital
campaign and ads showcase the light
hearted and enjoyable nature of the brand.”
GOOGLE WITHDRAWS 17M GAMBLING ‘BAD
ADS’ IN 2016
TECHNOLOGY GIANT GOOGLE has
said that it took down over 17 million
gambling-related adverts during 2016
as part of an effort to tackle so-called
‘bad ads’.
In its annual ‘Bad Ads Report’, Google
said that gambling was responsible for
just 1% of all bad ads last year, with the
company removing a total of 1.7 billion
ads that breached its advertising policies.
The overall amount is more than
double the 780 million adverts that were
taken down in 2015.
Scott Spencer, director of product
management, sustainable ads, at Google,
said in a blog post on 25 January that
gambling-related ads were removed
as they did not have “proper
authorisation from regulators in the
countries they operate”.
However, gambling is some way off
other industries in terms of bad ads,
with Google reporting that it had to take
down 68 million adverts for unapproved
pharmaceuticals in 2016, a 500% increase
on the previous year.
The firm also withdrew a total of
80 million adverts for deceiving and
shocking users, as well as 112 million
trick-to-click ads containing malware.
THREE US STATES JOIN PUSH FOR EXPANDED
SPORTS BETTING
LAWMAKERS IN NEW YORK, Michigan
and South Carolina have introduced
legislation seeking to legalise sports
betting in their respective states.
The New York bill looks to exempt
sports betting from the state’s gambling
ban, and has support from sponsor
Senator Tony Avella, who recently
declared that he would challenge Bill de
Blasio for the position of Mayor of New
York City this year.
The South Carolina bill is similar as it
seeks to amend the state constitution. Both
states require public approval in order to
make such changes.
Meanwhile, the Michigan bill sets out
plans to submit a referendum to voters on
whether the state should introduce a form of
legalised sports betting, with such legislation
requiring the population of any township or
city where this activity would take place to
approve it by majority vote.
However, should any of the bills be passed
in the states, they would still need to get
past the Professional and Amateur Sports
Protection Act (PAPSA), a law introduced in
1992 that bans sports betting in states where it
was not already in existence.
New Jersey has already outlined its
intention to challenge PAPSA and is
currently involved in a case with the US
Supreme Court (SCOTUS) over its efforts to
push through legislation.
However, SCOTUS recenty said it was
to delay its decision over the case after
requesting a brief from the Solicitor General.
Nevada remains the only US state in
which full sports betting is legal.
06-07-News.indd 7 01/02/2017 16:45

NEWS SPECIAL
IGB AFFILIATE SURVEY:
KEY FINDINGS
The inaugural iGB Affiliate Survey reveals affiliates optimistic about the igaming sector and poor
communication one of the key reasons behind partnership agreements ending.
TWO KEY FINDINGS that have emerged
from an exclusive survey of 270 affiliates
conducted by iGaming Business are that
affiliates are so optimistic about the gaming
sector’s prospects for the next five years that
a third of them are currently considering
becoming operators themselves, while poor
communication and supply of marketing
materials were key reasons as to why they
stopped working with operators.
With 12% of affiliates currently in the
process of becoming operators and a
further 23% thinking about doing so there
is a clear trend of affiliates looking at or
moving into the operator space.
Loud and clear
When it came to partnerships with
operators, one reason affiliates were so keen
to keep their options open was often down
to the communication issues experienced
with affiliate managers, which was a key
theme emerging out of the research.
Many affiliates suggested they were
unhappy with what they considered to be
low levels of communication with affiliate
managers, and that they would like to be
provided with marketing materials, offers
and promotions far earlier and more
frequently than was currently the case.
“We need to wait for some marketing
materials even for several weeks,” one
respondent said.
Poor follow-up communication was
cited by 43% as a reason not to promote an
operator after signing up for a programme,
while the same percentage also reported
poor marketing materials as a reason.
Poor communication was cited by
41% as a reason to cancel an affiliate
programme previously agreed and 73% of
respondents said they would prefer to have
weekly or monthly communication with
affiliate managers, although the responses
suggested this is often not the case.
The changing landscape
Asked about the direction of the market
over the next five years, 83% said they were
‘confident’ about the gaming industry,
while 71% were ‘confident’ about the
affiliate industry.
Casino and sports betting were the core
verticals for affiliates in the igaming space,
with 70% operating within casino and 62%
within sports betting.
Poker (34%) and bingo (33%) were the
next most important, and, interestingly,
lotteries were next at 29%.
The last could be a reflection of the rise
in secondary lottery providers, which are
increasingly challenging the monopolies in
the lottery vertical.
Regulation was identified as both an
opportunity and a threat for affiliates’ future
prosperity, with affiliates stating it was the
biggest factor impacting on their businesses.
In particular, unclear/ambiguous
legislation was cited as a worry, although
clarity does not always work in affiliates’
favour – for example, in Australia the
government is in the process of clarifying
its online gambling laws and cracking down
on sites accepting Australian players.
Given that 36% of those surveyed
stated that they targeted Australia, this is
likely to hit affiliates’ bottom lines as the
government has announced that it will
also pursue action against third-parties
such as affiliates once new laws are passed
in the early months of this year.
Australia was the third most targeted
country by affiliates, according to the
survey, with the UK on top (67%),
followed by Germany (43%).
Fear of markets closing down to
affiliates is perhaps one reason many
igaming affiliates do not have all their eggs
in one basket.
Of those surveyed, 46% said they also
operated as affiliates for other sectors,
with finance (49%), retail (38%) and
internet services (34%) the next most popular.
Affiliates also cast their net wide
within igaming itself, with affiliates
signed up with an average of 37
operators, and promoting an average of
24 at any one time.
Other key findings of the report
included social media being seen as
the most important marketing tool, the
potential of emerging markets and mobile
technology to create new opportunities,
and the fact that almost half of affiliates
saw increased commissions last year.
These findings are part of the iGB
Affiliate Survey 2017, an independent
research project commissioned by
iGaming Business. The full report is
included on the iGaming Business
Intelligence Centre.
To view this please visit:
www.igamingbusiness.com/intelligence
“Interestingly, lotteries were promoted by 29% of
respondents, which could be a reflection of the rise in
secondary lottery providers increasingly challenging the
monopolies in the lottery vertical”
09_News-iGB affiliate Survey.indd 9 01/02/2017 11:29

11
TRAFFIC
iGB Affiliate Issue 61 FEB/MAR 2017
THE GREAT BRAND
PHRASE GOLDMINE
Nick Garner of Oshi bitcoin casino and 90 Digital explains why he thinks affiliates can, and should, make
money ranking on operator brand phrases.
AT ONE TIME OR another, every affiliate
has thought about doing an SEO campaign
to rank on operator brand phrases, so I’d
like to share my story about affiliates and
ranking on my brand phrases, which will
provide some context into why I think
there’s great money in ranking on brand.
I also want to go into some of the
macro SEO trends which are coming
through for 2017 and how these fit in with
my ideas that:
●● affiliates are a really valuable part of
the ecosystem;
●● affiliates deserve to rank on brand phrases;
●● operators are increasingly dominating
generic phrases; and
●● why I think affiliates will be around for
a long time.
Some history
I have this odd experience of being both an
affiliate and a casino operator.
As Nick the affiliate, I have a large share
of a site called ClubCall.com, which is a
sports news website. And for those who
know, sports news is quite hard to monetise
for affiliates.
As Nick the operator, back in 2015
while running my SEO agency 90 Digital,
I launched Oshi online casino. So I have
this interesting perspective where I love
affiliates and I dread them. Of course, it’s a
lot more love than anything else!
Here’s the conflict: I need affiliates to
bring in business. I work hard to build
brand awareness for Oshi and I know I
don’t want to pay affiliates for conversions
that have effectively come through the
power of the casino’s brand.
If somebody checks us out by going on
a brand search for ‘Oshi casino’ and they
register via an affiliate, we are effectively
paying a ‘revenue share’ tax for our hard
work. At least, that’s how I used to feel.
If you are a tier 1 brand, you’re probably
doing TV, paid advertising, loads of PR and
sponsorships. People will know what your
brand is, so they’ll seek you out and join.
These ‘cheap’ conversions are what makes
mainstream marketing viable.
As an aside, about six years ago I worked
for a large igaming operator as head of
search. Using publicly available information
I did some calculations on what affiliate
commissions would cost a tier 1 operator
per month from conversions that come
through brand phrases. In short, inflation-
adjusted we were looking at around £80,000-
£100,000 in affiliate commissions per month
from brand phrases alone.
If that tier 1 operator got aggressive
with affiliates and pushed them out of the
most converting brand phrases, that would
probably cover the whole of their SEO
spend and give them some change.
Of course, you’re going to say “what
about the lack of conversion information on
Google’s organic search data?” And you’re
right, so any analysis is based on guesswork.
If you are a tier 2 brand, you’ll be doing
less brand building marketing and you’ll
be more reliant on conversions driven by
very relevant marketing. If you are tier 3
and beyond as I am, you’re increasingly
dependent on affiliates.
In the case of Oshi, we live by our
affiliate relationships. We don’t have a huge
amount of prominence on search, because
I’ve deliberately avoided being aggressive
with SEO, so our strategy has been centred
around brand reputation and affiliates.
Brand reputation is why I think affiliates
deserve to rank on brand phrases.
Reputation
As you know, there are three different types
of key phrases: navigational, informational
and transactional.
●● Navigational is obviously “take me to
somewhere I already know about”
●● Transactional is “I want to buy
something now”
●● Informational is “give me background
information to help me make a decision”
For informational keywords there is a
spectrum of intent between mild interest in
the subject and active serious consideration.
When you are seriously considering
something, you are looking for information
to help you make a final decision. When
you’ve made that decision, you go off and
do a transactional search to find the best
price or product to suit your needs.
In other sectors like technology,
consideration phrases are dominated by
online publications which give reviews
of the latest products or whatever. That
whole ‘finding the truth’ ecosystem works
very efficiently in sectors like technology,
because it’s really hard to make big money
as an affiliate if you’re a tech publication,
so they rely more on volume of traffic
advertising revenue.
Gaming affiliation is ridiculously
profitable when you get it right. There
is such a massive economic incentive
to produce content that will influence
11-13-Traffic-The great brand-v3a.indd 11 01/02/2017 10:21

