The advent of the internet has made it simple for game makers to promote their titles online. Customers have embraced this technology as well, with internet shopping growing in popularity every year. If you’re a forward-thinking gaming studio, you should ensure that your website is optimised to convert since it is one of the most effective tools you can use to promote your games.
Potential players can find a list of the studios that publish the games they’re interested in with just a quick search. According to HubSpot, 75% of users don’t go past the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs), thus you want your website to be seen there to increase your chances of making sales.
For a better position on SERPs, there are billions of website pages competing. Potential buyers won’t be able to find your games when looking online without the proper search engine optimization techniques. We present the top SEO tactics in this article to increase website traffic and brand recognition.
What is SEO, and why do you need it?
A marketing tactic called search engine optimization (SEO) is used to improve a website’s ranking on search engine results pages. When a user conducts a search, search engines like Google classify all of the relevant pages and rank them in order of quality. Because it makes it simple for customers to find businesses and their games, SEO helps increase brand visibility.
Most individuals conduct an online product search before making a purchase, and it begins by entering particular terms into search engines. To make sure the correct gamers see your website, you as a game developer want it to be at the top of the search results pages. Even if your business is amazing and you offer excellent games, if clients can’t find you with a quick search, your competitors will steal your customers and your sales will remain low.
Another reason to take SEO seriously is that it will aid in establishing your brand’s credibility. SEO marketing services are a fantastic strategy to expand your online visibility, according to research by SparkToro that revealed organic search generated 20 times more traffic than PPC advertisements. A higher position in search results indicates that Google considers your website to be the most valuable source for a certain query. More people will visit your website as a consequence, which will ultimately lead to more purchases.
Creating a strong SEO strategy is essential for small game developers who are just starting out because it is also less expensive than sponsored advertising. But take heed! You won’t succeed in the long run by employing unethical methods.
- Site-wide UX improvements
Google bots have their bets high on the websites that are built systematically and that provide relevant information swiftly. A game is considered good when its user experience (UX) is seamless and engaging. And this is exactly what you are expected to do. Your web pages should project clarity and facilitate ease of navigation. It is highly essential that small or budding game developers should invest in high quality sites to enhance their stance at search rankings
There are various ways by which you can improve your website.
Readability
One such factor is ‘readability.’ You can start by dividing your content into small paragraphs and putting them under relevant headlines. Another great advice is incorporating keywords into the titles/ headlines. This not only makes your content better organised but also provides a better chance at search engine ranking
Site Speed
The usability of a website highly depends upon the speed of a website. A website that is great but loads slow is not of much use. It’s annoying for the users to sit and wait for a website to open up. In order to prevent this, you should really put some emphasis on decluttering and optimising the website by removing un-important elements. Deactivate the unused or unnecessary plugins and optimise the size of images and videos. Follow this to witness a great amount of difference in the page speed.
Mobile friendly website
And eventually, ensure to make your website responsive or mobile friendly. The research and statistics show that about 50% or even more of a website’s traffic comes from the website browsed on the mobile devices. Therefore, this is certain that you would lose page views, potential customers and ultimately, a good spot at search rankings if you fail to have a well mobile friendly website. - Enhances quantity and quality of inbound links
Obtaining esteemed inbound links is a fundamental part of effective SEO. The more links you earn, the more points you earn while site evaluation for rankings. Inbound links are basically affirmation towards the content of your website. The quantity and quality of the links go hand in hand in creating trustworthiness and makes it easier for you to achieve SERP rankings.
One way of earrings is going through the path of creating impeccable website content that compels other websites to link with you. And the alternate way is by identifying the relevant websites that you find worthy to link with and requesting them to link with you. Currently guest posting is a popular link building strategy that also assists with enhancing your domain authority. - Dispense Value
In the pursuit of gaining high rankings on SERPs, don’t get desperate and complicate website SEO for you. Although overusing keywords might look appealing to you but is spammy in the eyes of Google. Remember, that it’s not Google but the readers who will consume your content in the first place. If your content adds no value to your readers, it won’t help you in website evaluation
When you prioritise humans as readers, google works in your favour. Readers stay at a website that has great and meaningful content. This eventually helps with building trust amongst your readers.
The website content should be engaging and attractive. It should involve attractive images, videos and infographics. It should help with solving the problem of your readers by providing them some additional information or answers
The keywords should be put in the right quantity. Not too less and not too many. Following these steps will definitely project your website as useful to the customers and fetch you good rankings at SERPs. - Connect with others
Another crucial element of any SEO plan is social media. Similar to how inbound links do, social media shares demonstrate how well-liked your postings are and contribute to the credibility of your business. Adding shareable social media links to your online content is a terrific approach to improve your SEO performance because it will help your website rank better than that of your rivals. You will be able to reach a larger customer base because your visitors will be able to share the content with their friends on social media.
The goal of the website owners should be increasing the reach of their posts/ content on various social media platforms like Facebook and LikedIn. You should work to provide as much share-worthy and helpful information as you can in order to increase the number of interactions your posts receive in the form of likes, shares, retweets, and replies. By providing prizes, discounts, and bonuses for some of your games, you can entice readers to spread the word about your content. performance. You will be able to reach a larger player base because your visitors will be able to share the content with their friends on social media. - Voice search optimisation
If you want to be competitive in 2020 and beyond, your internet marketing approach should be optimised for voice commands, which are already supported by smart devices. The majority of voice searches are conducted on mobile devices, so you need to check that your website is responsive to ensure that consumers have a nice experience.
While applying voice optimization, you should keep in mind the tone of your content. The short keyword format does not apply to voice search right now. Google assistant reports in a conversational tone. Hence, you should focus on conversational topics, full sentences and not short form keywords
When developing information, keep in mind that most voice-based searches begin with the standard “who, what, when, where, why, and how” questions. Put your attention on responding to the queries that visitors might have, and set up your website to receive a lot of traffic from voice searches. This will enable you to surpass your rivals. - Consider topic clusters rather than keywords
Earlier, keywords were the main attributes of search engine optimization service, but now it has taken a different direction towards the cluster models.One “pillar” page acts as the primary content hub in this approach, and other relevant sites link to it and to one another.
The “pillar” page is the authority on the subject at hand, and this cluster approach informs search engines that it will eventually rank well for the subject matter it covers.
In the absence of linking activity, the web pages containing information about the same or similar topic compete with each other to find recognition, due to which the ranking of the website on the SERPs gets affected. The cluster model presents a systematic set up where search engines perceives which page should be prioritised for a given topic
Website owners should smartly identify the topics that their target audience will be searching for. Then they should catalogue the content into clusters. After creating clusters the crucial task is to find the “Pillar” pages for every cluster and link the related web pages to it.
Following the cluster approach would not only help your website rank higher on the SERP but also help you find a spot in the snippet section on Google search
Conclusion
The way in which the gaming industry works has been revolutionised in the past. SEO has become an essential part of the gaming industry to become visible to the customers who are looking for you.
If you are willing to apply gaming SEO and reach the most awaited customer base, Digilink Ads, a leading SEO agency in the gaming industry is waiting at your doorstep to serve you
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