The opportunity to expand online is immense for Ladbrokes and Gala Coral, which are on the verge of merging their businesses to lead the show in the betting industry.
But just how big is the potential for the combined entity?
Preliminary SEO Findings
Our initial SEO assessment of ladbrokes.com indicates a decent technical set-up, which is backed by relatively high performance metrics, but our depth stats indicate that the customer’s journey isn’t easy, while mobile speed isn’t anywhere close to average.
The website guarantees a good mobile user experience, though, as gauged by several metrics.
Depth stats are more balanced for coral.co.uk (Coral doesn’t own coral.com!), yet mobile speed is below average. In short, both websites could do with a comprehensive review of their on-page optimisation strategy and hierarchy structures.
Ladbrokes.com and coral.co.uk are not very different: all our findings will be disclosed in our comprehensive SEO audit of both websites on Friday.
What’s Next?
Ladbrokes released a strategy update on 24 July, when one key word — “online” — was mentioned only once, but read this:
“Today I am announcing an aggressive three year investment programme to build our UK Retail, Digital and Australian recreational customer base,” its chief executive Jim Mullen said.
“We see significant untapped opportunity for Ladbrokes to become a truly multichannel sportsbetting business where only 11% of retail customers currently also bet with us online.”
There was not a single reference to the online strategy of Coral when management released its latest preliminary results on 29 July.
The shares of Ladbrokes have plunged in recent times because investors have not fallen in love with the idea of seeing their names on the shareholder register once the combination is completed.
I think they could be wrong, although the proposed merger between Paddy Power and Betfair has shorter odds to win, based on their combined projected growth rate rather than on their synergy potential.
If you want to discuss the prospects of higher tangible returns for Ladbrokes and Coral according to the alternative online strategy that we prepared, please contact our team at info@hedgingbeta.com
Alessandro Pasetti and Hedging Beta are not invested in any of the shares mentioned in this article.