TRAFFIC
potential customers, huge parts of the
igaming keyphrase ecosystem are saturated
with affiliate content.
Over the years affiliates have had a
patchy history on being ‘truth givers’ to
consumers. Very simply, whoever gets
the best conversions and biggest ongoing
revenue stream is the best operator.
Ironically, if an operator helps generate
loads of revenue, it’s because they keep
their customers gambling and happy. This,
in turn, means those operators which pay
out the most, are on the whole the best on
customer satisfaction. Of course, there are
lots of horror stories about rogue operators.
When a random potential customer
starts looking around on the search
engines for the best operator, if the whole
search ecosystem is loaded with different
affiliates telling you which operators
are the best, eventually those potential
customers start forming opinions and
at some point they register with a few
different operators.
It’s a bit like propaganda; if you
tell people enough times and make it
plausible, people will believe it. I think
the igaming search ecosystem is driven by
profit-motivated propaganda. And that’s
okay by me.
I love affiliates ranking on my
brand phrases.
If I was in technology, and I had a
product, I would put it out with reviewers,
they would say what they thought, their
unpaid, unbiased reviews would rank and
that would be it.
In igaming, I have a service, I put it out
with affiliates, they say what they think
and if they like my casino and they think
it has a good chance of making them
money, they will say good things about it.
That’s why it’s okay that AskGamblers
ranks number two after my brand phrase
‘Oshi casino’. AskGamblers has nailed
something very few affiliates have got
right: trust.
People believe what AskGamblers says.
It helps them make a positive decision
about joining Oshi. We are also really
lucky to have GamblingBitcoin.com,
bitcoincasinos.reviews, bestbitcoincasinos.
net rank on our brand phrases and they also
say good things about us.
This happened because Marko Csokasi,
our affiliate manager, did a great job of
building relationships with all of these
affiliates. He is a nice guy who is easy to
work with and he has been able to tell the
Oshi story about product innovation, not
being evil and doing our best with customer
experience. It meant these powerful and
influencing affiliates reviewed us well.
If only one affiliate was nice to us, it
might be interesting, but having every
single affiliate on our most important brand
phrase praise us, means that potential
customers will be more inclined to join
Oshi and so everyone wins.
To summarise about 1,000 words: useful
search results mean everyone is happy.
This neatly takes me into some macro
trends I’m seeing within organic search and
how it’s influencing what ranks.
The search ecosystem
As part of my background research for
this article, I had another look through two
articles which talked about SEO trends for
2017, where about 80 search experts gave
their opinions. I also reread the Searchmetrics
ranking factors report for 2016.
I’ve pulled out some quotes from Search
Engine Journal, which summarises the
aggregate view from this herd of SEOers:
Intent
Seth Besmertnik, Conductor chief executive:
“The big trend in 2017… will be focused on
understanding who your customer is, what
they want, and using the data from search
engines to better understand customer
intent. By making something your customer
needs – something that solves their problem
– you will win the algorithm of the future.”
Dixon Jones, marketing director, Majestic:
“It’s not about ‘keywords’. It is about being
the stand out leader in the field for, at the
very least, your business name. What one
thing do you really stand for?”
Eric Enge, Stone Temple Consulting
chief executive:
“You need to do a better job of satisfying
the users who come to your pages, and
better matching your content to the intent
they had when they got there.”
Links
Bill Hartzer, SEO consultant:
“The search engines are continually
getting better at identifying unnatural
linking and unnatural SEO tactics, as
well as keyword tactics.”
Jonathan Allen, president, L&T Co:
“I believe that you won’t need to earn that
many organic links to see movements in the
right direction.”
Chris Boggs, founder, Web Traffic Advisors:
“Since Penguin will reportedly not count
‘bad’ links against websites, manual actions
likely will rise as more SEOs will come
across links being reported.”
Mobile
Kristine Schachinger, founder & chief
executive, Vetters Agency:
“The next update to most likely follow will
be mobile first indexing. This is not just
an update, but a systematic change to how
Google evaluates and positions websites.”
Searchmetrics report
This is an annual report which analyses
10,000 key phrases on Google.com and
looks at the correlations between various
“Links are not the ‘prime currency’ of SEO any longer, in
my opinion. It’s user satisfaction that counts”
“I think the igaming search ecosystem is driven by
profit-motivated propaganda. And that’s okay by me”

13
TRAFFIC
ranking factors and rankings.
It states: “Today’s rankings are driven by
the dynamic between individual content
relevance and user intent. The main task
for SEOs and online marketers today is the
creation of relevant content that is targeted
towards the specific user intention, which can
vary greatly depending on the search query.
Generally speaking, content is relevant
when it provides answers to as many
questions as possible, and when it deals
with the most important aspects of a
topic. This is how we define holistic and
comprehensive content.”
Overall, I think there are lots of new SEO
housekeeping issues to take care of, i.e.
getting the mobile experience right, making
sure Google can index your site properly
and so on, but for me the stand-out change
is facing up to the new reality: intent is king.
Why are affiliates failing on generic
phrases? (Clue: intent)
If you say it’s because affiliates can’t get
links like operators do, then plainly you are
somewhere back in 2006.
First, from what I’ve seen, operators just
aren’t doing link acquisition like they used
to. It’s because the benefits are questionable
and secondly it’s very hard to get really
good links without contravening Google’s
Webmaster Guidelines.
Links are not the ‘prime currency’ of
SEO any longer, in my opinion. It’s user
satisfaction that counts.
Let’s say you agree with me, if you look
at big generic phrases like ‘online casino’
or ‘bet online’, all the results are operator
sites. Why? Users want to see operator
websites, because they are looking for a
casino that is online, or they want to make
a bet online through an online bookmaker.
If users wanted to make comparisons
between different casinos, they would
search for ‘best online casino’ because
they’re interested in comparisons, and this
phrase is, of course, dominated by affiliates.
My point is that Google is all about
satisfying user intent and this is why
Searchmetrics says the most powerful
ranking signal of all is, in fact, click-
through rate.
Ranking off directly generated users’
signals makes sense. Google search
results should be a meritocracy, where
the sites that rank the highest are the ones
users want the most. And finally this is
happening. Let’s go back to my point
about ranking on brand.
What is the user intent around a brand?
I think it’s a combination of navigation
and consideration.
If it’s a navigational search, that
prospective customer probably has an
account already with the operator and just
wants to get straight to the website because
they can’t remember the exact web
address, or by using a Google search, it’s
quicker than typing the full web address.
If it’s an informational search, that
person is looking to make a decision about
joining that brand.
There is every reason it’s justifiable for
you to outrank a Facebook page belonging
to a brand or the corporate news for
particular operator, why? Because you serve
a more useful purpose to the user than
some social media, or corporate blah blah
blah. You are helping users make decisions.
And Google knows that.
What’s the outlook?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because
I had one of those investor interviews and
they asked me what I thought the affiliate
space would look like in five years. In short,
the outlook is good.
The dominant affiliates will come through
because they find the right balance between
satisfying user intent and making money.
AskGamblers does it really well and in a less
commercial way, Casinomeister.
Even those ‘top 10 best bonuses’
websites satisfy user intent in their own
way. They answer a big question: ‘who has
a great bonus’?
Another thing to remember is that
operators invest fortunes in their brand and
the risk of a penalty makes aggressive SEO
with a lack of clear attribution through ‘not
provided’ (https search) , means there isn’t
a good enough business case to really push
offsite SEO. Instead, I’m seeing brands
focus more on SEO housekeeping and
fulfilment of user intent.
Affiliates generally don’t have brand
equity, therefore they have far less to lose
and much more to gain from taking risks
operators won’t. The right links still help to
rank, so affiliates can be aggressive with this.
Once they rank, if they fulfil user intent,
they’re likely to stay in the search results
long enough to make some good money.
Herein lies the reason I think affiliates
are going to be around for years to come.
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that
search engines have changed, the game
is about giving users what they want
and my little anecdote about ranking on
brand is a good example of how you can
make money as an affiliate on a highly
converting phrase and please both Google
and the operators at the same time.
NICK GARNER was
search manager at
Betfair between 2006 and
2010, before becoming
head of search for Unibet
between 2010 and 2012. He
then founded 90 Digital, the successful
igaming SEO agency, and in 2015 saw
an opportunity to launch Oshi casino.
“It’s not about ‘keywords’. It is about being the stand
out leader in the field for, at the very least, your business
name. What one thing do you really stand for?”
Dixon Jones, Majestic
NAME: NICK GARNER
WHEN: 11 FEBRUARY @ 15:00
WHERE: ROOM 1

