SEO Tracker: Grosvenor Casino asserts dominance in growing casino sector

As with many of the markets within the igaming sector, online casinos have experienced an increase in interest in recent months, with online searches for casino-related keywords experiencing a 6.5% rise since August 2021.

Now with over half a million monthly searches for these terms, the companies that can place themselves at the top of organic rankings stand to benefit hugely.

The brand that has excelled at this over the last six months is Grosvenor Casino, which has seen a massive jump in traffic, with an increase from 24,027 to 40,685 estimated monthly clicks representing a 69% growth. This is far greater than any other brand out of the top 10 most visible brands and puts Grosvenor Casino in a dominant position within the sector, with 12,757 more monthly clicks than closest rivals Casino.com.

Contributing to Grosvenor Casino’s impressive traffic growth is the fact that it now ranks for 345 out of the 353 non-brand keywords that have been analysed, giving it visibility across the board within the sector and far more opportunities to gain traffic than its closest rivals. However, its leadership of the market comes despite only ranking in position three for the two highest-volume terms in the sector, “casino” and “slots” (which have 110,000 and 33,100 estimated monthly searches respectively), showing that there is still a growth opportunity for the brand that could come at the expense of its leading competitors.

Casino.com and NetBet also see improvement

The fact that what in August 2021 was a four-horse race in the sector has now turned into Grosvenor Casino holding a dominant position in terms of both visibility and keyword rankings could suggest that its rivals have dropped off, however this is not the case. Casino.com and NetBet both saw notable increases in monthly clicks to now rank second and third to Grosvenor Casino, with Casino.com seeing an impressive 40% growth in traffic.

However, when we look at the keywords that Casino.com ranks for, it is clear that the increase in clicks is mostly due to increased searches for “casino”, as this one keyword makes up 95% of the brand’s organic traffic. This could be a concern for the brand, as its reliance on this one keyword has increased from August 2021, when it made up 90% of its traffic. This is in addition to the fact that the brand has lost considerable traffic across its other keyword rankings, and ranks for 15 fewer keywords than in August. While a 40% increase in traffic to sit second in your niche’s organic rankings is a win for the brand, this is a precarious position to be in, and any negative change in its ranking for ‘casino’ could see the brand’s organic visibility plummet.

Betfred falls behind

Out of the chasing pack, the one brand that has fallen back is Betfred, which has experienced a 22% loss in traffic over the last six months. While its slight decrease in the number of keywords ranked for doesn’t suggest a dramatic loss of traffic, the average weighted ranking of these keywords has slipped from 20 in August to 40 now, suggesting that traffic has been lost across the board due to being overtaken in the rankings for a large number of keywords.

A demonstration of this is the fact that even though Betfred now ranks in position one for a greater number of keywords than in August (now at 10, up from seven), the number of search terms for which the site appears on the first page has fallen from 49 to 32. Not only this, but the position one ranking keywords actually drive slightly less traffic than in August. While not representing any kind of dramatic collapse, this is a trend that Betfred will be looking to reverse in order to catch up with NetBet and Casino.com.

Admiral Casino out of top 10

Back in 2020, Admiral Casino enjoyed a commanding lead in terms of visibility within this sector. Since then, however, it has been a downwards trajectory for the brand, to the extent that it now finds itself out of the top 10 entirely.

Despite a slight increase in traffic since August, Admiral Casino has seen rivals take larger steps forward and will need to make larger gains of its own at the top end of keyword rankings in order to avoid being left behind.

While Admiral Casino looks to climb back into the top 10 most visible brands, Grosvenor Casino will surely be looking at Admiral Casino as an example of how quickly organic traffic can decrease for a brand enjoying a seemingly unassailable lead in search rankings.