SEO in Gaming: Key Success Factors – Matteo Monari, BizUp SRL

01 Feb 2013

So why is SEO so bloody damn important?

Lets look at the traffic stats:

"Online games" get 2 200 000 monthly searches
"Free games" -1 800 000
"PC games" - 450 000
"Online casino games" - 200 000

.... and there is room for pretty much everybody.

2012 holidays resulted in 35% total searches from mobile devices

Should you succeed with your SEO strategy, you better be ready to welcome your players or competitors. Be ready to fight off clones and affiliates that may start stealing your users.

Technical details

Search engines crawl the web and generally want to index the website of your game. For this you need to make sure that the site is in the right language and generally follow the ordinary SEO step-by-step guidelines.

Your site`s technical structure needs to facilitate such crawling and make sure search engines can easily reach all pages of your site.

Search engines classify websites and pages based on their content and that content is used to determine if your site is relevant to the search phrases or not.

After the engines have crawled your site and accessed the content, they will start ranking your site. This is the time for the search engine to stop and think why you are the best in your business and why your site is more relevant than others. Links to your page demonstrate both trust and quality.

Make sure your site

can be correctly and easily crawled
is perceived as a trusted source of information
is perceived as the best possible answer to relevant searches

9 most important tech checks

Do not force content that is based on the IP location or browser
Make URLs as talkative as possible
Avoid Flash, frames, iframes and Javascript
Avoid drop-downs, filters and search boxes on key areas and navigation
Avoid text in the form of images and flash
Check the possibility to customize title and meta tags
Check the possbility to add custom text areas to all key pages
Do not protect key login areas of the site
Do prevent the abuse of UGC areas

10 most important content checks

Do extensive reseaerch on the keywords used by your potential players
Make sure each topic has a clear page and each page a clear topic
Do not mix different languages on the same page
Make sure that each page contains at least some unique text
Use the relevant keywords for each page on the HTML title...
...Meta description...
...Header...
...Text
Make sure you copy is persuasive!
Make good use of videos: Google loves them!

Main gaming SEO assets

Typical gaming sites feature a global appeal and a easily scalable model. They have a wide user base and are very active on the web. Viral game mechanics and a sexy topic will almost always lead to a high level of link virality.

8 internationalization tips

Think of each local version as a new site
Clearly seperate the languages in yur URL
If you`re not commiting 100% then just use the /it/ solution
Keep the architecture seperated
Keep the layout flexible
Do not translate keywords, translate ideas
Do not be cheap: use high-quality translators
Do not translate, LOCALIZE: currency, measures and payment systems

Give them something newsworthy!

Beta-test codes for bloggers (ask them for a review!)
You own exclusive videos for online magazines, release trailers and previews via your own embeddable player
Infographics based on game date for online magazines and fan sites