Projet1_Mise en page 1 30/01/2017 17:17 Page1

TRAFFIC
Fili Weise from SearchBrothers.com provides a granular guide for webmasters looking to make the
transition from HTTP to HTTPS as smooth and painless as possible.
AS GOOGLE’S INITIATIVE IS to get
more websites to use HTTPS1
and given
Snowden’s revelations about the level of
surveillance by US authorities2
, the number
of websites moving to HTTPS has steadily
been growing. The switch to HTTPS is a
major technical challenge, which is not to
be underestimated. From an SEO point of
view, it requires resource allocation, long-
term planning and preparation, water tight
execution, and is never free of risk.
This guide will instruct beginner and
advanced website owners how to move
from HTTP to HTTPS, from a SEO
perspective, discussing why it is important
to make this move, selecting the right SSL
certificate for your purposes, and how
much of the website to move at once. It
will also help identify the most common
technical on-page signals which need to be
updated to HTTPS to avoid the sending of
conflicting signals to search engines, how
to configure Google Search Console for
the move to HTTPS, how to monitor the
impact of the move within Google Search
Console and the server log files, and how
to improve the overall performance signals
towards the user with HSTS and HTTP/2.
What is HTTPS and why should
you care?
If you have a website, or visit websites
online, you have to care about HTTPS.
HTTPS is short for hypertext transfer
protocol over TLS. This a protocol that
allows secure communication between
computer networks, such as the browser
on a local computer or the server serving
the content being accessed. Every website
on the world wide web uses either HTTP
or HTTPS. An example of the address bar
of a website using the HTTPS protocol is
shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Address bar of website
secured with HTTPS
The benefits of HTTPS are numerous,
but the ones that stand out for regular
users are:
●● Security, for example, HTTPS prevents
man-in-the-middle attacks;
●● Privacy, so no online eavesdropping on
users by third parties;
●● Speed (will get into this later).
For website owners, HTTPS also brings
a number of advantages to the table, which
are as follows:
●● Security, allowing processing of sensitive
information such as payment processing;
●● Keeps referral data in Analytics, as
HTTP websites that have visitors coming
from a HTTPS website to a HTTP website
lose their referral data of those visitors.
However, HTTPS websites retain their
referral data from visitors coming from
either a HTTP or HTTPS website;
●● Potentially improves rankings3
in Google
search results;
●● HTTP websites show up as insecure4
in
future browser updates, whereas HTTPS
shows as secure;
●● Speed (will cover this later).
However, HTTPS is not without
challenges, which is why, until now, only a
mid-percentage5
of the World Wide Web
has been using this secure protocol - but
this number is growing steadily. Some of
the challenges include:
●● Additional cost, as commercial SSL
certificates cost money, and also modern
server infrastructure is necessary to not add
a RAM/CPU cost;
●● Technical complexity, as implementing
SSL certificates on a server is far from easy,
and until recently, one HTTPS-enabled
domain used to require an unique IP
address - luckily, there is now the Server
Name Indication6
, which is supported by
most major browsers7
;
ALL YOU NEED TO
KNOW FOR MOVING
TO HTTPS (PART 1)
1
https://security.googleblog.com/2016/09/moving-towards-more-secure-web.html
2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
3
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html
4
https://security.googleblog.com/2016/09/moving-towards-more-secure-web.html
5
http://httparchive.org/trends.php
6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication
7
http://caniuse.com/#search=sni
15-19-Traffic-All you need to know for moving to HTTPS_v2.indd 15 01/02/2017 10:23

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TRAFFIC
●● Switching from HTTP to HTTPS is
considered to be a content move by search
engines, resulting in lower rankings until
all new HTTPS and old HTTP URLs have
been re-crawled and reprocessed;
●● Conflicts with the original design of the
World Wide Web, where the additional “S”
in the HTTPS protocol breaks hyperlinks (a
fundamental pillar of the World Wide Web)8
,
●● Switching to HTTPS is a long-term
strategy. Once committed, it will be
difficult not to operate a HTTPS version
of the website. Even if the HTTPS version
redirects only traffic back to the HTTP
version, a HTTPS version needs to be kept
live to continue redirecting external link
juice and visitors to the HTTP version. In
other words, once a website is live and has
operated for at least a little while on HTTPS,
it is unlikely that it will ever be able to shut
down the HTTPS or HTTP version as long
as the website is up and running.
However, the long-term benefits do
outweigh the challenges. This guide
primarily focuses on addressing the content
move challenge of moving content from an
SEO point of view.
Getting ready with SSL Certificates
Before going further into the SEO aspects
of moving to HTTPS, let’s make sure the
setup of the server is correctly implemented
and nothing stands in the way of
continuing with the content move.
Buy a commercial SSL certificate
Although it is possible to use self-signed SSL
certificates9
or free community-provided SSL
certificates10
and most public SSL certificate
types do have a certificate authority11
behind it, the one thing that commercial
SSL certificates offer are extended validated
SSL certificates (EV)12
. These EV SSL
certificates require additional verification of
the requesting entity’s identity and can take
some additional legwork to get approved.
Users see this reflected as green bars with
company names in the browser address bar.
When choosing a SSL certificate type,
keep in mind that community-provided SSL
certificates are still in their early days and that
in the last few years, prices for commercial
SSL certificates have dropped significantly
to lower than $10 USD per year per SSL
certificate. As such, using commercial SSL
certificates for now is recommended for
commercial websites, as it will still be possible
later on to switch to other options13
.
When choosing a commercial SSL
certificate, also consider that there are several
validation types of SSL certificates that can
be bought/used. Any certificate is fine in
principle. In my experience, for Google it
makes no difference and any SSL certificate
is fine, but it can make a difference for the
users of the website (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Google Chrome displaying
different HTTPS URLs
Encryption
Several options are available when creating
a SSL certificate (commercial or self-
signed). It is better to choose a SHA2
certificate (e.g. SHA256) as this is more
secure than a SHA1 certificate. SHA1
certificates have been downgraded for this
reason by most major browsers. By the end
of 2016, websites using SHA1 certificates
will appear as insecure, thereby defeating
the purpose of using HTTPS.
Server implementation
To implement the SSL certificates on the
server infrastructure, check with the hosting
provider, the IT team or the
web developers.
If using server name indication, double
check in the Analytics data of the current
website if certain old browsers, which
do not support SNI14
, still frequently visit
the website.
Once the server has been setup with a
SSL certificate for the domain name on port
443, the setup and the server environment
needs to be checked and validated. The SSL
certificate can be validated using the SSL
Shopper tool15
, and the server setup can be
checked with the SSL Labs tool16
. All errors,
if any, have to be resolved before continuing.
Note: To avoid any issues while updating the
website for the move to HTTPS in the next
steps, it is recommended to create a separate
home directory on the same server or another
server instance and forward the HTTPS traffic
to this.
Preparing for the move to HTTPS
Before discussing the next steps, this guide
is based on a few assumptions:
●● No changes to the content (except link
annotations) are made;
●● No changes to the templates (except link
annotations) are made;
●● No changes to the URL structure (except
for the protocol change) are made;
●● The HTTPS version of the domain
name is live on port 443, and validated as
described in the previous chapter. Most
likely, the root of the domain name on
HTTPS returns an empty directory listing.
If any of the first three mentioned
assumptions are incorrect, then be sure
8
https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Security-NotTheS.html
9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-signed_certificate
10
https://letsencrypt.org/
11
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_authority
12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Validation_Certificate
13
https://letsencrypt.org/
14
http://caniuse.com/#search=sni
15
https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html
16
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/index.html

