Written by Chris Mawson, Head of SEO at ICS-digital & MD of Power Up Gaming
Last time, we explored the importance of using SEO as a cost-effective marketing channel for your indie game. Today, we’re jumping right into new game+: what are the essential do’s and don’ts when it comes to your title achieving organic success?
Don’t: Leave it Too Late to Carry out SEO Activities
Being aware of SEO’s main drawback compared to other channels is essential in helping you achieve your indie game goals. While PPC and other advertising can be costly, the impact is often immediate: money in, money out. When it comes to organic search, results rarely happen overnight.
Major Google updates tend to come along a few times a year, and while fluctuations in rankings take place on a minute-by-minute basis, chances are it’ll take at least a few months of sustained activity before you start to see a tangible impact – particularly when it comes to new websites or product pages. Search engines need time to crawl your content, follow links pointing back to it, and then finally assess all those ranking signals.
For that reason, it’s easy to leave it too late to start producing SEO content or building backlinks to promote your game launch. By the time you start ranking for relevant terms, your key launch window may have already passed by. Stay ahead of the curve by considering SEO for your indie game from the get-go: as soon as you’re ready to let the world know about your release (or even just a teaser), make sure to activate your organic strategy.
As the company holding all the knowledge when it comes to key product information, pricing and release dates, you have the opportunity to get a huge head start. You can be sure that if you don’t create content optimised to rank for your game name, characters or unique features, someone else will (be they friend or foe).
Do: Ensure Your Game Name Has Searchability in Mind
This may sound a bit ridiculous on the surface, but the searchability of your game’s title is critical to achieving organic visibility. There’s a lot of overlap here when it comes to your game ideation process: after all, in general terms, you always want your product to be unique from anything that’s come before it.
This extends to web search and SEO for everything, including indie games. For example, calling your jail simulator ‘Prison Breakout’ might describe exactly what it does, but you’re going to struggle to stand out from other games and pop culture IPs (not to mention, a potential Fox lawsuit) when it comes to search results pages. ‘The Escapists’, on the other hand – unique, but immediately recognisable nonetheless – and much easier to rank for as the first IP taking its name.
RELATED: How to Stream/Broadcast to Your Indie Game’s Steam Page for Free
Don’t: Go Too Broad with Your Keyword Strategy
It’s a common misconception that SEO in indie games is all about keywords, and not much else. While this might have been true in the early 2000s, search engines have advanced significantly in recent years. While keyword research and effective content signposting still plays a large role in an effective SEO strategy, far more important is the intent behind those keywords. When it comes to indie studios, it’s particularly important you keep your keyword strategy laser-focused.
To lean on the example above, ranking for ‘prison simulator game’ might be a realistic aim; ranking for ‘simulation game’ or ‘prison break’ is not. You need to carefully consider the context behind each keyword you research and balance that with the difficulty of ranking for it. If someone is searching for the term ‘simulation game’, chances are they’re quite undecided about what they want to play.
Sure enough, they’re delivered results that cater to this intent, in the form of a list of multiple, different titles. As a high volume (i.e. frequently searched) term, the sites that appear higher in the list are more likely to be those of triple A studios or mainstream media; competitors that may be out of reach for your indie startup.
But, qualify that intent even further with ‘prison simulator game’. In this case, it’s clear the user has a much better idea of the type of game they’re looking for. Consequently, the results returned are narrowed down significantly, and the only titles that show up are those that could be described as a ‘prison simulator’, rather than simulation games more broadly. And, chances are, if you have a strong enough USP, yours is likely to be amongst them.
Do: Consider How to Build Site-wide Authority
A misstep I see indie developers make with some regularity is the following: They’ll register a domain name for their exciting new game, then launch a one-page website that contains nothing but a teaser trailer and links to third-party pre-order retailers. If you’re lucky, the site may be slightly padded out on launch.
While this ‘microsite’ strategy might work for triple-A games with an established fanbase, it’s a surefire way for your indie game to fade into organic search obscurity. Each new site registered essentially has to start from scratch when it comes to building their SEO footprint, and as mentioned before, it can be several months – or longer – before you start to realise your organic potential. Without a coherent and sufficiently deep content strategy, your chances of ranking for much of anything are remote.
Instead, consider whether you can leverage the authority of your studio site by creating a subfolder dedicated to your game and surround it with useful, informational content. It doesn’t mean you don’t have to register the exact-match domain of your game name for brand protection purposes, but have it redirect to your subfolder instead. That way, all the authority you’ve built through PR links back to your main website will transfer to your new game. You might stand a much stronger chance of ranking more quickly this way – assuming your main site has a coherent SEO strategy itself, of course!
Even the big-name, big-budget studios follow this approach – see Rockstar and Red Dead Redemption 2.
RELATED: The Importance of Properly Tagging Your Indie Game on Steam
In Conclusion: XP Earned?
I’ve touched on just a handful of tips today, based on my decade-long experience in the SEO and video games industries. In truth, a playbook to leveraging web search for your indie game would span many, many volumes.
While I hope to continue covering practical – even semi-useful – solutions in the coming weeks, I strongly recommend taking your knowledge to the next level with the free resources available at LearningSEO.io, an educational hub I always share with my own team members.
See you next time!
What are your thoughts?