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View all marketsmonthly organic traffic growth over the project period (February 2023 - November 2024)
increase in top-10 keyword rankings across core sports betting queries in Canada
This case study covers a sportsbook operating in the Canadian market, under NDA. Canada’s regulated online sports betting market opened up significantly in 2021, triggering an influx of both domestic operators and international brands competing for the same audience.
By the time the engagement started in February 2023, the market had already become crowded, with established players holding strong link equity and deep content coverage across the most valuable betting queries.
The client entered with 30K monthly organic visits — a functional baseline, but well below the traffic levels needed to compete for meaningful market share in a bilingual, highly regulated market. Organic keyword counts were low relative to the site’s potential, and the backlink profile lacked the authority signals required to rank for competitive EN and FR sports betting terms.
Previous SEO efforts had also been inconsistent, resulting in uneven performance across key pages and missed opportunities in both language segments.
Significantly Grow Organic Traffic
Scale monthly organic visits from 30K by targeting relevant sports betting keywords across both English and French audiences and converting improved rankings into consistent traffic gains.
Strengthen DA Through Link Building
Develop a backlink profile strong enough to compete with established Canadian sportsbooks, through strategic placements on high-authority sports and betting publications in both language markets.
Expand Keyword Rankings
Build a broad and defensible keyword footprint growing top-3 and top-10 rankings for high-intent betting queries while developing a pipeline of mid-ranking terms with clear upward potential.
Market and Competitor Analysis
We audited the top-ranking sportsbooks in Canada across both EN and FR search landscapes. The analysis covered content depth, backlink profiles, keyword coverage, and technical setup producing a clear picture of the gap between the client's current position and what was needed to compete for top placements on priority betting queries.
Keyword Research and Targeting
We built a full-funnel keyword matrix covering sports betting queries in English and French, from informational topics like betting rules and odds formats to high-intent transactional queries around specific sports, leagues, and bet types popular in Canada. We segmented and prioritized keywords by language, search volume, competition, and monetization potential. Early in the project, we noticed some high-volume terms were far too competitive, so we focused on mid-tier opportunities to gain traction quickly and build momentum for more challenging queries.
On-Page Optimization
We restructured priority pages against the keyword matrix, rewriting titles and metas, fixing headers, filling content gaps, and improving internal links. Pages with cannibalization or intent issues were consolidated, and some required additional iterations before achieving stable rankings.
Content Strategy
New content was developed in both EN and FR to target mid-funnel queries where the client had no rankings. Coverage included sport-specific betting guides, odds explainers, and timely content tied to major Canadian sports events — NHL, CFL, and NBA given Canada's strong basketball following. Some French pages took longer to gain traction due to higher competition and fewer authoritative benchmarks.
Link Building
We ran a link-building campaign targeting high-authority Canadian sports media, betting review sites, and relevant FR outlets. Anchor text and placement focus were adjusted as results came in to maximize impact. Not all links performed equally, so we refined targeting throughout.
Performance Monitoring and Analysis
Rankings across all positions were tracked from February 2023 to November 2024. Growth wasn’t fully linear — Google core updates caused temporary dips in some keyword clusters. We adapted content, internal linking, and link acquisition to stabilize rankings and keep growth on track.
The campaign scaled the sportsbook from 30K to 120K monthly organic visits, adding over 90K new users. Keyword coverage grew steadily across all brackets, with strong gains in top-10 and top-3 positions, expanding visibility for both English and French search.
We built a broad keyword footprint across multiple sports, leagues, and query types, avoiding reliance on a few high-performing pages and ensuring stable traffic across the site. Some fluctuations occurred during Google core updates, and French-language pages initially lagged due to higher competition and fewer authoritative links.
Through iterative content updates, internal linking adjustments, and targeted link acquisition, these challenges were addressed, stabilizing rankings and maintaining long-term growth momentum. By the end, the site achieved a competitive position in the Canadian bilingual market, consistently capturing high-intent betting traffic across priority queries.
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NaturalLinks helps us build high-quality pillow links for different projects we work on (e-commerce, dating, educational, etc.). The partnership helped us to get a large number of quality backlinks within the specified timeframe from quality and relevant resources, which led to boosting the "authority" of website pages in the eyes of Google. Communication is always at its best level. The team works quickly and efficiently, is flexible to any changes or requirements, project deadlines are always met, and if any problems arise during the execution of tasks, they are warned and agreed upon in advance. Over the 2 years of partnership, any problems have been resolved quickly and efficiently with the best possible result.
I am very pleased with the ongoing cooperation. They post links at good websites with DR>30. The most impressive is the large base of good domains to be used for improving our results.
Thanks to NaturalLinks' efforts, we saw an increase in traffic and referral domains, significantly exceeding our expectations and contributing to our business goals. What set NaturalLinks apart was their deep expertise in iGaming, coupled with unparalleled customer service that made them feel more like a partner than a provider. During the cooperation, we've achieved good results and strengthened the site's position through link building, among other things.
We used NaturalLinks because they are good for promotion and branding due to the link type and them being cost-effective. We custom ordered 120 links from them, and we ended up with 140, I was definitely happy with the unexpected overdelivery. The campaign was completed on time, and everything looks great! The end result was that we ended up balancing out our NF/DF ratio, balanced out link activity and authority spread across our pages
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