TRAFFIC
to read: How to move your content to a
new location17
on the official Google
Webmaster Blog.
Define a content move strategy
The next step is to choose a strategy for
moving to HTTPS. Moving a small website
(e.g. less than 10,000 URLs) or a large
website (e.g. more than one million URLs)
to HTTPS can result in different options for
moving content, for example:
●● To move the entire domain to HTTPS,
including all subdomains, in one go;
●● To move only one or more subdomains
and/or subdirectories to HTTPS, before
moving the rest;
●● Move the content and operate two
duplicate sites on HTTP and HTTPS18
,
before finalizing the move.
As part of the strategy, the following
question also needs to be answered: How
long will the HTTP version still be accessible?
The factors to consider will be different
depending on the size of the website, the
availability of the IT support team, and
the organizational structure behind the
website (e.g. the internal company politics).
While this guide cannot address the last
two points for every website, the first point
is definitely something to consider from an
SEO point of view. This translates to the
available crawl budget.
Importance of crawl budget
In order for search engines to process the
protocol change, its bots have to re-crawl a
significant part of the HTTP URLs and all
of the new HTTPS URLs of the website.
So, a website with one million URLs will
require search engine bots to roughly
re-crawl at least two million URLs (or a
significant amount of this) to pick up the
301 redirects and recalculate the rankings
for the new HTTPS URLs, based on the
history of the HTTP URLs. If a search
engine bot crawls an average of 30.000
unique and non-repeated URLs per day of
the website, it can take roughly 67 days to
re-crawl all URLs (see Figure 3). During
this time, the website may suffer in search
engine rankings, assuming there are no
“crawl budget wasted URLs”.
Figure 3: Example of volume of pages
crawled by Googlebot per day
Utilise server log files
To make sure search engine bots do not
waste crawl budget, first double check the
server log files and find out which URLs
have been crawled by each search bot in
the last two years (or longer, if possible).
It will also be helpful to know how often
each URL was crawled (to determine
priority), but for this process all the URLs
are needed anyway. Moving forward, this
guide will focus primarily on crawl data
from Googlebot.
For smaller sites, Screaming Frog Log
Analyser19
can do this task rather easily. For
larger websites, talk to the IT team and/or
utilize a big data solution such as Google
BigQuery20
to extract all URLs.
Figure 4: How to export URLs from
server logs using Screaming Frog Log
Analyser
It may also be necessary to ask the
hosting provider of the website for the log
files. If there are no log files available for the
last two years (assuming the website is not
brand new), start logging as soon as possible.
Without log files, the organisation will miss
out on vital and crucial SEO data, and
ignore important analytical business data.
Save the extracted URLs in a separate
file (one URL per line), for example, as
logs_extracted_urls.csv.
Extract sitemap URLs
Assuming the website has one or more
XML Sitemaps, and these sitemaps contain
all the unique canonicals of the indexable
pages of the website21
, Google Search
Console22
will report how many URLs of
the XML Sitemaps are currently submitted
to Google. Download and extract all the
unique URLs from the XML sitemaps.
sitemap_extracted_urls.csv.
How much of the website to move?
At this point, there is enough data to
determine the next step: How much of the
website to move to HTTPS?
To calculate the number of URLs to move,
gather the following data:
●● A list of unique URLs crawled by
Googlebot extracted from the server log files;
●● An average number of how many
17
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2012/04/how-to-move-your-content-to-new.html
18
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2015/12/indexing-https-pages-by-default.html
19
https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/log-file-analyser/
20
https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/
21
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066
22
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/sitemap-list?pli=1

TRAFFIC
URLs Googlebot crawls per day, based
on numbers from Crawl Stats23
in Google
Search Console, and the server log files;
●● A list of unique URLs extracted from the
XML sitemaps.
If the average number of URLs crawled
by Googlebot per day (based on the server
log files) is anywhere between the 5% and
100% of the total volume of unique URLs
extracted from the XML sitemaps, it is
relatively safe to move the entire domain in
one go to HTTPS. Chances are, in this case,
that the entire domain will be re-crawled
by search engine bots within three to four
weeks - depending on the internal linking
structure and several other factors. Let’s
call this scenario 1: “move in-one-go.”
If the average number of URLs crawled
by Googlebot per day is anywhere between
1% and 5% compared to the total size of
unique URLs extracted from the XML
sitemaps, it is safer to move one or more
subdomains and/or subdirectories in
phases to HTTPS. Chances are that, in this
case, it will take a long time for Googlebot
to re-crawl all URLs of the entire domain,
and as such it may take longer than the
standard few weeks to recover in Google
search results. Let’s call this scenario 2:
“partial move.” This phase is repeated as
many times as necessary until the entire
domain has been moved to HTTPS.
If the site is really big, then another
option is on the table. This option
involves operating two websites next to
each other, one on HTTP and one on
HTTPS. While waiting for a significant
number of URLs to be re-crawled,
the canonicals are used to move the
content. For this to work, site owners
are dependent on the website canonicals
signals to be trusted by search engines.
Let’s call this scenario 3: “move through
canonicals.” Once adequate number of
URLs have been re-crawled, scenario 1
or 2 can be applied to finalize the move
to HTTPS.
Crawl the HTTP website
Next, utilise a crawler, such as Screaming
Frog SEO Spider24
, DeepCrawl25
, Botify26
or OnPage.org27
to crawl the entire website
or relevant sections of the current website
on the HTTP protocol, and extract all
unique URLs that search engines can
crawl, which are internally linked. This
includes all assets internal to the website,
such as robots.txt, Javascript, image, font,
and CSS files. This data will be necessary
towards the end of the prcess, to double
check if the move has been successful.
crawl_extracted_urls.csv.
Note: If the website is too big, e.g. more than
ten million URLs, either the “partial move”
or “move through canonicals” scenario is
recommended because it is the safest course of
action to pursue. Try to split up the website
in manageable sections, based either on the
subdomains and/or subdirectories, and crawl
these one by one instead to get as many unique
URLs as possible.
Blocking search engine bots
The “move in one-go” and “partial move”
scenarios, and depending of the size of
the website, and how quickly the next
steps can be completed, it may be useful
to block search engine bots from crawling
the HTTPS website while this is being set
up to prevent the possibility of sending
conflicting signals to search engines.
This can be done by utilising robots.txt
on the HTTPS version, and the entire
HTTPS version can be blocked from being
crawled, or just a part of it.
Use the following code snippet in the
robots.txt on the HTTPS version to block
all bots completely:
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /
Note: This step is optional and heavily
dependent on how quickly the website can be
moved. If it can be moved in less than a few
days, there is no need for this. This method can
also be used to safely test most aspects of the
move, before letting search engine bots know
about the move.
In case of the “move through
canonicals” scenario, this particular step is
not recommended.
Conclusion
Part 2 of this series in the next issue of
iGB Affiliate will cover the actual move to
HTTPS in great technical detail, together
with the necessary next steps within
Google Search Console.
FILI WIESE is a renowned
technical SEO expert and
former senior Google
Search Quality team
member. At SearchBrothers.
com he successfully recovers
websites from Google penalties and
offers SEO consulting with SEO
audits and workshops. Email: hello@
searchbrothers.com and web:
https://www.searchbrothers.com
23
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/crawl-stats
24
https://online.marketing/guide/screaming-frog-in-google-cloud/
25
https://app.deepcrawl.com/signup?currency=GBP&package=v2demo&utm_medium=organic%20social&utm_
source=external%20blog%20&utm_campaign=v2%20trial&utm_content=SEO%20advice%20for%20https%20
migration%20(fili%20wiese)
26
https://www.botify.com/
27
https://en.onpage.org/
“In the case of the ‘move in one-go’ and ‘partial move’
scenario, it may be useful to block search engine bots
from crawling the HTTPS website while this is being set
up to prevent the possibility of sending conflicting signals
to search engines”

