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Merging websites: How it helps casino brands and sportsbooks

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May 8, 2024
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The online casino industry is a competitive industry that always seeks to find more players and keep them interested in iGaming casinos. This is why improving your platform is essential, as it keeps the site updated and entertaining. A way to do this is through merging websites, which involves bringing together several casino websites you control into a single, cohesive platform. Merging these websites has benefits like simplified management, better resource allocation and a more seamless experience for players.

Thinking of getting these perks and undergoing a website consolidation? Learn more about it here at QWERTYLABS.

What is website merging?

Website consolidation or merging is the process of choosing and combining websites you have to streamline content, pages, and backlinks for a better user experience. The whole process can be quite exhaustive as it starts from analysing existing sites, planning, and migrating data up to finalising the site. However, website consolidation offers advantages like unified branding, more authority, space to redirect old URLs to new pages, and better navigation.

Choosing the right time to merge websites and doing it effectively can have a big impact on branding, search page ranking and authority, making it a tough but worthwhile project.

Pros and cons of merging websites

There are several digital marketing pros and cons when merging sites and knowing each helps you determine if the whole process is worth it. Read this section to learn about each point:

AdvantagesDisadvantages
Merging your content and backlinks into one big page displays strong authority on a subjectEffective website merging is a difficult undertaking, requiring lots of preparation, time and technical knowledge
Having fewer websites allows you to focus and streamline information and marketing efforts on your active pagesNiche or specific content may not stand out as well in merged pages
Finding information is easier for users as it can be found on a single pageIf not done right, merging can lead to more problems like messy navigation and a lower rank
Content creation and website management efforts become more concentrated, improving qualitySpecific keywords can be harder to merge into consolidated websites
Eliminates pages and content that can appear too similar
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How to combine multiple websites into one

We’ve covered the basics of website merging, so it’s time to learn how the process works, from making preparations to measuring their performance. Read our simplified guide on how to merge websites below:

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  1. Assessment: Reviewing your sitemap and website data

The first step in merging websites is to conduct a review of your existing sitemaps and a content audit. Start by organising and analysing the various content types and pages across all your websites. Look for pages that can be consolidated or eliminated for being duplicates. 

A good way to do this is to thoroughly inspect website data points like page views, bounce rates and conversion rates to understand content and page performance. With that done, build a detailed inventory of every page, outlining its purpose, target audience, and any relevant data. By understanding what you currently have, you’ll know what pages you can keep, should combine and delete.

  1.  Strategic Planning: Designing your new site and setting up new domains

Before merging the sites, you need to have a website design strategy, which should be done with your website’s strengths and weaknesses in mind. At this point, you should be analysing how the design of the pages helps your readers and how it can be improved to enhance user experience.

See the questions below about primary websites and align them with your site:

  • Which domain gives you the best ranking power?
  • Will one domain be more relevant to your audience?
  • Which among the domains is easiest to remember?

After coming up with your answer for each question, you’ll have a better understanding of what you want as a primary domain.

  1. SEO Considerations: What content will you be keeping and combining

Knowing what pages you have gives you the space to prioritise what should be included on the future website based on your current content. In this step, make sure you’re analysing statistics such as user interaction and SEO performance to determine high-quality content. Additionally, you should be looking for ways to merge identical material, focusing on comprehensiveness and minimising redundancy.

  1. Data Migration: 301 redirects

With a clear content strategy and a new website taking shape, it's time to migrate your website data. 301 redirects are an important SEO technique that notifies search engines and visitors that a page has been permanently relocated. 

During data migration, you'll carefully map URLs from the old website to their respective pages on the new one, using 301 redirects for each. This guarantees that people attempting to access old pages find the information they need on the new site. This also helps them avoid reaching dead ends on the platform.

Proper 301 deployment also moves SEO ranking power from old to new pages, reducing ranking disturbance. Overall, this step is critical for preserving user experience and search engine exposure during the merging.

  1. Quality Assurance: Refreshing your robots.txt files

After the data migration, conduct a complete quality check wherein you ensure that search engines can correctly crawl and index your new website. The robots.txt file is an important tool since it tells search engines which pages they may visit. 

It’s important to know that URLs and content formats may have changed throughout the merging process, meaning you need to reload the robots.txt file on the new website.

In this step, examine the robots.txt files from the previous sites to discover any crawl directives that need to be carried over or altered for the new site structure. This update provides search engines with the most up-to-date information, allowing them to easily crawl and index significant material on the new platform.

