2026 has begun, and it's time to update your SEO practices. Our team of expert SEO content creators has created a checklist you can use to optimise your website. So, if you're interested in making moves in 2026, keep reading.
Audit Your Current SEO Performance
Before you can start planning for future business changes, you should recognise the areas that need improvement. A proper SEO audit will reveal your site's strengths and weaknesses, and identify the areas that would benefit most from updates.
Your audit should focus on these aspects of the site:
- Technical SEO: Start by fixing crawl errors and broken links, then work on improving your website's loading times for better user experience. Use Google Search Console or Screaming Frog to analyse the technical side of your site and figure out what needs to be addressed for the best performance.
- Content Analysis: Not all content is equal. Identify the pages that aren't performing up to your standards and refresh them with more information and better-suited keywords.
- Backlink Profile: Ahrefs and SEMrush will help you evaluate the quality of your backlink profile. Remove irrelevant links that aren't helping your rankings and focus on adding more signals from high-quality sites in your niche.
Prioritise Mobile Optimisation
Most iGaming content is consumed via mobile devices with smaller screens. Mobile-first indexing has become standard, and businesses that want to lead the market must provide an exceptional experience to users playing games, reading articles, or making transactions on their mobile-optimised site.
Consider this advice when optimising your iGaming website:
- Your site must adapt to different screen sizes and provide the same experience regardless of the device being used to access it.
- Work on your page loading time and minimise it by compressing images, enabling browser caching, and reducing server response times.
- Provide the best possible user experience without intrusive pop-ups or an overload of ads.
Focus on EEAT: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
EEAT has become a vital part of SEO content, and without it, you're not getting the most out of your written words. Create high-quality articles that reflect your experience and expertise, provide answers to your audience, and build trust for the future.
Here's how to build EEAT in your content:
- Experience: Demonstrate your firsthand knowledge and experience at the beginning and throughout your articles. For example, in the introduction to this blog, we've mentioned that content experts have worked on this article.
- Expertise: To be the best, you have to work with the best. Partner only with industry experts, and you can be confident your content will always be accurate.
- Authoritativeness: Don't be shy to showcase your accomplishments. Emphasise valuable partnerships and awards that will give readers confidence in your reputation.
- Trustworthiness: Security should always be a top priority. With HTTP protocols, transparent terms and conditions, and clear privacy policies. But to build real trust your readers also need to see your content is accurate, up-to-date, well-sourced, and written by real people.
Keyword Research and Targeting
No website can reach its full potential without proper keyword research. When working in a niche as competitive as iGaming, this part of SEO is even more important.
Here's what to focus on to fully optimise your use of keywords:
- Identify relevant keywords with tools like SEMrush.
- Include a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords in your writing.
- Ensure the search intent of your keywords suits the specific article.
- Monitor keyword trends to pinpoint popular topics.
Create High-Quality, Relevant Content
Content is still king and, to thrive online, you'll need to create content people actually need. Provide information about interesting topics that haven't been explained hundreds of times, or give your audience a different perspective on a familiar subject.
There are multiple ways to provide high-quality content online. Here are our favourites:
- Blogging: Writing about your niche has always been the most effective way to get people to your site. Explain new games, give out tips, or report industry news, and iGaming fans will have a reason to visit your site regularly.
- Video Content: Video tutorials are often more helpful than written guides. Show your audience a valuable video, and they may return for more gaming information.
- Localised Content: Don't forget about regional markets when posting content online. Adapt your approach based on the region you're targeting, and ensure you're using the local language to help your audience identify with what you're saying.
- Evergreen Content: Some topics never go out of style. Write blogs that may stay relevant for years, like "How to Register for an Online Casino," and they may bring organic traffic for years. Periodically, you can update these blogs with the latest SEO practices.
Strengthen Your Link Building Strategy
Back in the day, you may have believed that all you needed for SEO success was a bunch of backlinks. If you didn't pay much attention to the type of links you were getting, this strategy likely backfired. It's 2026, and link building is still important in SEO, but now quality is much more important than quantity.
Here's how to improve your backlink strategy:
- Only work with trusted iGaming bloggers who provide well-written articles with correct information.
- Replace dead links ASAP.
- Create content that is easily linked to other sites. These articles can include detailed infographics, industry reports, and other research that readers will want to reference.
- Don't use Black Hat SEO practices to obtain more links.
Monitor Analytics and Stay Adaptable
By the end of the year, SEO may change significantly. If that happens, our advice from this article may become less relevant. To avoid that, we'll remain active in the field, keep up with new SEO trends, and update our content when necessary.
You should do the same with your site. Monitor changes in the SEO world, check if you need to fix something, and always adapt to the new requirements of Google.
If you need help figuring out the best strategy for your site, contact Content Lab, and we'll help you find a solution.