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Think you’ve got an untouchable online reputation with a swathe of positive reviews? Your organic rankings
could still be under threat if you’re the target of a negative SEO campaign, warns Irene Castañeda of
The Media Image.
WHEN GOOGLE’S WEBMASTER
trends analyst John Mueller was asked
recently how a business should respond to
negative SEO, his response was that it was
keeping the business’ competitors “busy
while you get to move forward”.
This advice may feel like cold comfort,
however, if you find yourself a victim of a
negative SEO campaign.
What is negative SEO?
Simply put, negative SEO is a tactic often
explored by online businesses that aim to
devalue a competitor’s organic performance
through lowering their organic rankings. This
strategy is largely executed as an attempt to
rule out competition in especially competitive
niches, to improve the competitor’s
positioning in Google’s rankings.
Negative SEO can be achieved in multiple
ways, but for the purposes of this article
we’ll focus on one of the tactics available at
present, ‘influencer reviews’.
Some time ago it was enough just to point
thousands of spammy links at a competitor’s
website and that would form the basis of
an effective negative SEO campaign. But
today, negative SEO requires more thought
and strategic planning. In the first part of a
three-part series, we’ll be taking a closer look
at the use of influencer reviews as a negative
SEO tactic.
Influencer reviews
Often initiated as part of an offsite SEO
strategy, influencer reviews contribute to
improving a business’ reputation online
and boost credibility. However, they can
also be used by black hat SEO specialists in
a more negative way as part of a negative
SEO campaign.
How important are reviews?
●● Econsultancy has quoted research stating
that 61% of consumers read reviews before
making a purchase decision
●● TripAdvisor identified that 77% of
holidaymakers would not proceed with
booking a hotel without reading its
reviews first
●● 90% of consumers read reviews before
visiting a business
●● 31% of consumers are likely to spend
more on a business with excellent reviews
●● 72% of consumers will take action only
after reading a positive review
The research clearly illustrates that reviews
are very important for online reputation
management and increase the probability of
a consumer converting on a site that they’ve
shown interest in. This might be why black
hat SEO specialists have focused on them for
more negative SEO purposes.
A difficulty exists in separating authentic
reviews from the spammy inauthentic
reviews, which is why they are often used
for negative SEO purposes. As intelligent
and advanced as Google’s algorithm might
be, there are still many black hat SEO
specialists that are successfully getting away
with creating fake reviews as part of their
negative SEO campaigns, with the intent of
harming their competitors’ reputation.
Using social media for fake influencer
reviews
Did you know that your competitors can
now use social media to manipulate a real
user’s attitude towards a specific company,
brand or a product in autopilot?
Here’s how it works.
1. Black hat SEO specialists will set
up a negative campaign using “popular
bot” for example, a social plugin from
the famous black hat SEO tool provider
Xrumer. The Free SocPlugin, as Xrumer
developer Botmasterlabs describes
it, is allowed in four social networks
“Odnoklassniki, VKontakte, Mamba and
Facebook, to post messages, comment on
photos and videos…” and automatically
bypasses the protections from bots,
including captchas.
2. SEO specialists will contact thousands
of people on social media networks with
annoying, intrusive, frustrating sales
messages, which will include a victim’s
website address. SocPlugin can bypass
modern protections and can decode most
modern captchas, making it difficult for
social networks to stop the bot and if they
manage to stop it, the botmaster team
(i.e, Xrumer’s developers) will work really
hard to include new captcha decoding in
a new release.
“The program during the registration
and submitting process can decode and
bypass more than 500 types of popular
graphical captcha like ReCaptcha,
Facebook and VKontakte captchas, etc,”
says Botmasterlabs.
NEGATIVE SEO TRICKS PART 1:
INFLUENCER REVIEWS
“As intelligent and advanced as Google’s algorithm might
be, there are still many black hat SEO specialists that are
successfully getting away with creating fake reviews”
22-23-Traffic-Dirty Seo.indd 22 01/02/2017 10:25

TRAFFIC
These bots can contact the same users
repeatedly from different fake social
media accounts with the same or slightly
modified message.
3. The final phase entails the bot contacting
the same users, again, thanking them for
using the service/ buying the product and
asking them to leave a review on Google
or on any other review site. This stage is
the most important part of the campaign,
as frustrated, annoyed people will often
leave a negative reply, expressing all the
frustrations experienced from previous
communications with the bot.
These reviews are very strong signals and
while a third party might have triggered or
led to the negative feedback, the reviews were
essentially still created by genuine users and
their behaviour will not trigger the review
websites’ spam alert.
Many individuals are confident they will
never confirm a stranger’s friendship request
on Facebook, and for this reason believe that
they will not be susceptible to bots or spam.
This can be true, but it’s important to be
aware that SocPlugin, the black hat SEO tool,
can send invites, comments and messages
from multiple accounts; provides automatic
support of dialogue; and allows automatic
access to account content, photo likes, shares
and much more. This just demonstrates that
you can never be entirely sure whether you’re
friends with a spam robot or not.
How expensive is it to set up a campaign
like this?
●● Access to Xrumer with the free SocPlugin
licence fee is $240
●● Abuse-free VPS has an estimated cost of
$250 per month
●● Negative SEO rates vary depending on the
country the SEO specialist is working from
and it is possible to hire someone from Russia
for as little as $500 per month
In the greater spectrum of things, the total
budget of a negative SEO campaign like this
could be as little as $990, but the impact it
could yield is staggering for online businesses.
How can you stop it?
Unfortunately, not much can be done to
completely stop these negative SEO tactics
as there are no definitive tools available to
completely remove the negative feedback
spread. However, you can minimise the
damage and safeguard your business to
a degree, by constantly monitoring your
online reviews to identify early if you have
been attacked by a negative SEO tactic.
There are many tools you can use, but
the below are some of the best options to
have in place.
Google Alerts
●● You can setup Google Alerts to inform
you about any mentions of your company,
brand or product. The set-up is quite simple
and there are no advanced features, but the
service is completely free.
Reputology
●● Reputology is a dedicated service which
manages online reviews with analytics
and automatic feedback collection and it’s
priced reasonably, from $29.00.
Reputation.com
●● Reputation is an online review tracking
service, with a single dashboard to monitor
reviews from multiple sources.
What if you’ve been hit?
Most website review platforms do not allow
business owners to delete negative reviews.
In most cases they can delete a negative
review only if it violates their terms and
conditions.
Reputation management experts
have recommended that the best way to
counteract negative reviews is by replying
to negative feedback. If a review has been
triggered by spam, making it null and void
or fake, you can always provide clarity to
your audience by replying and explaining
the real reason for the negative feedback.
Furthermore, the option also exists to
flag it up with Google.
The relatively little that you can do
to erase the effects of a negative SEO
campaign is a bitter pill to swallow for
many online businesses. If a review
matches the review websites’ T&C’s, in
most cases it will prove problematic to
remove. It’s highly probable that your legal
team won’t really be able to help either,
even if you receive hundreds of negative
reviews from different users.
We recommend minimising damage
from negative and unauthentic reviews
by responding to any negative review in a
professional way, and by motivating your
happy clients to leave you positive reviews
on as many review sites as they can.
When deletion is not an option, the
quantity and quality of reviews counts. It
would be wise to ensure that you sign up
to the online reputation management tools
mentioned in the article, just to ensure that
you’re always aware of what’s being said
about your business.
While it’s easy to recover from a negative
review here and there, an onslaught of
negative feedback, which is often made
possible through negative SEO, will be
much more difficult to recover from. They
say prevention is better than cure and we
encourage you to be on guard against
negative SEO tactics.
IRENE CASTAÑEDA is
an SEO executive at the
Media Image, where she
specialises in optimising
rankings, providing data-
driven results and contracting
negative SEO tactics, an area where her
criminologist education comes into play.
“Negative SEO rates vary depending on the country the
SEO specialist is working from and it is possible to hire
someone from Russia for as little as $500 per month”
22-23-Traffic-Dirty Seo.indd 23 01/02/2017 10:25

Bingo PokerCasino
TRAFFIC
Data-driven SEO platform provider PI Datametrics analyses trends in organic search value for casino,
poker and bingo over the trailing 12-month period, as well as operator market share across these products.
Search themes
Measured against Pi Datametrics’ Organic
Value Score from December 2015 to
November 2016, we have trended the
overall organic value of each search theme
throughout the year to:
●● Reveal when each search theme peaks
and declines in demand; and
●● Highlight which themes present the most
commercial opportunity online.
Key takeaways from the search theme
analysis, as shown in Figure 1:
●● The most organically valuable search
theme of ‘casino’ peaks highest in
February and May;
●● ‘Bingo’ is the second most organically
valuable search theme, and peaks highest
in January.
●● ‘Poker’ trends far lower in comparison to
other search themes with no distinct peaks,
but still displays high organic value relative
to other sectors.
ORGANIC SEARCH TRENDS:
CASINO, BINGO AND POKER
Figure 1: Trended gambling search themes (December 2015-November 2016)
Source: PI Datametrics Gamma Report
Aug 2016
22M
20M
18M
10M
4M
0
12M
14M
16M
2M
6M
8M
Dec 2015 Feb 2016 Apr 2016 Jun 2016 Dec 2016
25-26-Traffic-PI Datametrics data.indd 25 01/02/2017 10:44