  1. Launch: Present your change of address and sitemaps

With a new site plan, you can begin by presenting your change of address and sitemaps to your search engine. For this step, you need to inform the website’s change by changing the address and submitting the map. Launching the website and properly communicating the change to search engines ensure a smooth transition for users and minimise potential ranking disruptions.

Changing address means using search console tools to tell search engines about your website move. This then facilitates the transfer of SEO value from the sitemaps reflecting the new website structure that must be published to search engines such as Google and Microsoft. This guarantees that search engines can easily locate and index all of your important materials.

  1. Post Merge Analysis: Monitor changes and performance

Last is launching your merged website and monitoring its performance. This step requires you to track key metrics like organic traffic, user engagement and search engine rankings for the merged content. Utilise website analytics tools like Google Analytics to identify any unexpected dips or changes. This monitoring allows you to identify areas for improvement and adjust website navigation, address technical issues, or create fresh content to fill gaps. 

By continuously monitoring and adapting, you ensure the new website delivers a seamless user experience and maintains strong search engine visibility in the long run.

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Importance of website merging for casino SEO

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So what’s the importance of undergoing this long process of merging? Read about the values and goals you can achieve below:

Ensuring consistent brand image

Website merging allows you to maintain or establish a cohesive brand image. Doing this promotes brand familiarity, fosters confidence among gamblers and inspires brand loyalty. Additionally, it creates a perception of professionalism and dependability, which are essential for attracting and maintaining players in the casino business.

Maintaining clear website navigation 

To keep gamblers satisfied with the platform and increase the chances of them coming back, casino websites must be user-friendly and easy to scroll through. Merging casino websites can help with this as it makes pages easier to navigate. Having simpler sites with cohesive information reduces frustration for gamblers and allows them to focus on enjoying games and digesting information. 

Keeping up with website optimisation practices

It’s no secret that the online gambling industry is greatly competitive. Knowing this, having a website that functions effectively for search engines is of utmost importance. Merging your casino websites allows you to focus your efforts on a single solid platform rather than juggling many ones. This means you can achieve website optimisation for your content across different casino offerings like crash games, slots, and table games.

Furthermore, you increase your authority in the eyes of search engines, potentially ranking better in search results. With this, more potential visitors will discover your casino website and likely patronise it.

Implementing better SEO tactics

SEO tactics and marketing trends always change yearly, which means that what may be the merging websites best practices last year may not be effective this year. Knowing this, website merging gives casino companies and online sportsbooks the space to integrate better practices and apply them to their sites, creating a more powerful page for search engines. 

For this, make sure to stay updated on all the best SEO tactics and be prepared to apply them when the opportunity for a website consolidation appears.

Benefits of merging websites for casino brands

Apart from being established, there are other benefits you get from the whole merging process. Learn about the optimisation of website operations, better user experience and leaner efficiency for iGaming casinos and online sportsbooks in this section. 

Optimising website operations for casino brands

Merging casino websites streamlines daily operations, benefitting both the platform and its users. The logic behind this is simple: managing a single website is less time-consuming than managing multiple sites, with their own content calendars and analytics dashboard.

This results in enhanced productivity for site admins and casino writers you may have, allowing them to focus on enhancing the customer experience, such as adding new games or running promotions. Users also get a smooth experience as they won’t have to keep jumping between pages.

Enhancing user experience through Consolidation

Consolidating casino websites into a single page considerably improves the user experience (UX). Consider how a player opens a casino game, looks for a strategy on it and goes back to place their bets. The player’s journey can involve visiting multiple pages, and this can be made better by having a user-friendly site. Moreover, it reduces the difficulty of accessing many platforms, each with possibly distinct logins and interfaces. Overall, a simplified UX keeps players interested and focused on what's important, which is playing games on your platform.

Amplifying Efficiencies for Casino Brands

Website consolidation opens opportunities to target inefficiencies within our pages and make them more streamlined for casino brands. Lots of processes can be made better like allocating resources, marketing, and content development. 

Resource efficiency is achieved by merging many locations into a single location while marketing efforts can be concentrated on a single platform, increasing campaign effectiveness. Lastly, content development becomes more focused, minimising repetition and allowing for deeper exploration of certain topics. 

Leaner processes result in cost savings for your casino brand and allow you to redirect resources into improving customer experience like introducing new games or better customer support.

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Best practices for merging websites

If you’re committed to performing a website consolidation, you’ll need to keep a strategy in mind to enhance the results. Here are the things we recommend to keep in mind when merging your websites:

Avoid merging thin content

It’s not uncommon to have thinner content on a casino blog page, but you need to avoid transferring thin material during your website merger. The reason it’s best to avoid this is that the page offers little value or information. Also, combining low-quality material can reduce your total SEO strength and mislead search engines. 

