Affiliate coaching for CasinoWizard

I’ve been doing affiliate coaching for over 10 years and mostly focused on iGaming affiliate sites.

I don’t do affiliate coaching a lot but I always enjoy trying to solve a complex problem for any affiliate. I think that is why I aspired to build StatsDrone and why I enjoy the B2B space as much. 

But enough about me. 

Sami Kurvinen and I go wayyy back as he used to be my affiliate manager for a few companies. He was one of the best affiliate managers I’ve ever talked to.

He would answer emails super fast, often on weekends and he knew the iGaming industry better than most.

Sami Kurvinen with myself and my biz partner Darrell Helyar

Before I get started, let me just quickly check the StatsDrone customer database to see if Sami is there 🧑‍💻.  Hmmm, still don’t see him yet 👀. That’s ok, one day perhaps 😉

The Google March 2024 core update is what seems to have derailed the upward progress for CasinoWizard. Yes, that is another one of those Google updates that seems to be happening a bit more frequently and disrupts the rankings of many affiliate sites. 

You can see the search traffic for CasinoWizard dropped off significantly towards the end of March. The site hasn’t recovered ever since but I think there are a few ways out of it. 

I’m going to cover Sami’s site from a wide range of topics that I think could help the site reach another level.

  1. USP

  2. Product Design

  3. Content

  4. Forums & Reddit

  5. YouTube

  6. Podcast

  7. Newsletter

There’s a lot thrown in there so let’s just get into this. It’s time to f*** around and find out!

USP

The first time I reviewed Sami’s site and gave a video coaching review, I totally misunderstood the USP of the site. At first I thought the site was just another slots site but I realize it is far from it.

In my last newsletter, I highlighted what Marco Braun could do for his slots site as a means of standing out. Not only did I reference CasinoWizard for their USP but I recognized these 2 others:

  • BigWinBoard

  • Live Casino Comparer

You see, the amazing USP that CasinoWizard has is they highlight the best RTP values for slot games that you might want to play. I didn’t even know that such a list existed but now I do. 

I’m glad the site has a solid USP but I think more people need to know about it.

Cue the design.

Product design

CasinoWizard is already a great looking casino affiliate site but the USP wasn’t obvious for me the first few times I visited. I believe this is the same for other users and I think the lack of attention to the USP is causing people to not care about the site as much.

I think this calls for some product design work although a good UX designer could solve the problem.

What I think would be great would be better representation of the slots data that shows the RTP values.

Current slot review with RTP range as a USP

The current design has a table of data which is better than a few paragraphs but is still bland. 

The RTP data is actually interesting because I’ve never seen some sites do the full range. Usually they list a single RTP value but clearly there was some research here and this is the hero of the review.

It needs to stand out more and really highlight that some research went into getting these data points. 

Not the best design but trying to show perhaps a rank of casinos and their respective RTPs for any game

Here is my very rough design trying to highlight the range of RTP values that are known.

Other ideas that I think could work would be a chart that is visualizing the volatility as I think new slots players might not understand variance and how that affects their game play. 

Also the game itself could be ranked in avg or max RTP against the other games for that game provider

I think another graph could map casino logos with where they stand in the RTP chart. I would just get creative when it comes to data visualization, aka dataviz

Content

I think the content that will actually move the needle given how difficult Google is being today, is Bottom of Funnel content

Yes, BoFU content!

BoFu content can be forum content but it doesn’t have to be. Comments is an easy win but if you have a good reason to encourage users to interact with this page, it can make the content stand out and not just be another review site.

We could argue the world doesn’t need another slots review site so we need the content to be different. 

Yes, Sami is super knowledgeable when it comes to games and the industry but I’m not sure if Google understands this yet. 

Forums & Reddit

I wrote previously that forums are bottom of funnel content in a previous newsletter. I pointed out that Google has been rewarding forums very well over the past year.

You can read my other post about how Google updates are boosting iGaming forums

IMO this isn’t going to change anytime soon. People don’t want AI content here, they want to hear from other people. 

I would recommend this site consider getting a forum, either on the site perhaps a Discourse forum or to set one up at Reddit

Just like how Neil Walker has his face on every page of his website, a Reddit button might be a strong signal that this site has a real community.

Growing Reddit communities I don’t think is too challenging and your channel and posts are also part of your digital assets

While this site is struggling to get traffic, I think with less effort, the Subreddit would do well and start picking up traffic. Of course every once in a while, you can link back to yourself. 