TRAFFIC
Operator market share
The graphs in figures 2, 3 and 4 showcase
traffic and organic performance across
the main gaming search themes of casino,
bingo and poker.
Rather than focussing on search volume
alone, we have applied our Organic Value
Score to discover the brands with greatest
market share across the highest value
commercial terms.
Pi Datametrics’ Organic Value Score
takes into account all of the metrics used
to determine a search term’s intrinsic value
and potential to convert, including, but
not limited to: search volume, competition
value and CPC bid.
Casino – In the most valuable vertical
of casino, Skyvegas.com and Casino.
paddypower.com lead the way over
the 12 month trailing period, with an
approximate 8% market share respectively
(see Figure 2). Also noteworthy here is the
38% of organic search value accounted for
by brands outside of the Top 20, reflecting
the more fragmented nature of this market
compared to bingo and poker, where
organic search value is more concentrated
among the Top 20 brands.
Bingo – In bingo, shown in Figure 3,
GalaBingo.com heads the rankings with
nearly 15% market share, ahead of Cozy-
powered Bootybingo.com with 12%.
Referrers also command a higher share of
organic search value in the bingo vertical than
in casino, with WhichBingo.co.uk the fifth-
ranked site overall, with Bestnewbingosites.
co.uk and Bingosites.co.uk also cementing
positions in the Top 20.
Poker – In poker (Figure 4) PokerStars
inevitably dominates with 23% market
share, well ahead of second-ranked
PartyPoker and 888 with 8% respectively
of organic search value. Affiliates
such as Pokerlistings, Cardschat and
Top10pokersites.net also figure in the top
20 brands with greatest market share across
the highest value commercial terms.
Figure 2: Best performing brands across ‘casino’ search theme
Figure 4: Best performing brands across ‘poker’ search theme
Figure 3: Best performing brands across ‘bingo’ search theme
rocketbingo.co.uk
bestnewbingosites.co.uk
bingosites.co.uk
robinhoodbingo.com
newlookbingo.com
comfybingo.com
skybingo.com
sunbingo.com
meccabingo.com
twitter.com
luckyladiesbingo.com
mirrorbingo.com
itunes.apple.com
tombola.com
whichbingo.co.uk
bingo.paddypower.com
foxybingo.com
bootybingo.com
galabingo.com
bingo.ladbrokes.com
Others
Organic Value Score
24 266 14 224 12 2010 188 1620
14.57%
12.07%
7.21%
7.06%
6.22%
4.01%
2.73%
2.68%
2.25%
2.03%
2.02%
1.80%
1.54%
1.46%
1.29%
1.25%
1.19%
1.13%
0.76%
26.11%
0.62%
Pi Datametrics specialises in providing search
performance data to global enterprises through their
market leading SEO platform. PI Datametrics’ Gamma
Reports deliver insight into the potential value of an
organic search market and selected search terms,
based on metrics including search volume, cost-
per-click, PPC competition, organic positions and
click-through-rate. For more information and a demo,
please visit www.pi-datametrics.com
3820 28 3618 26 3416 24 3214 4022 30121086420
21.co.uk
freeslots.com
casino.netbet.co.uk
casino.org
virgingames.com
bootybingo.com
meccabingo.com
games.paddypower.com
casinoeuro.com
high5casino.com
mrsmithcasino.co.uk
grosvenorcasinos.com
winkslots.com
galacasino.com
starwins.co.uk
32red.com
slotboss.co.uk
casino.paddypower.com
skyvegas.com
Others
Organic Value Score
8.08%
8.03%
6.25%
5.14%
3.94%
3.86%
3.83%
3.05%
2.91%
2.37%
2.02%
1.94%
1.81%
1.65%
1.62%
1.61%
1.48%
1.36%
0.90%
38.15%
1910 14 189 13 178 12 167 11 156543210 20 24232221
grosvenorcasinos.com 1.80%
top10pokersites.net 1.71%
cardschat.com 1.61%
signupbonuses.co.uk 1.51%
pacificpoker.com 1.37%
pokernews.com 1.18%
unibet.co.uk 1.81%
thepokerpractice.com 1.88%
247freepoker.com 2.69%
fulltilt.com 6.23%
replaypoker.com 6.29%
coral.co.uk 3.16%
pokerlistings.com 3.93%
skypoker.com 6.99%
uk.888poker.com 7.47%
partypoker.com 8.30%
pokerstars.com 22.86%
aol.com 1.11%
poker.williamhill.com 1.04%
Others 16.07%
freeslots.com 0.99%
Organic Value Score
25-26-Traffic-PI Datametrics data.indd 26 01/02/2017 10:44

TRAFFIC
USING UX DESIGN
TO DRIVE YOUR
CONVERSION RATE
With Google privileging user satisfaction as its key ranking factor, John Wright of adventures.io
provides some timely advice on what you can do now to upgrade the UX design of your website and
improve performance.
THIS TIME LAST year, for the 2016 LAC
issue of iGB Affiliate magazine, I wrote an
article titled 2016: the year of design. That
showcased how important design is for any
website and if we look at the top-ranking
affiliate sites today, particularly those
that were acquired last year, it’s clear the
popular sites have strong designers. Even
the biggest igaming companies all have
their own design teams, which include user
experience (UX) designers.
My journey over the past five years
has taken me on a long, winding road
that started with SEO, then led me down
the path of conversion rate optimisation
(CRO), which in turn then led me to UX
design. I haven’t given up on SEO, but I
do think too many affiliates and operators
put too much emphasis on it and end up
making sites more for a search engine than
they do for a user.
To play devil’s advocate, you don’t need
an attractive website for it to be effective.
Part of the reason you may see dated sites
do well despite looking ugly is because they
have quality content, they format their site
properly and sometimes that ugly look earns
the trust of the user. They don’t feel like they
are being sold to by professionals — to them
it just feels organic, as in natural.
Ideally, you’d have money to be able to
invest in a quality UX designer, but you
don’t need money to be successful or to
have a well-designed website — there are
principles you can apply yourself that will
make a difference until you’re in a position
to outsource this to a specialist.
Whether you’re looking to hire UX help
or improve your design yourself, below are
some of the most important things to take
into consideration.
Sketch versus Photoshop
For those who use Sketch, I don’t need to say
anything further. For designers who are not
using sketch or website owners who don’t
know what Sketch is, it is the premier design
tool for website designers, and many agree
Sketch is a superior program to Photoshop.
If you’re a website owner who doesn’t
do any design work, why should you care
about Sketch?
Sketch is the new standard of website
design and it is a faster tool for creating
designs. I can make websites faster in
Sketch than I can in Photoshop and once
you start using Sketch it is impossible to
use Photoshop again to design websites.
Sketch is also extremely fast and easy to
make website wireframes and layouts with
before you apply a design. No doubt there
are amazing website designers out there
still using Photoshop, but when I know a
designer is using Sketch, I know they are
an up-to-date designer. I treat it like a filter
for talent.
As much as I use Sketch as a filter for
finding good UX designers, I think by the
end of the year more and more designers
will be using Sketch. Therefore, using
Sketch as a keyword filter for finding talent
will become less relevant.
One thing to keep in mind is that Sketch
is available only for Apple computers (aka
Macs) and most likely won’t be available on
other operating systems anytime soon. By
limiting yourself to only Sketch designers,
you would be cutting off a massive part of
the world that uses Windows. Many poorer
countries have amazing designers that just
can’t afford a Mac. Furthermore, Sketch
designers are probably going to cost you
more than what’s available in the global
workforce of Photoshop designers.
Tip: When searching for designers
or posting a job, mention Sketch as a
required skill. You’ll filter out a lot of
designers with sub-standard portfolios.
Put mobile UX first
Just making a website responsive is not
good enough anymore. Even I have been
guilty of making a desktop website first,
“Prototyping tools have come out of nowhere and they
make mapping out your wireframe, layout and testing
faster than previously possible”
28-33-Traffic-Using UX-v2.indd 28 01/02/2017 10:47

