Reading Time: 5 minutes
Online casino creation is a serious business challenge. Even the best-executed project often does not bring the expected profitability to its owners. According to experts, this is an important thing to bear in mind apart from developing a gambling site itself.
What is traffic?
Any business is based on the buy and sell principle of goods or services. And this process always engages people – visitors, buyers, customers, and even random passers-by. On the Internet, all these people are called “traffic”.
To create an attractive gambling site filled with popular content is only half the case. Thus, the next important step is to stuff it with quality traffic, namely, a steady number of visitors who will become active players. And the key word here is “quality”.
It is believed that the more traffic, the better. However, that works with information resources, but not with those providing some specific services, in particular, online casinos we’re talking about. Those users who are interested in gambling and about to play are considered the most beneficial traffic for online casinos.
How to attract quality online casino traffic
Step 1. Target audience.
Traffic attraction is not as simple as it sounds. First of all, it is necessary to define the target audience of your online casino, to understand its main characteristics and needs. Then, based on this data, how it can be influenced and what is the best way to : through what sources and in which ways. With that, one should develop a marketing plan and start engaging traffic to the site.
Step 2. Traffic Engagement.
There are several most effective and common ways to do that. Let’s consider them in more detail below:
- Reviews of your online casino. Today’s online space has a copious amount of profile blogs and thematic websites which are considered as popular and trusted resources. By contacting a resource or a particular blogger, you can agree on a good review of your site from market experts.
- Ranking. This is another information format that is highly trusted by Internet users. It is natural that a casino player strives to play on the best gambling site. Despite the fact that the ranking organizations bring a focus on their neutral position, it is still possible to buy a place in the ranking.
- Backlinks. There are many options for getting free backlinks to your online casino. Among the most effective are: leave competent comments on the forums; publish interesting posts in blogs or thematic groups on social networks, accompanying them with links to the site in the description. It is also helpful to register your online casino in all possible catalogs. There are also link exchange programs and an opportunity to buy backlinks in the process of automatic website promotion. In addition, you should constantly publish interesting and unique content on your Internet site. Then, liked materials will be shown on other sites or blogs, backlinked to your resource.
-
PPC stands for “pay-for-click”. This is a search engine service. Payment is charged each time the advertised site is clicked. For new websites, PPC is one of the most effective tools to gain traffic, because it can raise attendance rates during initial steps.
- Search engine optimization. In our case, it is also called Gambling SEO. This helps to rank your website to the top of search engines and is one of the most effective methods to increase traffic. Promoting your site in search engines with SEO, you attract the most relevant traffic because there, users are looking for an online casino exactly to gamble.
- Creation of a forum. Players enjoy communicating with each other in online, sharing experiences and impressions. Therefore, this method of attracting customers has worked well, despite its resource intensity.
- Social networks, video hosting, and instant messengers. This is another powerful method to increase traffic. Register your online casino in messengers; create thematic pages on social networks; establish thematic groups where possible; start a video channel. Do not forget about special buttons in social networks. Reposts and likes, which can also be purchased, will bring even more traffic to your site.
-
Webinars and video tutorials. This method of website promotion has become especially popular today. Videos, where you tell about something new and unique, are perceived by modern Internet users much better and easier than text content.
- Mass media advertising. This type of promotion is traditionally considered to be the most effective one. Therefore, it is necessary to regularly appeal to the established media in order to place articles, news or advertisements about your gambling site.
- Affiliate Program. Today, almost all major online casinos promote their platforms within partnering programs. The main point here is that online casino operators give the program participants personal links to be followed by the potential clients. The task is to do everything possible and impossible to make target customer follow these links, create accounts, and play. With each such click and money lost, the partner gets his profit, while the online casino gains a new player.
- Newsletter. The information and advertising letters sent out to existing and potential players also significantly influence the increase of traffic and retention of actual clients.
-
Sponsorship. It is a very effective tool to popularize and increase brand awareness.
- Participation in profile events. Exhibitions, conferences, summits, forums, roundtable discussions, and others give a great opportunity to see the market novelties, to get to know your competitors better, and also, to present your company.
-
Gift marketing. A small souvenir with a logo of your site as a gift is a great way to reward the visitor for his or her interest in a gambling house. Notebooks, mugs, pens, trinkets, t-shirts, etc. also can go as prizes in drawings or bonuses for following certain conditions. By using things with your logo, you involve users in the process of increasing the popularity of the casino.
- Traffic Exchange. Another very popular method of increasing attendance. As a rule, the purchase of traffic is carried out on subjects in different categories that allows attracting only the target audience. Traffic exchange is a service where the advertiser can purchase certain kind of traffic in the necessary quantity; and a webmaster, who has a very reputable site, gains on selling the necessary amount of traffic.
Please note that you should not dwell on one or two ways of traffic attraction. It is necessary to apply them as much as possible, consistently and in combination. Then, the casino traffic will grow naturally, without sharp ups or downs.
Step 3. AIDA Marketing
Marketing has some immortal models based on the psychology of human behavior, that will remain trends of the times. The AIDA model was formulated in the U.S. by E. St. Elmo Lewis back in 1898. This model involves a clear sequence of actions to form a consumer decision to purchase goods/services. It can be explained as follows:
Before working with AIDA, it is necessary to study the target audience in detail and to determine what methods to be used to influence it.
To draw attention, a website should have an original, vivid, and memorable design. Due to the huge variety in today’s Internet, a trivial standard design is not able to attract any customer attention. For example, different interactive elements, such as pop-ups, menus, sliders, drop-down lists, etc., have been entered into fashion nowadays. Without them, your site will look outdated.
To generate interest, it is necessary to drum up a visitor’s curiosity and make him or her stay on your site. Focus on the needs of the aim audience: give them what they’re waiting for. The newest games, the most interesting bonus program, relevant information about products and services – all that you offer should generate interest.
To trigger the desire to start a game, it is necessary to call to action with bright images, videos, animations, sounds, and texts. It can be enticing live images of slots, card, and board games. Also, logos of recognized developers and laconic texts ultimately should generate a desire to make the key step – action.
We can go on and on describing the ways how to attract quality traffic to online casino site. However, here we set up a collection of the main and most used traffic engagement tools for your special benefit. Therefore, we also recommend you to check out Slotegrator’s webinar on “How to attract gamblers to online casinos” via this link.
Source: European Gaming Industry News
