Betting odds comparison website Betlight backed a winner ahead of 2010’s biggest sports betting events when it signed up York digital marketing consultancy i-Lines marketing as its search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per click advertising (PPC) partner.

Betlight (http:betlight.co.uk) approached i-Lines marketing early in 2010 with a brief to quickly increase their search marketing traffic across organic and paid search channels.

A tailored strategy
The company, which provides price-savvy punters with odds from leading UK and European bookies across a wide range of sporting events, agreed to a tailored strategy from i-Lines.

The strategy focused on the dual goals of building inbound links to improve natural (organic) search rankings and financing a short-term PPC campaign to fill the gap in the meantime.

The online betting odds comparison industry is a highly competitive one – but this was a key time for Betlight. The importance of capitalising on football’s 2010 World Cup, and Royal Ascot – two of the biggest betting events in the sporting calendar – could not be underestimated.

Therefore a highly analytical keyword research campaign needed to be carried out before launching into either SEO or PPC to identify niche terms that could provide high levels of search traffic at a relatively low cost.

Balancing cost, quality and volume
PPC budgets were tailored to coincide with peak search volumes around the events. Ad creatives were varied and rigorously tested to maximise campaign performance.

During the run-up to the events themselves, the campaign was monitored and PPC bids amended daily to continually improve the balance between the cost, quality and volume of traffic.

Results exceeded expectations, with Betlight’s cost-per-click target more than halved – delivering double the traffic to the site as they expected from their budget.

Betlight head of operations Graham Albrow said, “We wanted a search expert with experience and knowledge of the betting and gaming industries, and i-Lines marketing fitted the bill.

“After meeting Matt we knew they could deliver with a strategy that fitted our aims and were delighted with the results.

“I would have no hesitation in recommending i-Lines marketing to any other business that wants to improve its search marketing performance.”