Did you know?

[LiveCasinoPartners]

Did you know that when looking at the analytics for LuckyLiveCasino.com we found that the top 7 most searched keywords were variations of the domain name?

Is it because we are a relatively new site and rely on affiliates? or are most other casino sites similar? I've seen affiliate sites that heavily target brand names, but I've never seen the significance until now.

So targeting casino brand names using all variations would be a good practice on a new casino or non competitive one seems like a good idea. That way you have lots of time to market it and build up the organic search. I would not suggest registering brand name TLD's unless the casino is a keyword phrase. That doesn't seem to be ethical IMO.

[rose.walis]

Yes, I know about this for some time now....

[davemerry]

Hi Adrian!

Yes - I believe it to be an excellent way to gain players! My 2 cents and advice for people thinking about it below:

Although generic high volume terms should always be regarded as more important, gaining traffic through brand terms is an easy way to gain a conversion.

It all boils down to consumer search intent in my mind. For example if I Googled 'books' and got taken to Amazon, then most the time I will simply be interested in browsing through and seeing if there is anything new. However if I search for 'The Da Vinci Code Book', which is a lot more transactionally specific, then I will most likely be looking to buy that book. It's the same with casinos - those searching for brand traffic will always be searching with a specific intent or at least interest in visiting that casino, therefore providing you with a much higher conversion rate and doing half the work for you.

Looking through rough stats on tracked affiliate links from my personal sites, I know that people who navigated to the example casino page through a generic term will click through 15% of the time. However those who arrive directly on that page through brand traffic will provide a 80% click through rate - although you get a lot less traffic it will be better when it comes in!

I have made a few notes of the things I have experienced when going after brand traffic, nothing much but its a few things that I always try to remember:

• You will rarely be first, so always just aim for second (it pains me as an SEO to say that!)
• Most casinos just stuff their title and meta attributes with keywords - be cleverer than that and try and appeal to users who will see your site just below that, for example ‘Claim your £200 example casino bonus here!’ - if the casino doesn't mention the bonus in their title attribute you may gain a few extra % clickthrough.
• Most people coming to the pages for these terms don’t need to be persuaded like the general punters, they know where they want to go - so make sure the call to action is right in there face so they can hurry up and generate you income!

Hopefully this is what you meant and I haven't wrote a long post for nothing! Any advice/stats you need then feel free to shoot me an email.

Cheers,
Dave

[LiveCasinoPartners]

Thanks Dave for a great response! I originally made this post to try to contribute some quality intel from an operators perspective. When I was starting out I learned a lot from affiliate vets on GPWA (and then AGD). I like to "give" back whenever I find a piece of info that might help. I personally never truly valued the value of targeting brand names.

I like your comments on the importance to "call to action" and the click through rates. I've found the similar results as well.

By the way, congratulations on the launch of your affiliate program for CastleCasino.com . I'm sure you will be a high value brand for affiliates with affiliates in mind.

Cheers!

[wagerjunction]

Thanks Adrian and Dave for these very useful info.

Shows that it pays to read every post on this forum

[davemerry]

Hi Adrian,

Glad to hear you like to give back, something I aim to be doing a lot of over the next coming months!

Thanks for the kind comments about CastleCasino.com also - always appreciated.

Good to hear you found the posts useful WagerJunction

Dave

[craig96]

Domain name searches do work if the business is an established one and becomes some sort of a household name.

E.g. If you was going to search for Google in Yahoo for some strange reason, you would search "google" You would not use the term "search engine". This is because you are aware of Google and it's name.

[jackten]

Brand name searches are some of the best converters in my experience.

They were also very easy to rank with.

It's just too bad a lot of companies no longer let you use it in your domain name. Some even have the indecency to put in their terms of service that you agree to give them your website over if you use their brand name!

I had a couple brand name websites like: [name of poker room] rakeback, or [name of casino] slots. I stopped doing it because of the potential problems. Sucks.

[craig96]

My god, that is so perfetic in a way. I can imagine if you was ranking well with a domain name that included a business name that, that business will be happy to take that domain from you and use the copyright crap.