SEO (Search Engine Optimization) basics
Google is one of the strongest brands in the world and is dominating the search engine market. So it's obvious that a site gets the more traffic the better it's ranking at Google. If you're able to put your site on rank 3 with the keyword „Online Poker“ you'll get plenty of visitors and you can make a lot of money. This sounds easier as it is and poker SEO is a science today. Fact is that you can rank better if you follow some simple SEO steps:
Choosing your keywords
Keywords are catchwords that you can type into the Google search bar. „Poker“, „Online Poker“ or „Poker Bonus“ are examples for that. These are three keywords that are very lucrative for Poker Affiliates. Every keyword has different traffic. While „Poker“ has a lot of traffic the others are less interesting but still have big traffic.
„Online Poker Bonus for TrickyPlay“ is a keyword that has very few traffic because it's very special.
When you start optimizing your site for Google you have to focus on two or three keywords. These keywords have to fit your poker content. You can't create a website about cars and selecting the keywords „Poker“ and „Online Poker“. Choose keywords that fit your content and choose keywords with a low competition! With „Poker“ and „Online Poker“ you have no chance at ranking on the first page because of the tough competition. With „Online Poker Bonus for TrickyPlay“ you have a much better chance and should prefer this keyword.
Onpage optimization
This is the part of SEO that concerns only your site: How it is constructed, setting links, what HTML code you use, etc. This optimization is pretty easy but not that important. Nevertheless it's a must to do proper onpage optimization.
We recommend creating your site with Wordpress. Wordpress is for free and Google likes the Wordpress structure very much. You can make proper changes in the Wordpress backend and with some HTML knowledge you can adapt your site however you want.
The following points are very important:
Choose page title and other titles with your keywords. Don't call your page „My Poker Website“ but „Poker12356.com – Poker Strategy and Poker Bonus Codes“ or something like that, depending on your keywords.
Put many links within your content to other content pages. If your visitor is reading an article about „hold'em rules“ you should link to other articles such as strategy very often. Don't call your links „Click here for more information“ but „More on Hold'em Poker Strategy here“. Google pays attention to the text of a link.
Choose a URL structure with your keywords. Some websites have a URL structure like: „www.Poker19823.com/post=172“ - that's not good because Google doesn' care about numbers like post=172. Take this structure instead: „www.Poker19823.com/pokerstrategy/omaha_rules“ and implementing your keywords. This brings value to your rank with „pokerstrategy“ and „omaha rules“.
That's not the whole story about onpage optimization. These three points are just the most important things to consider and something most webmasters do wrong.
Offpage optimization
This is the most important part of SEO. Offpage optimization is an optimization that doesn't effect your website directly. This is for instance a simple link that directs to your website. And that's pretty much it about offpage optimization: Getting links direting to your site. If another poker site links to your poker site then your Google rankings will improve. But that's not the whole story:
You have to find partners – webmasters that link to your site. Here are some options: You can ask other webmasters to exchange links (I link to your site and you to mine), or you offer other webmasters something for that link (maybe content) or you simply buy links which is against the Google rules and shouldn't be practiced by you.
Look at suitable websites that link to you. If you get a website about flora in South Africa to link to your poker site this won't improve your rankings. But if the website that is linking to you is of the same kind (for instance a poker site linking to your poker site) than such a link can be very valuable.
Take a look at the Google Page Rank. The Page Rank is an instrument to rate websites. Sites can have a Page Rank of 0 – 10. The higher the rank the „better“ the site. So very high trafficked and popular sites have Page Rank 8, 9 or even 10. And pretty unpopular and new sites have Page Rank 1, 2 or 3. A link from a site with higher Page Rank is worth more than a link from a site with lower Page Rank. So if you're looking for links be sure to pay attention to the Page Rank. But that doesn't mean that you should only look for high Page Rank sites. That's exactly not the case because no Page Rank 7 site will rank to a tiny poker site with Page Rank 2. Look for links that are in your category. If you have a Page Rank 2 site look for Page Rank 3 and 1 links. (To see the Page Rank on every site you should download the Google Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox)
Place your keywords on the anchor text. If somebody wants to link to your site be sure that he uses your keywords on this link. The link shouldn't be „Poker128346.com“ but „Poker website for Seven Card Stud Players“ or something like that. The point is to put your keywords on the link.
SEO is a science and you can't explain it with one simple article. It's important that you know what Google is thinking and rankings are determined, how to construct your website search enginge friendly and what offpage optimization is about.