Game On: The Best SEO Strategies for Gaming Sites
Video games have become one of the most popular forms of media over the past few decades, with videogame consoles becoming a household staple. One of the factors that affected its rapid growth was the emergence of the internet. In fact, gaming searches account for a good amount of search queries on a regular basis. With search engines playing a big part in gaming, utilizing SEO strategies for gaming sites is one of the most effective ways to improve visibility and authority.
SEO strategies for gaming sites vary differently from other websites and requires a good amount of research and planning before implementing them. Here is a guide to some of the best SEO strategies that you can use on your gaming site, along with some important steps that will help you reach your target audience.
Major Factors to Consider
The world of gaming is massive, and with numerous gaming-related content available on the internet, it is a highly competitive world that would see you struggle without proper preparation. With that in mind, here are factors to consider when creating your gaming site.
Know What Gaming Site You Want to Be
Gaming consists of different genres and systems, and it is important to know what kind of gaming site you would want to be. Gaming sites consist of online magazines that focus on gaming-related articles, gaming portals, online retail and distribution, and gaming blogs. Gamers are particular with what content they want to access, which means that defining what your site is would ensure you get the right audience.
Analyze the Competition
With the abundance of established gaming sites present on the internet, it is best to do some competitor analysis and research about the most popular sites and the latest trends in gaming to keep your site up to date. A few search queries on Google would help you see what are the latest trending topics gamers are looking at. This will help you see what most gaming sites have to offer, and how they present their content to their audience. You would also be able to find out how to stand out and know your audience better.
Know the Community
Gaming has grown to what it is today thanks to its highly supportive and passionate community. This community helped gamers from across the world to interact with one another and create a massive network. This massive fanbase promotes a supportive environment which fellow gamers ask for help or create healthy discussions about their favorite games. Understanding how this community works is key to your SEO strategy.
Best SEO Strategies for Gaming Sites
Now that you have these factors considered, it is now time to know which SEO strategies are the most effective when it comes to building up traffic for your gaming site. Here are some of the strategies that you should use when doing SEO for your gaming site.
Create Video Content
Some of the most viewed websites for gaming-related content are YouTube and Twitch, both of which are streaming sites that boast hours of videos. The amount of video content that has been accessed regularly over the past few years have steadily increased, making video content an invaluable part of any SEO or social media campaign.
Gamers want to see how videogames are played to either learn from fellow gamers, or see if the game is worth buying. When it comes to creating videogame content, it is best to stick with a specific format, as that helps gamers identify your site. One of the things that gamers look for when watching their videos is personality and character, as it makes the content relatable and approachable. Adding links to your video content is also one of the best ways to boost traffic to your gaming site, and it helps when your videos are optimized for SEO. For that matter, you can access our YouTube SEO guide, which would help make your channel gain more traffic.
Build Links by Going to Gaming Forums
Gaming forums and discussions boards are very active on the internet, as it gives gamers a platform for deep discussions related to different kinds of gaming topics and news. Forums are ways gamers interact with one another, like talk about tips and tricks on certain games, or debate which games are better.
Popular gaming forums and discussion boards include NeoGAF, Gamefaqs, and Reddit. These forums are great ways to build solid backlinks that would lead gamers to your site. Providing them links with content that is relevant to their discussion would help bring in more traffic to your site. Gamers always look for content related to their favorite games and genres, and forums are platforms in which they discover most of this content.
Engage in Social Media
Social media is one of the best ways to reach out to your audience, as it helps make communication more convenient by allowing comments and messages. Gamers across the world use Facebook as one of their main social media platforms, and it is highly evident when you see how many likes, shares, and views gaming-related content receive on a daily basis.
Establishing a Facebook page for your gaming site would help increase internet traffic, as a lot of gamers check Facebook for the latest gaming updates. Twitter is another platform where gamers receive updates, which makes it effective in generating traffic, and creating viral content through the use of hashtags.
Add character to your content
As with video content, adding personality, character, and quality to your written content will make it more compelling, and would pique the interest of gamers. These kinds of articles resonate better with your audience, which helps you get better internet traffic. Game reviews, news, and analyses are some of the most popular articles in gaming sites, and are guaranteed to get you traffic, given that it is high quality. It is best to look for some excellent examples of video game writing, and find a writing style that would match your branding, and make you stand out from the rest.
Key Takeaway
Gaming has taken the world by storm and will continue to do so in the near future. This makes gaming sites an important avenue for gaming-related content. These SEO strategies are sure to help you create a top gaming site that provides quality content to gamers across the world.
If you have questions and inquiries about SEO strategies and SEO in general, leave a comment below and let’s talk.