YouTube content strategy

In the LetsGiveItASpin streaming studio

That’s me in the streaming studio at CasinoGrounds where they record the LetsGiveItASpin channel. I asked to borrow their green screen for a quick video so thanks to Tobias Svensen for the hospitality.

The LetsGiveItASpin channel has over 100k subscribers. In fact, 129k subs and over 3.5k videos which is very impressive. 

You don’t have to copy the content format and style as a streamer you can easily understand the impact that video has.

BigWinBoard has 37k subscribers and and 2.9k videos. 

I like to consider these sites as the new leaders of slots content. 

Some content from CasinoWizard that I think should become video content

Just taking all the blog posts above from CasinoWizard, these are seemingly not ranking for anything but I can almost guarantee these topics would be excellent videos.

They would also get great traffic and attract real players if they were videos. 

You want your users spending more time on your content and doing more navigation.

Embedded videos and even giving an audio version of your page can be the little details that can keep your users on your pages for longer

Podcast

I gave a whole playbook for setting up a podcast for Marco Braun’s site and you could copy that one too. The same blog posts could be produced in a more audio and video format so it can be distributed on more channels. 

Think of a podcast like having a magazine and offering the cover to someone you want to connect with. They’ll usually be happy to do it and appreciate making them look good. Bonus as you can connect with their network and reach in the process. 

Newsletter

I think newsletters are valuable for too many reasons. You can read my article about newsletters as part of an asset class

First, you increase the valuation of your site if you want to sell it in the future. Your 5 signups might not be much right now but it could snowball into 5000 over a few years. 

A newsletter will enable you to send your users back to your site in case Google forgets you exist.

If anything, Google is looking for signals of realness. So having users come back to your site in other means could be the signals that Google is looking for. 

Is there proof that Google is now using social signals for part of their algorithm? I don’t know but  I believe it but these are things I’ve only heard from other SEOs so make your own decisions here. 

I almost forgot about links

Most SEOs I know insist that links are just as valuable. 

If you believe that social channels represent realness in a site that Google perhaps is able to measure, then links are another signal that is also a sign of realness and life.

Google pays attention to sites with growing links and quality links as a signal of realness. 

I’m going to connect links back to the podcast here. Asking people to link to CasinoWizard.com is going to be challenging, but not so much if there was a dedicated podcast page or perhaps a link back to Spotify. 

A perfect example of link building with the podcast would be a Top 7 gambling podcasts directory. This could be published anywhere. 

While you publish your podcast on many channels, those are chances to get links back to your site. You’re able to also leverage the podcast to get links from other channels that you likely would have never had the opportunity to do.

A podcast also might open the door with more link opportunities with the major game providers.

Some people might hate me for even suggesting it but I’d build an awards section for this site. Give your users a reason to sign up to your site, get their email and give them a chance to interact with your content.

Awards is the perfect channel for this and your winners likely will link back to you as well.

win/win/win

SEO recovery

I’ve sent a few friends over to SeoProfy who’s a top rated SEO agency covering many industries. I’ve had Victor Karpenko, the SeoProfy founder, on the Affiliate BI podcast before and I likely will ask him to be on again. You can get the first interview with Victor here

Victor Karpenko on the Affiliate BI podcast

SeoProfy has had enough successful stories of helping sites recover from penalties and affiliate sites that have lost substantial search traffic. 

At StatsDrone, we haven’t hired their agency yet but likely will when we step on the gas for our SaaS SEO GTM strategy. 

And before I get into trouble for not doing an SEO shoutout to some friends:

SEO guests I’ve had on the Affiliate BI podcast

  • Sean Bianco [Gain Changer] (🏆🇲🇹excellent SEO strategist and Maltese!)

  • Victor Karpenko [SeoProfy] (🏆excellent at casino SEO & site recovery)

  • Fery Kaszoni [Search Intelligence Ltd] (🏆 probably the world’s best link builder)

  • Kira Khoroshilova [Diary of an SEO] (🏆excellent at international SEO)

  • Dragan Berak [Gentoo / AskGamblers]

  • Lily Ray [Amsive]

  • Steve Toth [SEO Notebook]

  • Jabez Reuben [The Blueprints]

  • Karl Hudson [Searcharoo]

That reminds me I need to get Dirk Schembri and Ivana Flynn on my podcast. Emilio Takas too!

If you like this type of affiliate coaching content, let me know in the comments or reshare this and I’ll consider doing more of it. The more reactions I get dictates what content I’ll focus on. 

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