Instead, take this opportunity to find thin content and remove it from your site. Doing this results in the following:

  • A simpler website that’s easier to navigate
  • Better user experience through pages with concentrated information
  • Increased organic traffic and casino brand search position.

Ensure your ads redirect to your new site

Updating your internet advertising is an important stage in the merger of casino websites that you don’t want to go to waste. Ensure that any current advertising on search engines sends people to the new, unified website by updating links and having promotional material ready.

Remember that proper ad redirection keeps traffic flowing to your casino platform, maximising the return on your advertising efforts! It also provides a consistent experience for consumers who discover your platform through advertisements.

Revamp links on social media

Remember to keep your casino social media posts in mind when combining casino websites, as they serve as channels to attract new players and update existing members. Replace outdated links with new links to pages and ensure they are accessible. Revamping social media links guarantees that your audience has a smooth experience by leading them to the relevant website where they can access all of your casino offers, which benefits your brand.

Let your readers know of the changes

A website merger informs your audience that change is coming to the platform. You’ll need to tell your members about the planned website consolidation through platform announcements, social media posts, and email blasts. Explain the advantages of the merger, such as a simpler platform and a broader choice of services.

This improves transparency between you and your members, increasing confidence and reducing user misunderstanding. Being proactive in this way guarantees that your users have a smooth transition and remain engaged with your casino brand on the new, unified website.

Measuring site ranking performance from merging websites

Let’s say you push through with the consolidation and have completed all the steps. You now have to measure the progress by ranking your performance and how well the merger did. See what metrics you need to consider after the merger here:

Organic traffic rankings

Organic ranking tracks your website's position in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords without using paid advertising. Observing and measuring organic rankings identifies areas for development and ensures your combined casino platform retains a high search engine presence. This results in generating organic traffic and potentially new players for your business.

Analyse traffic

Analysing total website traffic includes tracking information such as user sessions, page views, and bounce rate. Analysing website traffic allows casino brands to detect possible issues early on, such as unclear navigation or a lack of relevant content for particular user categories. 

This constant monitoring ensures that the amalgamated platform stays appealing to players, maximising engagement and perhaps increasing conversions to the new casino website.

Conversion rates

Conversion rates refer to the number of visitors who complete an activity on the new website such as creating an account or depositing funds. Monitoring these rates could reveal things like a drop in conversion rates, implying that the newer platform isn't efficiently turning visitors into members. This is a good opportunity to review the design of the site or the marketing efforts used for the campaign. 

You should also consider situations where you get better conversion rates that increase user engagement and income. By measuring conversion rates, casino companies may find areas for improving the user journey and ensuring the combined platform allows player activities, resulting in enhanced company development.

Keyword rankings

Keyword rankings assess your casino website's position in SERPs for certain keywords related to your offers. After combining casino websites, it is important to watch their rankings and performance. A decline might indicate issues with keyword targeting during content consolidation or technical SEO during the merging. In contrast, a rise suggests a successful merger that increased your website's authority for those terms. 

Develop your casino website with QWERYTLABS

The website merging process for the gambling industry is complex and requires a lot of effort. Fortunately, here at QWERTYLABS, we understand this well and want to make your website merging process less of a hassle for you. 

With the expertise of our SEO specialists, content creators and webmasters, we can help optimise your platform and target aspects like website performance, user engagement and more. If you’ve got other concerns that you want to address, we also offer services like brand protection, link building, and creating smart content. We do all of this to make your brand stand out, stay competitive and enhance user experience. 

Ready to work with our team of digital marketing experts? Contact us to learn how we can enhance your brand and what we services we can do for you.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the challenges associated with website merging?

Website merging comes with a few challenges such as technical know-how, broken or outdated links, ineffective keywords and user disruption. However, if you plan your website merger campaign well, you can avoid these challenges and make the overall process smooth.

Does merging websites contribute to website optimisation? 

Yes, it can. It contributes to website optimisation through stronger backlinks, better content focus, and giving users a more streamlined experience on the platform.

How do I know if my brand needs to merge its websites?

Your brand may need to go through a website merger if it has too many duplicate sites, low user experience or admin difficulty in managing logins and analytics. 

How long does it take to complete a website merging process?

The time it takes to complete the process depends on the complexity of the site and the team working on it. Effectively merging a couple of sites may take one to two weeks while a larger-scale project can take months.

How to merge websites?

The website merging process involves a lot of steps from doing a page audit and planning, to merging and measuring the campaign’s effect. It’s best to have a skilled team like what we have at QWERTYLABS to assist you in a big endeavour. Inquire about how we can help here.

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