Eastern Europe iGaming SEO: Yandex, Localization, and Low-Competition Markets | Deepak Shukla

Most SEO advice is built for English markets, and that creates blind spots. In this episode of The Squared Table, Victor talks with Deepak Shukla about why search can be “easier” in non-English regions, and what iGaming teams can do to take advantage of it, especially across Eastern Europe and Russian-language search. Deepak explains how competition and algorithm maturity change the game, why local link building becomes harder when humans can tell you’re not local, and how to avoid common localisation traps that kill momentum. They also dig into a practical launch sequence for new language sections, when to keep pages hidden, when to push social signals, and how to enter a market without turning it into a massive translation project.

• Why non-English search markets can offer outsized upside, with fewer competitors and different “rules”
• Google vs local engines (like Yandex), and how market maturity changes what works
• Why ranking in English inside non-English countries can sometimes be a quick win
• The real bottleneck in Eastern Europe, local trust, local language nuance, and outreach that doesn’t feel “foreign”
• How to approach local link building and PR when translation alone is not enough
• A simple launch order for localisation, keep new sections out of index early, build local signals first, then go live
• How social profiles and early social signals can help search engines “believe” the local presence faster