In this day and age building a successful iGaming affiliate site requires so much more than just an attractive homepage and a list of decent welcome offers that match your niche. 

So fierce is the competition within the industry, it’s evident that there’s no room for complacency. The bare minimum isn’t enough to get a site by anymore, especially if they want to rank amongst the top sites for their all-important high-value money making search terms.

Nowadays, in order to realistically compete, affiliates should be building customer confidence via trust signals such as in-depth, well-researched slot reviews and ratings. 

If you were to search Google for your favourite online slot game right now, we guarantee you’d quickly stumble across some of the most reputable iGaming affiliates on page one of your search. These sites have put the time and effort into writing high-quality content.

That being said, the reality is that only a small fraction of reviews that appear at the top of Google are actually original and completely accurate. According to the experts at Slot Gods, one of the leading sources of independent bias free online slot reviews, the industry has a genuine problem with integrity, here’s what they have to say on the matter.

The unfortunate truth behind online slot reviews

Writing informative reviews is a fantastic way to show your end user that you not only know what you’re talking about, but that you’re just as passionate about the subject matter as they are. Ultimately it goes a long way towards boosting your conversion rate and creating repeat visitors who will no doubt return to your site seeking new offers and quality content.

At this point, it’s pretty common knowledge amongst everyone working within the iGaming industry that content is king… However, there are affiliates out there that just view content as a means to an end to rank, rather than to actually give their users a meaningful experience. 

The end goal for some affiliates is to quickly bloat their site with content, so what do they do? They hire a freelance content writer to knock out a handful of reviews for them. 

We have absolutely no qualms with affiliates relying on freelancers to produce content, they’re arguably the backbone of this industry, especially considering site owners have so many day-to-day tasks to contend with already that keep them busy throughout the day.

The issue at hand is that many of these affiliates are hiring budget freelancers from sites such as Fiverr that have absolutely no industry expertise, as a result these content writers are finding themselves on other affiliate sites practically re-writing their reviews with little effort.

This leads to unoriginal copy and paste reviews that offer nothing substantial when compared to other sites. Even more worrying is that this practice can often cause an adverse chain reaction… One affiliate will copy another affiliate and so on, each picking up the same mistakes.

If the original slot review featured an incorrect figure such as the wrong RTP percentage (which happens very often ) then all of the reviews that followed will also feature the wrong percentage.

This leads to confusion for practically everyone, even worse, players might deposit money at a casino to play that specific game under the assumption that it has a better chance to pay out.

Affiliates need to take more responsibility when it comes to filling their site with review content, it’s understandable that financial constraints would mean that inexperienced content writers write the reviews, but if this is the case the site owner should still be checking the key facts and figures related to each and every slot that goes on their site. Blind faith gets you nowhere.

The bigger problem – Honesty

Frustratingly, the issues don’t end there. There are actually plenty of genuinely well-written reviews out there that do read well and contain factual and correct information relating to the game… The problem though? They’re not at all impartial.

Realistically, we’re all in the same boat. We want to make as much money as possible from our endeavours and enjoy the flexible lifestyle that comes with creating a site that can generate a passive income over a sustained period of time. Should that come at the cost of your integrity?

There are plenty of online slot games out there that just aren’t very good, it’s the same as any industry, not all products are top quality, award winning creations. So why are we seeing so many online affiliate sites praise every single slot as if they’re the best thing since sliced bread?

We believe in honesty when it comes to slot reviews. Yes, someone might read your review and be deterred from hitting play, but is it not better to send a user back a page in search of a slot that is right for them as opposed to getting them to deposit and play a game they didn’t enjoy based on your false recommendation? 

Visitors to your site aren’t stupid, they know that if you’re willing to speak honestly and frankly about a slot, even if it’s not very good, then they can trust your judgement elsewhere. Don’t be that site that oversells, it does a disservice to yourself and will lead to unhappy players.

What makes a good, honest and readable slot review?

According to the team at Slot Gods, the very first thing any content writer should do before they even begin typing the first word of their review is actually visit the developer’s website, load up the demo version of the game and spend a considerable amount of time playing it.

It sounds simple, but it’s clear that so many reviews are based off another affiliate’s page and not an actual well-informed review that was written off the back of a playthrough. Play the game, and make sure you take a good look at the developer’s game sheet that goes with it.

It’s also worth cross referencing all of the key information such as minimum bet, maximum bet, RTP percentage, maximum win potential and volatility… This is because operators don’t always follow standard slot specifications… Developers often create games with adjustable minimum and max bets and RTP percentages to accommodate a specific operator.

Ultimately, from this point on it’s down to you and your writers. Give players what they want, the hard, cold facts that accurately depict what an online slot is all about. 

Don’t just tell them it’s amazing, don’t just tell them that they could win tens of thousands of pounds playing it… Tell them what they actually need to know about the game! Describe how it looks, sounds and how engaging it is during base gameplay and during bonus features.

Players want in-depth, high-quality content that will leave a lasting impression, give it to them.