The internet has become a snazzier place since 1994, when the first online casinos made their debut. However, no matter how fancy and sophisticated today’s gaming websites look, at the root of them all there is still the humble word.
Google needs them, your customers need them, and you, you need them.
Words are the basis of great online content, a trusty beacon that signals to the reader the possibility of some interesting tidbit of knowledge, whether it’s instructions describing how to get a juicy cash bonus, SEO copy describing the news lot game you’ve just launched, information on keeping your bankroll safe online, or an amusing line that raises a chuckle or two before slapping your next wager on the poker table.
In the first article of our four-part series exclusively for SiGMA 2014 attendees, we open the kimono and reveal some choice lessons which we learnt from our experience in writing online content for iGaming operators. Fundamentally, what we do know is that in Content Writing, quality copywriting shouldn’t be a gamble.
The race is on
Gamers are always in a rush. When life’s a competition, speed is the one thing that counts most in helping you grab the prize from the other person’s hands. Laggards go home empty-handed by default; if you can’t pick up the pace, you’d better leave the race.
The fastest thinker in the poker room calculates the odds before anyone else and has time to strategise rather than act on impulse. The quickest hand in the casino lobby gets more chances at hitting the jackpot. Mind you, this is speed we’re talking about, not recklessness.
Good content writing is tailored to this fact about gamers’ psychology and reads snappily. Sentences are constructed in a concise, clear and creative way. Our goal is to cut down the time between reading and betting to mere milliseconds.
Yes. We firmly believe that cleverly designed copy is an important, yet massively overlooked aspect, in an online gambling operator’s game plan for increased turnover and customer engagement levels.
No. It’s not hard to rectify matters if this is the first time you thought of copy this way.
You should be able to actually read content
Playing is fun, right? It’s an opportunity to escape the drudgery of daily life on one hand, as well as to reign in the unpredictability of the wider world on the other. This rather paradoxical statement reveals an essential truth about gaming.
In the context of a popular casino game like blackjack, players operate within a stable environment with known mathematical rules that somehow still yield an experience which spans the whole gamut of human emotions: from the ecstasy of winning a stash to the crushing realisation that you’re down to your last coin.
And that’s exactly the way great content for gaming websites should be written. The copy must read like an organic outgrowth of the games it describes. To the trained eye it is tightly structured and reads logically, to the casual observer it partakes of the same delightful, yet at times shocking, nature of a night at the (online) casino.
We don’t advocate a style of writing that’s glib and frothy. Customers won’t be impressed by paper-thin literary contrivances like hyperbole and cliché-laden text. On the contrary, a disciplined approach which lucidly, yet light-heartedly, describes your latest big promotion comes across as more honest and therefore it is more likely to be accepted by the customer.
What is the power of good copy?
Still unsure of the power of good copy? That’s okay. We understand the powerful grip of other media, notably images and video, and we certainly don’t discount their sizeable contribution to spreading your brand’s message online.
The visual pathway is the quickest road to your customer’s attention. Smart gaming companies exploit this by using unique and striking graphics that become closely identified to their brand in people’s mind. But hear out the case for copy.
As the simplest medium, text is also the most universal online. It happens to be the most flexible as well. Do you need to explain a five-step process to activate a cash reload bonus using the code attached? Try do that with a thumbnail. Or waste time producing a video to explain it!
Finely written copy adds a third dimension to your branding efforts by giving a voice which is distinctively yours and which complements, rather than competes, with other media. When that synergy happens, your message comes through louder and clearer than ever, packing a powerful punch that sends customers flying right to the online casino lobby or sportsbook.
Copy for the new digital age
SEO is the alchemy of the internet age. The voices of experts and quacks become an unintelligible babble online that makes it nigh on impossible to decipher gold from the lead unless you pay good money to attend events like SiGMA which do the grunt work of separating the two for your benefit.
It’s no secret that a website’s ranking on Google makes or breaks its chances of successfully reaching a wide-enough pool of users that convert to long-term, money-spending customers.
If you figuratively scratch a line of online copy you’ll strip multiple layers off it before reaching the dictionary definition of the words it consists of. First there’s the logical layer which interweaves with other lines to create a meaningful unit of information. Next comes the the emotional layer, which stirs a particular feeling in the reader. Deeper still is the SEO potential, which propels your site up Google’s search rankings.
Creating SEO copy isn’t like playing roulette. Instead of leaving things up to chance, internet marketing professionals distil their knowledge of content writing in carefully constructed pieces of authoritative and original copy, which provides good fodder for internet bots to feast upon and elevates the visibility of your website on search engines.
And finally…
That concludes the first article in our four-part series about the basic principles of internet marketing for iGaming companies, in which we tackled a variety of subjects related to content writing. The gist of this article can be quickly summed up as: the undeniable importance of using logical, emotional and search engine-friendly text in your websites.
If you have any questions or comments about this article drop us a line and let us know what’s on your mind. The team at Systemato is always glad to advise on internet marketing matters and share tips on how you can hone the text on your website into laser-focused, keyworded copy that brims with emotion and compels customers to act NOW.
Or else you could simply tell us exactly what you need and we’ll deliver copy that is right on the money.
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