29
TRAFFIC
with mobile as an afterthought and telling
programmers how things should work
on a mobile phone. For most webmasters
and operators, mobile can’t be ignored
anymore, especially with casinos having
three times more mobile players than
desktop users. Betting on sports? That
should be done on a phone. Lottery tickets?
The process of buying a lottery ticket will
be mainly a mobile thing. Knowing how
important mobile is, it is important to map
out the entire user experience for mobile
users and put more emphasis on your
mobile design than you do for your desktop
design. With design tools like Sketch, it
makes it much easier to have your mobile
designs alongside the desktop version —
so your only excuse for not doing mobile
wireframes and designs would be laziness.
If you want to take your mobile user
experience to the next level, you can
prototype the entire experience with one of
the numerous prototyping tools that exist.
Although these are tools I haven’t used yet,
I have seen them touted as critical tools
for mobile design and for creating layouts.
These tools have come out of nowhere and
they make mapping out your wireframe,
layout and testing faster than previously
possible. You could save your designers and
programmers a lot of time by being able
to provide an answer to how your entire
mobile user experience should be. One tool
that is receiving a lot of praise is proto.io.
Typography matters
You may wonder if typography is really
that important. It is more important
than you think and affects everything
you do every day, including reading this
article. Typography covers the choice of
font, font colour, font size, typeface, line
spacing and even line length. Imagine
if everything you read had ONLY this
choice of font. You’d struggle to read
emails, do anything on your phone and
have problems driving or finding your way
through London.
If you start adjusting all of these aspects
of your CSS for your website, you will
definitely influence your website metrics
such as bounce rate, time on site and pages
per visitor.
The reality is there are many website
designers who don’t understand the
rules of typography and don’t have any
knowledge of how it can positively or
negatively influence a website. When hiring
a designer, it’s a good idea to ask if they
include in their designs or have examples
of typography UI kit in their portfolio. If
they don’t have a good answer on their
typography preferences, it means they
probably haven’t studied it or don’t care
enough about it.
Some examples of typography that will
negatively impact your website include
too many types of fonts used, too light
of a font on a white background, similar
fonts and backgrounds with too little
contrast, and line spacing that is too large
or too small.
To learn a bit more about typography
check the Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Typography) page for it, which
ironically enough is one of the best
examples of typography that everyone
takes for granted.
Tip: When hiring a designer, ask if they
include in their designs or have examples
of typography UI kit in their portfolio.
If they don’t have a good answer on
their typography preferences, it means
they probably haven’t studied it let alone
care for it.
Content marketing and formatting
Maybe content marketing is a bit of a
distraction from the point of this article,
but if you are going to make the effort
of making a site look good, make sure
you also put effort into the quality of the
content. A good design is no mask for poor
content. Good content doesn’t always have
to be a lot of words, but usually it is, with
articles exceeding 1,000 words.
For some people that initial impression
always makes a big difference. Giving your
users a summary of your content with
hotlinks and breaking things down into lists
is what can elevate your content and make
it more effective. Just hitting your users with
long paragraph after paragraph doesn’t make
your content inviting enough for people to
read and stay on your page. Their decision
to read it all or not happens quickly.
This takes us on to formatting your
content. This is something that many
websites totally miss the mark on. Your site
metrics such as bounce rate, time on site
and pages per session will all be influenced
by the formatting of your content. Imagine
Wikipedia without formatting, it would be
a nightmare to use and wouldn’t be the site
it is today.
Here is a quick checklist for your content
formatting:
●● Headlines
●● Images or video
●● Bold, italics and underline
●● Internal links
●● Lists
CASE STUDY: THEPOGG.COM
Thepogg.com had a large number
of pages that lacked formatting.
Hundreds of pages were updated
to improve the readability and user
experience and the improvements
recorded were a 4% drop in the
bounce rate, an improved average
session duration of over 50 seconds
and an increased pages per session
by 0.65 pages per session.
It takes time to write a good article and
it takes even more time to add in all the
formatting. This means breaking your
content into sections using headlines and
sub-headlines, using images and/or videos
to enrich the content. Using bold, italics
and underline helps to accent the important
parts of your paragraphs.
“Examples of typography that will negatively impact
your website include too many types of fonts used, too
light of a font on a white background, similar fonts and
backgrounds with too little contrast, and line spacing that
is too large or too small”

TRAFFIC
If there is one single thing you can do
to help yourself then it is adding internal
links for your articles. Putting aside the
SEO arguments, if you add more internal
links and don’t go overboard, you help
users find more content on your website
that would be of interest. It’s up to them
if they want to click on a link. However,
statistics show that users are more likely
to click on links when available, and that
means more time on your site and more
pages for them to visit rather than leaving
them high and dry and bouncing away.
Watch out for trends and fads
Two fads I’ve seen come and go were the
use of video backgrounds on websites
and parallax scrolling. Some prominent
gaming sites like PokerStars and a few
others adopted these between 2014 to
2016 but they don’t seem to use them
anymore. My guess is that they realised
they looked cool but didn’t perform well.
If you look up the big name companies
that used these in the past, you’ll struggle
to find any continued use of them. In
addition to adding more for a user to
download and slowing down the website,
my assumption is that part of the problem
was that video is a distracting element.
The video would get users to watch what
was happening but it was without sound
and not much in the way of text. The
call to action becomes the furthest thing
from their mind and you have a site that
probably underperforms compared to one
with a static image.
Regarding parallax scrolling sites, these
were trendy in the past few years and
you might see some examples of this on
affiliate programme pages. They might
be great to use if you are a design agency
but I don’t think they have much practical
purpose. Ultimately, these have the same
issue as the video background website —
it impresses users, but at the expense of
losing them from making the next step of
signing up or getting to the next page.
The good and bad of affiliate sites
Every so often I get asked for help on a
website or network of websites that were
once shining stars but have fallen from
grace. I have also seen the evolution
of some affiliates and their network of
websites. Many years of experience have
given me enough insight to see what I
think is important for affiliates to focus
on for this year and beyond. So here is
my take on what some affiliates are either
not doing right — or at all — and what
others are doing that makes them more
competitive.
My picks for…
BEST DESIGNED CASINO
SlotsMillion
My personal opinion of the best designed gaming site is SlotsMillion and I’d put
Casumo as a close second. I’ve always thought the design of SlotsMillion was
ahead of its time and this remains the case today. When it comes to presenting its
slot games, it has reduced the clutter and the data that other casinos list and the
end result is it’s easier to scan the catalogue of games on the site. Surprisingly, I
see more casino sites copying the Casumo design than SlotsMillion.
BEST DESIGNED AFFILIATE PORTAL
AskGamblers
When AskGamblers was redesigned for the second time in the past two years, I
wasn’t a fan of the new design but it grew on me, much like the previous design.
This portal design is one of the easiest to look at and its use of ‘cards’ to guide the
user is not by mistake either. I expect its design to continue to be the most copied
affiliate design out there for this year, much like in the past few years.

33
TRAFFIC
Sinking fast:
●● Non responsive websites
●● Slow loading websites
●● Sites with thin content
On the rise:
●● Fresh designs
●● Fast loading websites
●● Enhanced content
If your website isn’t mobile ready then
expect it to fade away. Slower loading
websites are going to struggle to outrank
faster loading websites. Not only is this an
SEO problem, but slow loading websites will
lead to lower sales, higher bounce rates and
less page views. Sites with thin content are
eventually going to be outranked by sites with
richer content. By richer content, I’m not just
talking about better researched articles and
pages that are at least 1,000 words long, but
also content that is well formatted with more
images and videos. It helps to work smart but
this all comes down to who hustles the most.
If your competitor is creating better content,
and more of it, then they might be winning a
slice of the pie at your expense.
How to design well on a budget
If you are an affiliate, it’s nice to know
you can pull off a well-designed site on a
budget by using a content management
system (CMS) such as WordPress or Ghost.
Both provide free software and there are
many additional free templates which
you can use. If you want to use a paid
template, these can vary in price but remain
affordable, from only USD $20 to $50.
You can find good Ghost templates at
marketplace.ghost.org and WordPress
templates at wordpress.org/themes. There
is also a large supply of free themes at
github.com. Simply search for the CMS
you use and you’ll find numerous free
templates you can download and use.
If you are looking for a better design you
can find numerous themes for either CMS
at themeforest.net.
Finding a UX Designer
If you have a budget and want a custom
designed website then your job should
be finding the right UX designer.
Good places to find talented designers
include: Dribbble.com, Upwork.com and
adventures.io.
By specifically searching for a UX
designer rather than a website designer,
you are going to notice a different skill
set of applicants. Some website designers
might not know what UX stands for and
you don’t want these people. A designer
will make your website how you ask for
it, a good user experience designer will
challenge you and ask tough questions
help make sure you design the best site
for your users.
●● Dribbble.com
Dribbble (not a typo, there are three
b’s) is one of the most popular websites
for designers to showcase their work.
Here you’ll find talented designers that
make logos, website designs and graphic
design. You can use the site to type in
any keyword like logo, casino or UX and
you’ll find all sorts of images with these
tags and the designers that made them.
●● Upwork.com
Upwork is probably the biggest freelance
site around. You can post a job looking
for UX designers or you can search for
candidates. If you want great designers,
search keywords and categories for UX,
user experience design and maybe throw in
Sketch as a keyword if you want designers
who use Sketch.
●● adventures.io
What’s an article without a shameless
plug? If you need a designer, we can help
and whatever the budget is, we can find
a solution.
Tip: By specifically searching for a UX
designer rather than a website designer,
you are going to notice a different
skillset of applicants. Some website
designers might not know what UX
stands for and you don’t want these
people. A designer will make your
website how you ask for it, a good
user experience designer will challenge
you and ask tough questions to solve a
problem to help your users.
Is it time for a new design?
Look at the four casino portals listed below,
all of which were redesigned in 2016, and
this should give you enough reasons to
consider having your site redesigned.
●● AskGamblers.com
●● CasinoBonusesNow.com
●● ThePOGG.com
●● LatestCasinoBonuses.com
Whether you are creating a new
website, redesigning it or rejigging just a
part of it, every time you do this there’s a
chance to test what is working and what
isn’t working. Your designs should be an
evolution of your site. It shouldn’t take
long for you to realise whether or not your
new designs are performing better than
previous versions.
JOHN WRIGHT is an
igaming veteran with
over 15 years’ experience
in the industry. He is the
founder of adventures.io.
He has launched many affiliate
websites, focusing on both players
and webmasters, and offers a unique
webmaster coaching service. While he
wears many hats, his main focus is on UX
design and conversion rate optimisation.
“Just hitting your users with long paragraph after paragraph
doesn’t make your content inviting enough for people to
read and stay on your page. Their decision to read it all or
not happens quickly”

