A slightly different feel to horse racing this year as the crowds follow the races online and on TV but, with Cheltenham and the Grand National driving a huge volume of bets as well as acquisition of new customers we examine who is leading the search results? We take a look at the data as part of our monthly series on SEO visibility in iGaming.
In our ongoing analysis of the sportsbook market we’ve seen the rise in the search results for odds comparison and information sites, at the expense of bookmarking brands – a trend we see reflected in this months analysis of 105 of the biggest keywords in horse racing by search volume.
Paddy Power is ranked as the most visible bookmaker, behind The Jockey Club and Oddschecker, with a third of the brands search traffic coming from three terms ‘horse betting’, ‘grand national bets’ and ‘cheltenham races’. Oddschecker, the market leader, comes out on top by dominating top positions for the majority of the biggest keywords by search volume. This includes the biggest term in the market: ‘racing betting’. In fact, Oddscheckers dominance is seen as it ranks in the top two spots for 66 out of our 105 keywords analysed including number one positions for 50 terms.
When we analyse search data, ordinarily we’d take a 12 month period and apply a monthly average. For horse racing betting, as the market is massively seasonal, we take a different approach meaning timing is everything for the brands vying for position, as seen by the Google Search Trends graph.
How the UK lockdown affects commercial opportunity remains to be seen in the weeks ahead but, with only five brands successfully active in our analysis we’d put a bet on more aggressive paid activity from many of the market to grab that all important share of wallet.
You can read Stickyeyes analysis of the horse racing search results in full, along with our SEO tracker archive on the EGR site (subscription required).