PAW member JohnH contributed this article on how several new affiliates starting out are achieving great successes.

Is it possible to start out with only $100? Click here to find out.

PAW member JohnH from Heads Up Poker contributed this article after a post on Jeremy's blog pertaining to if it's possible to start out as an affiliate with only $100.

This is a great article and all new affiliates should certainly give it a read.

Coming on Strong Late in the Game: New Affiliates are Finding New Ways to Achieve Success

There has been a lot of talk lately about how hard it is to make money as a new poker affiliate.  In a recent thread on PAW, the question, "What would you do if you only had $100 to spend on an affiliate website?" was asked.  Most people chimed in saying they would buy a domain, hosting, and a basic template.  As a new affiliate myself, I remember starting from scratch and having a friend design my website for me.  Once I had everything in place I began to wonder why the money was not flowing in.  It was due to lack of planning, laziness, and being naive.  Sure buying a domain, hosting, and design are necessities when it comes to starting a poker affiliate website, but isn't there a bigger picture?  The fundamental items are just a few pieces to the entire puzzle, and there is some vital research you must do before you spend a dime.

The days of tossing up a half-assed website with just a few pages and sitting back while the dollars come streaming in are long gone.  However, it seems that every new affiliate must find this out for themselves.  These days it requires much more work to gain an inch on the competition.  Furthermore, how can we compete with sites like pokernews.com and pokerlistings.com?  The key to this relies on a new affiliates attention to detail.

New poker affiliates should focus on a niche... oh no... the N word.  Telling a new poker affiliate to start a niche site is like slapping him or her in the face.  We all come into this industry gung-ho, with thoughts of starting an end-all be-all poker portal that will have a huge forum with thousands of members, tons of traffic, and generate thousands of dollars.  It seems that we all have to see for ourselves that it is NOT possible. (due to the amount of well established competition), (Unless you have a huge staff of writers and wads of cash for SEO.)  So what exactly is a niche?  A niche is a targeted portion of a market.  Good examples of niche sites would be sites dedicated to small stakes texas holdem, mac poker, satellite tournaments, omaha poker, heads up poker, and sit n go's.  These are just a few of the possibilities that come to mind when thinking about a niche site. 

Here is a quick check list to read over if you are thinking about getting started in with poker affiliate programs.  This checklist is designed to weed out the people that think this will be a walk in the park which requires minimal work.

New Affiliate Check List (Read before Spending a Dime!)

• Do Research and Find a Niche (This consists of using Google to perform searches on possible niches and analyzing the competition.)Once you have determined your niche, buy a domain, hosting, and design.

•  Generate Content Daily (Write it yourself or pay someone to write it for you, but whatever you do, do not copy and steal it!)

•  Study Search Engine Optimization (Tons of free information out there, no need to spend a fortune on books)

•   Network with other new poker affiliates.  (Do link exchanges, article swaps, social book marking, etc.)

The two main time consumers from the above list should be writing content and studying SEO.  Your site should have at least 100 pages of unique content, but don't stop there - the sky is the limit.  Don't stress out about building links too much.  Focus on getting the basics of SEO down from the very beginning.  With every page of content you add make sure you use a keyword specific title, description, and keyword tags.  Also don't forget about the proper use of h1 and h2 tags.

Keep in mind that success will not happen over night.  New affiliates coming into the poker industry should be patient enough to have to wait a month or two before they start seeing any real traffic, and that is if they work HARD.  You will read some stories or hear about people who started back in 2003-2005 and went from zero to hero real quick, but remember that it happened 3-4 years ago and the market is totally different now.  There is much more competition, and Google's search algorithm is more advanced now than it was then so it takes much more work to get to the top of the search engine results.

So what about the $100?  Spend it on a decent design or template, then come up with $10 for a domain and pay $6.95 per month for hosting.   You may want to spend some more money on red bulls, a comfy chair, and an ergonomic keyboard.  Everything else you will need cannot be bought.  You need to have drive and passion in order to be successful.  It reminds me of a quote a sports coach once told me when I was younger.  "The will to win is nothing without the will to train." Translated into poker affiliate language it would read - "The will to earn is nothing without the will to write tons of content."  The thing that many new affiliates miss out on when they are first getting started is that it takes a certain level of commitment in order to be successful, and it is something that cannot be bought or sold.

This article was submitted form JohnH of Heads Up Poker Strategy.  You can learn more about HeadsUp Poker by following either these links.