TRAFFIC
Branded3’s group head of PPC, Melanie Hyde, pinpoints the developments set to impact the paid
search landscape in 2017 and how we should adjust our strategies accordingly.
THE START OF a new year is always a
great time to take stock of the exciting stuff
that’s happened over the past 12 months.
In the world of PPC, that’s meant Google
dropping the right hand-side ads, onscreen
ad space doubling and new extensions
being rolled out at an ever faster pace, to
name just a few.
2016 also saw paid search become
an increasingly vital part of the digital
marketing mix.
No longer is it simply a box-ticking
exercise; it’s now an integral part of any
ROI-focused business plan.
This year looks set to be another
eventful one for developments in search.
Switched-on marketers and agencies are
always looking for a way to keep ahead
of the curve, and 2017 will provide plenty
of opportunities for those agile enough to
embrace them.
Here are the key things on my radar for
this year and some thoughts on how we as
an industry may need to adapt to capitalise
on them.
The data
Big data isn’t new – detailed tracking has
led to a huge amount of data being put at
advertisers’ disposal and this year will see
that trend continue – but we need a new
approach in how we use this data to inform
our paid campaigns.
We already have tools like RLSA,
Google customer match and basic
demographic targeting in search, but this
year we’ll see many more advanced ways
to target customers, based on previous
browsing history, journeys onsite and
audience profiling.
The more advanced advertiser will be
very familiar with the robust targeting
methods available in display and social sites
like Facebook – it’s about time paid search
caught up and started to think less about
the keyword, and more about targeting on
audience level.
Whilst we wait for those features to
develop, we need to embrace a deeper
understanding of data analysis applied to
customer behaviours – who they are and
why they’re buying.
In basic terms; are we speaking to
customers in the right way and giving
our searchers what they want to see when
they click?
Getting this right is critical to PPC
performance and delivering efficiency. If
we don’t understand our existing customers
and how to engage new ones, we’re
destined to tread water, until we’re left
behind by the brands who do.
Additionally, in the not-too-distant future
we’ll see PPC ads which are customised
to a searcher’s characteristics and profile,
not just demographics like age, gender and
parental status.
Mobile and voice
2017 will be an exciting year for mobile,
especially with the launch of local ads in maps,
promoted pins and an increase in searches
happening through voice commands.
The key driver of mobile success this
year will be to make the most of local
traffic, by ensuring your campaigns are
equally broken out by local store or
physical location.
Always serve a specific ad to your
searchers’ location, if you own a physical
store/shop front.
The same goes for promoted pins,
once it’s rolled out of beta. Get ahead by
testing and trialing new products as soon
as they release.
One commonly quoted ComScore
statistic is that by 2020 an estimated
50% of all searches will be by voice.
Regardless of whether this turns out to be
true, voice search is definitely becoming
far more commonplace.
With integrated assistants like Siri
and Cortana rapidly increasing their
understanding of request context,
advertisers need to also feed questioning
search phrases and context into our
targeting, answering the searcher’s
questions directly within the SERP, if
we can.
As a result of voice search, we’ll see
longer-tailed terms on mobile, so ask
yourself about the worth of investing
in all parts of the funnel and not just
the bottom.
Covering searchers’ demands at the
research/questioning stage builds trust
and you’ll reap the rewards later on.
We now have, as standard, doubled the
onscreen real estate for our messaging,
with much more emphasis on paid ads
than ever before.
The usual suspects
This year will continue to showcase
new products from the usual suspects,
like image sitelinks, new extensions and
possibly new audience-targeting options.
With all these extra features that
we can ‘bolt on’ to our ads, the search
PAID SEARCH
PREDICTIONS FOR 2017
“In the not-too-distant future we’ll see PPC ads which are
customised to a searcher’s characteristics and profile, not
just demographics like age, gender and parental status”
34-35-Traffic-Paid serch predictions for 2017.indd 34 01/02/2017 11:03

TRAFFIC
result page is going to start to look very
busy with competitors fighting for share
of voice.
The key for me here is not just to use
these new features, but really target and
understand what messaging and which
features will work best to help you
achieve your goals.
Try not to just fill the space for the
sake of it, but actually think about
whether you are being relevant enough to
the searcher.
Test continually too. Don’t assume
that anything in its current state is the
best version that it could be. If you’re
using a testing matrix for your ads, create
new sitelinks, callouts and snippets and
creatively test everything! There are lots
of third-party tools out there to help bulk
testing of ads if the task is daunting.
Channel integration
My final thought for 2017 is on Google’s
announcement of its intention to share
customer data between its own channels –
i.e YouTube targeting video ads based on a
user’s search data.
Channel integration as a whole will
need to be a key focus for marketing teams,
not just with the obvious paid channels,
like social and display, but also with SEO
and CRO. The insights gained from PPC
can help with optimising a website’s overall
performance.
According to a study undertaken by
McKinney, companies which invested in
their digital capabilities and had multiple
touch points were 2.5 times more likely to
result in a conversion or purchase.
As the number of different touch points
grows, developing an understanding of
attribution is more important than ever – as
the potential for opportunity grows, so does
the potential for wastage.
2017 is a year ripe with opportunity – from
hyper-relevant search results to talking to our
AI assistants.
Those who try, test and embrace the
challenges of this rapidly changing discipline
will quickly find themselves leading the pack
and soon be looking forward to the evolutions
and revolutions 2018 will inevitably bring.
All in all, an exciting year ahead!
MELANIE HYDE is group
head of PPC at Branded3,
with numerous years of
eperience leading some
of the UK’s largest PPC
accounts. She is adept at utilising
multiple channels to deliver best-in-
class strategy and performance.
Bringing Affiliates & Operators Closer Together in 2017 & Beyond
We’re 15… Let’s Celebrate!
Aﬃliate Software | Network & Management Services | incomeaccess.com

Enjoy gambling responsibly. www.gambleaware.co.uk 18+

FEATURE
38 iGB Affiliate Issue 61 FEB/MAR 2017
2017:
ORY WEIHS, CEO, XLMEDIA
M&A - We will most likely see the wave of consolidation
continue with larger groups buying up smaller affiliates.
The benefits of scale are very real, and the heavily funded
affiliates with serious technology behind them are at a
significant advantage in such a competitive environment.
Technology - There is a stronger need for advanced
technologies than ever before, both on the yield
management side as well as in media buying (bidding,
optimising, data management and so on). Affiliates lacking
these capabilities will be left behind. Those that have
invested heavily in both their back end and optimisation
system to be able to work in scale, and have a diversified
revenue stream across different products and platforms, will
have the edge.
Regulation - New gambling regimes are an opportunity for
affiliates with the bandwidth to take advantage, founded
on a combination of better offerings and products on the
publishing side as well as know-how and tech to exploit new
media opportunities in regulated environments.
Corporate governance - Given regulatory changes, we
should see the larger players address regulatory issues and
ensure they are working according to local laws.
THE PREDICTIONS
While 2016 for affiliates was arguably shaped more by the consolidation of existing trends than the
emergence of new ones, this certainly didn’t render it any less of a defining year for the sector, which
saw the emergence of its first serial large-scale acquirer in the shape of Catena Media. So what will 2017
hold for the affiliate space? IGB Affiliate asked its carefully selected panel of experts for their predictions
on the year ahead.
RICHARD MOFFAT, CEO, OLBG.COM
I see 2017 being a fantastic year for sports betting affiliates.
TV advertising of gambling products pre-9pm will
end with affiliates being the biggest winners, as some of the
millions of pounds spent here is shifted to affiliates, who will
show a far better return than TV.
Bookies will continue to find smarter ways to attract
new customers and reduce reliance on large free bet
offers, which are reportedly costing the industry £20m a
month in matched betting-related bonus abuse. This will
be great news for most sports betting affiliates with a lower
cost of sale, meaning accounts generated will become more
profitable, and more quickly.
Bookmakers focused on smaller margins, better odds,
acceptance of larger bets and that don’t limit or close winning
accounts so easily will grow market share significantly.
Many betting shops will be forced to close as stricter
regulation on machines makes them less profitable, meaning
even more attention will be diverted online and to sports
betting affiliates.
“I see 2017 being a fantastic year for
sports betting affiliates."
38-41-Feature-Predictions.indd 38 01/02/2017 16:56

iGB Affiliate magazine issue 61 Feb/March

iGB Affiliate magazine issue 61 Feb/March

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iGB Affiliate magazine issue 61 Feb/March